Allies, collaborators and friendsAllies, collaborators and friends

  • Design for Social Impact
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    Design for Social Impact is a creative organization that combines artistry & activism to call attention to important social issues.

    Design for Social Impact is dedicated to working alongside other groups who are promoting what's in the public interest. They work with community groups to raise awareness of the issues that matter most — capturing attention and increasing the success of all of our efforts to build a better world.

    Through their project The Social Arts, Design for Social Impact increases public awareness of a positive social agenda using creative and artistic work combined with grassroots organizing.

    dfsi.org
  • Groundswell Collective

    The Groundswell Collective explores alternative design practices with the goal of contributing tangibly to the fashioning and furthering of alternative modes of social organization.

    Groundswell began in 2006, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Recognizing the need and desire for creative approaches to activism, Groundswell began to contribute to social movements through design and visual arts. They work in activist circles as part of our organizing efforts in addition to working with clients and collaborating with like-minded artists.

    groundswellcollective.com
  • smartMeme
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    Founded in 2002, smartMeme uses story-based strategy to help groups work for positive change. To keep from getting drowned out, grassroots activists need a sophisticated grasp of the cultural environment and deeper understandings of how power operates through narrative. 

    Storytelling has always been central to the work of organizers and movement builders. Narrative is the lens through which humans process the information we encounter, be it cultural, emotional, experiential, or political. We make up stories about ourselves, our histories, our futures, and our hopes. 

    In today’s media-saturated world, soundbyte news coverage seamlessly blends with “image management,” misinformation and the global advertising-marketing-complex. Story-based strategy is a framework to link movement building with an analysis of narrative power by placing storytelling at the center of social change strategy. 

    smartMeme.org
  • The Design Studio for Social Intervention
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    The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) is a space for artists, activists, academics and other social interventionists to reframe, reimagine, and reinvigorate the possibilities of the non-profit sector.

    DS4SI borrows methodologies from design practices and implements them in unconventional and innovative ways. DS4SI has worked with urban designers, cultural architects, game designers, performance artists, and youth to translate design theory into large urban games, block parties, silkscreened t-shirts, political campaigns, and interactive spatial installations.

    ds4si.org
  • The Think Tank that has yet to be named
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    The Think Tank that has yet to be named initiates site-specific conversations, performative actions, and educational projects that interrogate contemporary urban issues in the places where we encounter them. As a critical praxis, the Think Tank was formed by several individuals who saw themselves and their creative practices being implicated in the dilemma of contemporary urban (re)development strategies—that is, gentrification. With the realization that the so-called “artist” is often a hapless, or even willing, tool of the hipster-fication, sanitization, and homogenization of urban space, we were compelled to critically acknowledge our roles as gentrifiers and subsequently interrogate and challenge this condition.

    thinktank.boxwith.com
  • Training for Change

    Training for Change has been increasing capacity around the world for activist training since 1992. They specialize in training trainers, to create a ripple effect in quality activist training. They support activists, but challenge them, too. They refuse to collude with activists' thinking small or undermining their own power. Their approach challenges activists to step fully into their power.

    www.trainingforchange.org/