About Design for America: Building the Next Generation of Social Innovators

Intro

It was during my second year of college when I was first introduced to Design for America; an organization focused on "using design for good." Upon seeing the incredible projects coming out of DFA studios—made up of a bunch of college kids like me—I knew I needed to bring this community to Cincinnati.

Since then, DFA has grown to over 40 campuses, launched startups and parallel organizations, and empowered 5000+ students and alumni to start careers in social innovation in cities all over the world. In 2018, DFA was recognized with the Smithsonian Design Museum’s National Design Award for corporate and institutional achievement.

DFA studios use a human-centered design approach to address social justice challenges. I started a studio because I wanted more of this process in my education.

I co-founded the University of Cincinnati DFA studio in 2014 with my good friend Mallory, and together we led a group of 50+ students. We facilitated weekly design workshops, engaged local community partners, coached project teams, and shaped a new set of student leaders by the time I graduated in 2016.

Post-graduation I joined the DFA National team to help reinvent and scale the organization.

As DFA spread rapidly from campus to campus, so did a new set of challenges for our lean team of five.

We needed to develop a holistic marketing and communications strategy - one that was consistent and authentic to DFA values. I made it my mission to share the impact of student projects with our partners and donors, while inspiring our community to keep doing, learning, growing, and connecting.

Our team worked to evaluate the services we provide to students and created new programming to improve their DFA experience.

Our “studio support service” was not only a way to gather information about DFA projects, but to help students learn, push them to build & test their ideas, and to allow the autonomy to fit their studio to their campus culture.

The story of DFA is one of continuous evolution, design excellence, impact, and community building.

Since completing the DFA Fellowship in 2018, I remain active in the alumni network through planning Bay area events, leading alumni initiatives, and mentoring current students.

Learn more about DFA's alumni network here.