Designing Tomorrow: Creative Strategies for Social Impact

110 Episodes

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Is It Burnout or Lost Motivation?

2026-10-1326:00

Executive directors are expected to stay fired up all the time, and almost none of them do. Five years into leading the Seymour Center and fresh off a major milestone, Jonathan has hit a motivation slump. The conversation covers how to tell burnout from a slump, why success makes coasting tempting, and what helps leaders find the spark again. Episode Highlights: [00:01:35] The success hangover after a major milestone [00:04:40] A leader's mood sets the team's temperature [00...

Museums Can Be a Force for Social Change

2026-10-0641:34

Plenty of people still picture a museum as a quiet building with art on the walls and a staff whose job is to guard what's inside. Victoria Munro, Executive Director of the Alice Austen House, sees an advantage in that assumption: because museums look harmless from the outside, they have room to do serious work on social change and safe space. She explains how she took the velvet ropes down at a nationally designated site of LGBTQ+ history and built programs that turn visitors into co-creator...

What to Take and Leave From Design Thinking and the Scientific Method

2026-09-2933:18

Social impact teams are happy to experiment. Where they struggle is admitting when the experiment fails. Jonathan and I dig into what design thinking and the scientific method can teach the sector, and why our refusal to name failure may be the thing holding impact back. Episode Highlights: [00:03:30] Defining design thinking and the scientific method, side by side [00:08:00] The real failure point: we won't admit when things don't work [00:11:00] How science learned to publ...

Learning Isn't What's Slowing Philanthropy Down

2026-09-2248:03

Philanthropy takes heat for being slow to move money, and learning usually gets the blame. Katherine Haugh, founder of the Convive Collective and a learning partner to some of the largest climate-focused philanthropies in the US and Europe, thinks that critique is fair but aimed at the wrong target. She and Eric dig into what's actually slowing foundations down, why learning so often becomes a way to dodge a decision, and the two things a foundation needs to genuinely learn. Episo...

Your Difference Is the Superpower

2026-09-1548:36

Sandy Gould has spent 36 years studying where people's "superpowers" come from, and his answer is simple: the thing that makes you different is the same thing that lets you create what no one else can. In this conversation with Eric Ressler, the longtime GLAAD advisor and author of the forthcoming book Interlightening explains why conformity feels safe and isn't, and how the same rules that grow an individual grow an entire organization. Episode Highlights: [00:03:00] From tech recruiti...

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Designing Tomorrow: Creative Strategies for Social Impact