Design Ignites Changes
Design Ignites Change began in 2009 as a six-year initiative in partnership with Adobe Foundation. This signature Worldstudio program supported creative professionals, as well as high school and college students, to use the social design – the combination of unleashed creativity and executable actions – to improve the lives of individuals and communities.
By championing creativity as a way to address global and community issues, Design Ignites Change strengthened the field of social impact design through financial support, education, fiscal sponsorship and visibility.
Creativity holds enormous power to impact positive social change.
Diverse programming offered support to professional architects and designers, along with students at colleges and universities across the United States who want to make a difference.
The hub of the initiative was a website where students, educators and creative professionals could browse social impact design projects, research sources of financial support, and uncover educational opportunities. The site featured 687 online student project case studies from 74 schools.
The initiative provided college and university students with over $100,000 in financial support. 2014 Student Innovation Award winner RAXA, created by students at Virginia Tech, is a portable outdoor vending station for empowering and protecting female street vendors in rural India.
The Sylvia Harris Citizen Design Award was an annual $10,000 grant to support a professional designer's social impact project. 2014 recipient, Francis Carter and the Corbin Hill Food Project, supplied fresh vegetables to the food deserts of New York City.
Mentoring initiatives connected college students and professionals with high school students; together they worked on projects with compelling social themes. This short video about Create Don't Hate! was nationwide program that promoted tolerance using billboards.
Mapping Impact was a research initiative for the creative community to identify and compile tools, metrics and best practices to inform impact assessment of socially minded projects.
A fiscal sponsorship program provided individuals and organizations lacking non-profit status – like Inquiring Minds in Brooklyn – the benefits of the United States government 501c3 non-profit tax designation to help launch their initiatives.
Design Ignites Change brings speakers and workshop to schools and organizations across the country. A 2012 lecture and workshop series at East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania, accompanied an exhibition.
Design Ignites Change partnered with corporate social responsibility efforts through custom programming. A collaboration with Mohawk Fine Paper produced letterpress notebooks which were sold nationwide, raising funds for a mentoring program.
Design Ignites Change would not have been possible without the generous support from a wide range of partners.