Designing Tomorrow: Creative Strategies for Social Impact
Designing Tomorrow explores a new playbook for modern social impact leaders and brands to reach their true impact potential.
Why do some social impact brands thrive, while so many others fail to get traction, build support for their cause, and make meaningful progress? Imagine your impact with truly sustainable revenue and resources. With deeper community engagement and relationships. With more influence in your social impact category.
Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, each episode dives into the strategies, mindsets, and behaviors top social impact brands use to play and win in the attention economy. Go beyond high-level concepts to specific tools and tactics you can use today.
Watch on YouTube or listen to new episodes each Tuesday.
Let’s design a better tomorrow, together.
Designing Tomorrow is a Cosmic Production. Learn more at https://designbycosmic.com/
Designing Tomorrow is a registered trademark of Design By Cosmic, Inc.
Designing Tomorrow: Creative Strategies for Social Impact
The Real Cost of Playing It Safe
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Jonathan recently learned that the Seymour Center is about to absorb a permanent new expense in the $150,000 to $200,000 range. On a $2.2 million operating budget, that's roughly 10% of the whole thing, and it's not a one-time hit.
The instinct for most leaders is to pull back: tighten the budget, pause the big swings, and try again in a few years. But contraction changes the story you can tell funders, and that cost is harder to recover from than the budget hit itself.
Episode Highlights:
[00:00:30] Contract or keep pushing? The fundamental question.
[00:02:00] The outdated overhead myth and why it makes budget shocks worse
[00:05:30] The power of flexibility that reserves actually buy you
[00:08:00] Eric's pandemic-era decisions at Cosmic: no layoffs, no pay cuts in 16 years
[00:12:00] Why liftoff windows are sacred and rarely repeat on your timeline
[00:17:00] The story you can tell funders when you're in motion vs. when you've pulled back
[00:20:30] Separating ego from mission in high-stakes financial decisions
[00:22:30] The case for nonprofit mergers in a shrinking funding landscape
Notable Quotes:
Jonathan Hicken [00:17:00]: "I can go to those meetings right now and sit down at the table and look at these people in the eye and authentically tell the story of this liftoff. If I start to contract, I can't do that."
Eric Ressler [00:18:10]: "There's a saying in the business world: never need a deal. I think we're wired as humans to just be super attuned to desperation."
Resources & Links:
- Seymour Marine Discovery Center — https://seymourcenter.ucsc.edu
- Visibility Beats Impact — Designing Tomorrow podcast episode
Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday.
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