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
Drafting Our Strategic Dream Teams
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There's a push right now to democratize strategic planning. Survey the community, poll the staff, put the big calls to a vote.
I get the instinct, but it goes too far. Influence is not the same as decision-making power, and collapsing the two is how good orgs freeze.
In this episode, Eric and Jonathan draft their ideal strategic planning teams fantasy-sports style from a pool of ten possible inputs, and work out how much weight each voice actually deserves.
Episode Highlights:
[00:00:00] Drafting fantasy strategic planning teams from ten possible inputs
[00:02:30] First picks: leadership team vs. the community you serve
[00:05:15] Influence vs. decision-making power, the distinction that runs through everything
[00:08:45] Gut and intuition as a legitimate strategic input
[00:10:45] Data beats opinions, and predictive vs. directional data
[00:15:45] Why boards should support more than they decide
[00:28:30] Synthesizing every input into a decision you can own
[00:33:00] Win-win as a cheat code, and why pleasing everyone signals a weak choice
Notable Quotes:
Eric Ressler [00:05:35]: "The community should have a lot of influence, but I don't think this work usually works when it's truly democratic."
Jonathan Hicken [00:11:05]: "We have a saying at Seymour Center here where data beats opinions 100% of the time."
Eric Ressler [00:33:35]: "If literally everyone is happy, maybe the decision was too obvious and weak."
Resources & Links:
- Designing Tomorrow Spotlight interview with Rob Acton on designing effective nonprofit boards
- Cause Strategy Partners — Rob Acton's firm, focused on nonprofit board placement and governance training
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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