Designing for Social Impact

Commercial design trains you to be the expert. In social impact, that's the first thing you have to unlearn.

I spoke at Harvard GSD's Care x Design conference about three mental models that break down when you're designing for social change instead of profit.

Power: We don't make decisions on users' behalf. We hand them the pen. On the Bail Fund CRM, we embedded community partners directly into the product team. They set the priorities. We built.

Systems: The product is never the whole solution. CZI's education mission combines research, tech, community partnerships, and policy advocacy. Design that ignores that context ships tools nobody uses.

Impact: The bar isn't revenue. Ask two questions: does this product do no harm, and does it move the needle toward something better?