Designing for Justice- What does that mean?

Have you ever considered yourself a designer? If you’ve worked in nonprofits or academia, chances are you’ve contributed to projects, managed programs, or engaged in various facets of social impact work. Perhaps you’ve crafted funding proposals, collected crucial data, facilitated community consultations, or assessed the impact of initiatives. You may even have been on the receiving end of these endeavors. While you may not label yourself as such, you are, in fact, a designer.

Why is this realization important? Because it prompts us to unpack the values, mindsets, and positions we bring to our work. These factors ripple through communities, ecosystems, and society at large.

As designers, we must remain acutely aware of the omnipresent power dynamics shaping our actions — both visible and invisible. We navigate the delicate balance of inclusivity, recognizing the aspects that either exclude or invite individuals into the conversation.

At Design for Social Impact, we are driven by a profound mission: to empower social impact organizations and practitioners to embrace equity-centred, anti-oppressive design principles. We advocate for processes, strategies, and approaches anchored in anti-oppression, intersectionality, and justice.

These principles serve as our North Star, guiding our every endeavor. Throughout our workshops and training sessions, we delve deep into these concepts, exploring their nuances and practical applications in research and program design.

This Wednesday 15th, at 15:00 BST, we’ll be holding a free webinar to share more about our framework, as well as tips and tricks to apply these to your work.

Click here to sign up https://www.designforsocialimpact.io/registration-page

Design for Social Impact’s Anti-Oppressive Framework

Unpacking our principles

At the core of our approach lie eight principles that drive our mission of transforming social impact practices. Let’s delve into each one:

1. Co-Design: Embracing co-design involves stakeholders at every stage, fostering collaboration, empathy, and shared ownership. It ensures that solutions are tailored to the diverse needs and perspectives of those they serve.
2. Pedagogies of Care and Solidarity: This principle emphasizes fostering nurturing environments grounded in empathy, compassion, and mutual support. It recognizes that true change stems from fostering connections and building bridges between individuals and communities.
3. Anti-Racism and Decolonial Approaches: We confront systemic injustices by actively challenging racism and colonial legacies embedded in policies, practices, and institutions. By centering marginalized voices and histories, we strive for genuine equity and liberation.
4. Environmental Justice: Environmental justice goes beyond conservation efforts to address the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation on marginalized communities. It advocates for sustainable practices that prioritize the well-being of both people and the planet.
5. Intersectional: Recognizing intersecting identities and experiences, this principle acknowledges the complex web of social factors shaping individuals’ lives. By embracing intersectionality, we create more nuanced and inclusive solutions.
6. Systems Thinking: Systems thinking encourages us to look beyond isolated issues and understand the interconnectedness of societal challenges. By analyzing underlying structures and dynamics, we uncover root causes and develop holistic strategies for change.
7. Structural Change and Action: We advocate for transformative action to dismantle oppressive systems and structures. This involves challenging power imbalances, advocating for policy reform, and amplifying grassroots movements for social change.

These principles serve as a framework for reimagining program design, monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning practices. In our courses and workshops, we explore practical ways around integrating these principles into our work so that as designers, we can adopt more inclusive, equitable, and impactful approaches.

We’re eager to hear from you:

• What principles shape your approach to social impact work?
• Whose concepts or approaches ignite your passion?

Upcoming events

• Foundations for Anti-Oppressive Research Design This free webinar, on Wednesday 15th, 15:00 is an opportunity to learn more about who we are, our framework and our upcoming course.
• Research for Design for Social Impact kicks off w/c 20th of May.
• We focus on equity-centred, anti-oppressive approaches to evidence processes (whether that is postgraduate research, community consultations, or evidence gathering for social impact design).
• It is a practical course, designed by practitioners, for practitioners. You work on real-life case studies, provided by other organisations, who submit their equity challenges to us.
• The course comprises of weekly 1/1.15 hour live sessions (typically on Friday afternoons, 7:00 PDT/15:00 BST ) and all of the sessions are recorded, so even if you don’t make a live session, you can catch up later. We also have a learning platform where you can easily access all the resources at your own pace.
• As a bonus, 2 X 1:1 coaching sessions to support in applying learnings to your own individual work
• We have guest speakers, doing community-centred research with non-profit organisations, including people who have lived experience of being recipients of aid projects, so you get access to a wealth of expertise and knowledge.
• As part of the course, we have a community element, where you will be able to connect with other participants, share resources and totally optional, have peer sessions to think about how to apply what you are learning to practice.