munity, cheering at high school basketball games, and weighing in at board meetings, we have earned the trust and partnership of the school district’s teachers, parents, and students, making our work more personal, appropriate, responsive, and meaningful. Gathering feedback from the community happens more smoothly, the ability to prototype and experiment with new ideas is more fluid, and a public understanding of our process has become more common. All the capacities required by the design process have become more natural through face-to-face engagement and open communication with the community, which of course, requires us to be there.

This summer, we will be
moving our operations to Bertie
to fully invest in our design
for education initiatives in the
county. We will likely be there
for a minimum of three to five
years, if not a lifetime.
Empathic investment
Just being there is key. But
design interventions for social
impact are most successful
when we hold a personal stake
in the community. Whether it
is the town in which we grew
up, or a city we have come to
call home, it is in our nature
to tend to and protect what we
know and love. To be invested
means to allocate time and tal-
ent toward a group or endeavor
we wish to see succeed. For
design within communities, we
must genuinely identify with
the community and consider
ourselves part of it in order
to produce solutions that are
informed and long lasting in
their impact. Through such
empathy, our actions become
inherently collective, making
more permanent impact. This
power of collective action was
beautifully described in a 1994
white paper published by the
South African Government’s
Rural Development Program
committee: “…The people
must together shape their own
future. Development is not
about the delivery of goods to
a passive citizenry. It is about
active involvement and growing
empowerment.”
Last year, I participated in
a social-innovation fellowship
program. Two of my fellow fel-
lows were Mark Rembert and
Taylor Stuckert, whose enter-
prise illustrates the value of
empathetic investment far bet-
ter than my own anecdotes.

Pervasiveness
A few friends of mine are for-
mer Peace Corps volunteers;
one in particular completed
a healthcare program in the