Cecilia Brenner: Moving beyond design theater to measurable impact

0:01So this learning mechanism where we feel that yes, it's important of the impact we're making on the ground with the projects that we do. That is the heartbeat of the Sound for Good. But we are also here to change mindset and skillsets in the designers because they are having their new learnings and hopefully they take it back to their own organizations, making a ripple effect of change.

0:30We've talked to many design leaders who've burned out after a decade or more of corporate work. But after 17 years at Philips designing health innovations, Cecilia Brenner wasn't burnt out. She loved it. And she wanted to find a way to scale her sense of purpose. So she joined Design for Good as managing director and found a way to work with hundreds of designers who want meaningful impact without leaving their day jobs. Design for Good mobilizes what Cecilia calls a radical global action collective. collective. 1 ,600 designers from companies like Philips, Lloyds Bank, and others to tackle UN sustainable development goals through focused two-year cycles.

1:08Their first cycle addressed clean water and sanitation, and now they're working on quality education. And here's the twist. Everything they create is totally open source. In our conversation, Cecilia explains how design for good measures real impact, not estimated future impact, why they chose to focus on one sustainable development goal at a time instead of spreading resources thin, and what it means to design for all life, not just human life. If you've ever wondered how to find more meaning in your design work or question whether purpose-driven projects actually move the needle, this episode offers a surprisingly practical model.

1:45This is Design Better, where we explore creativity at the intersection of design and technology. I'm Eli Woolery. And I'm Aaron Walter. If you're hearing this, you're not currently on our premium subscriber feed. Design Better Premium subscribers enjoy weekly episodes. That's four episodes per month rather than just two. And all of them are ad-free. Plus, you'll get an invitation to our monthly AMAs with the smartest folks in design and tech. And if you subscribe at the annual level, you'll also get our toolkit, a collection of our favorite design and productivity tools like Perplexity, Miro, Read AI, and more.

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2:54We'll return to the conversation after this quick break.

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3:35And now, back to the show.

3:42Cecilia Brenner, welcome to Design Better. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, so we're interested in talking with you because you're working with a fascinating organization called Design for Good. It's interesting for a number of reasons, but I think a lot of our listeners, they've been through the ringer in some sort of corporate environment where they are working hard at a mission. but that mission is some sort of capitalistic mission. And no shade on that whatsoever because it's the key part of our economy and there's a lot of fun and engaging and enriching jobs out there in that space.

4:18But you've made a shift from Philips. You worked there for 17 years, so corporate environment to a different type of organization designed for good where you're using design, as the name suggests, towards mission-driven projects. 17 years is a long time at a single organization. That alone is pretty impressive. But could you give us the backstory of why leave the commercial sector to join a nonprofit? I loved it there. 17 years is a long time. And I look back at that as the best design journey that I've had. 17 years is indeed a long time. I've seen every corner of that company. Started off, of course, working in the consumer health innovation space.

5:03I had the opportunity to improve people's health and well-being there. Also had the opportunity to look at healthcare professionals and improve their working environment through digital apps in hospitals, improving the patient's experience there as well. And the mission of Philips is, of course, to improve lives. And at the time when I had done my 17 years, Philips actually joined Design for Good as an Alliance member. So the first experience I had with Design for Good was actually joining Design for Good to work on a project as a design lead. And that was the first cycle, which was cycle one, where we focus on SDG 6, clean water and sanitation.

5:46I actually came into Design for Good through Philips, funny enough. and that it was just an amazing journey for me as a design leader to be able to design with other designers from other corporates seeing the world in a different place where we're actually really making impact on the ground with individuals communities and organizations and when design for good a year ago we're looking for a new managing director I jumped on it because I thought, what better job that could be to actually design the world a little bit better every day. Apart from your experience in Phillips, it sounds like it was very mission-driven.

6:29There are many people that yearn for more of that big P purpose, as Dan Pink calls it, something that really drives good in the world. Another example being Aaron leaving during COVID from Envision. He went to go work for a nonprofit and help them out. And I think that's a pretty common theme that we see in talking to people. What advice do you have to people who might be looking for more meaning for their work, even if they can't leave their current job, but maybe work on a project like you did with Design for Good? It's really what Design for Good is trying to achieve. So what Design for Good is, is that we are mobilizing a creative alliance to create lasting, measurable impact towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

7:13And we believe you can only do that through worldwide collaboration. And from the inception, we're only three years old, but from the inception, we had 1 ,600 designers already across 30 countries being involved while keeping their day job bright. So these designers are working for Alliance members that are now on board, from Philips, from Nestle, from NetBank, from Lloyd Banks. But they still can learn through Design for Good, on projects, but also through our academy to become the new generation of designers that I think the world desperately needs. Tell us more about those UN goals. That's a particularly interesting part of Design for Good.

7:56In my experience, having worked for Resolve to Save Lives, a big nonprofit, I realized that there's just so many things that you could work on. And they're all meaningful and important. But it's hard to be successful on all the things with whatever resources you have. Why did you align to those UN goals specifically? So we started off three years ago with our co-founder and now Cher, Ben Shepard. He was actually hosting chief design office's roundtables. And one of the theme was sustainability. And he basically asked the questions like, are we really doing what we can here? Are we doing a little bit more of the design theater?

8:39Like designers love ideas, but are we actually implementing them? Do we see an impact there? And the answer was then at the time, maybe not. So that's why Design for Good came about, to really make a lasting impact in the world. And United Nations is probably, you know, the greatest framework that humanity needs to solve by 2030. So that's why we have chosen them. We don't do all of them. So every two years, we pick another SDG. So the first two years, we focused our work on SDG 6, which is clean water and sanitation. And now we're in the second cycle where we're focusing on SDG 4, which is quality education.

9:20And we have already started mobilizing for October next year, where we're going to focus on people and planet health, which is SDG 3 and 13. And there are many problems in these SDGs, right? High and low. But the most important is that you do take action. And we believe that most important is to take action through radical global collaboration. And can you just, for our listeners, so they understand what an SDG is, is that sustainable design goal? Sustainable development goal, indeed. Development goal, okay, gotcha. Exactly. What we do when we start, we choose the sustainable development goal with our alliance members.

10:00And there's basically based on three criteria every second year. One is urgency. So which one do we think that we can help through design the most? Secondly is where do we think we can make the most impact and quick impact? because obviously they need the support that they need. And thirdly, we're also looking at the diversity. Can we, through design, through communication, product UX, spatial design, what have you, help in this area? And with water, we really were able to already show impact. Within two years, we already have impact on the ground, which is quite fantastic if you ask me, if you look at innovation.

10:45and the quality education projects that we're having at the moment, we're still now in the second year. So impact have to wait. We only have estimated impact numbers, but it's also they're advancing the goals. Because to be realistic, within five years from now, we are already on 2030 and they're all lagging behind, all the SDGs. So what we're trying to do is say, hey, let's collaborate together to move towards a successful on-target number by 2030. So a lot of these initiatives, I'm sure, you know, have great intentions, but like you said, it might take more time than anticipated or perhaps maybe you're not measuring the right thing.

11:26How do you go about setting the right goals and standards and measurements to make sure that you're on track to have an impact with these projects? We have a mechanism, and that means that when we have selected an SDG, We go out in the world and we talk with local NGOs and share charities and foundations. And we ask them, what problems do you have that keep you up at night? And how can we help solve for this? And that's a really important point, because without that commitment, we cannot reach the effective community and we cannot drive impact and we cannot measure impact. Otherwise, our ideas will remain ideas.

12:02So that's the first thing we did was to say that there is no design team starting this exercise without a clear brief from a development organization with the clear measures. Because at the end of the two years, whatever we have created, we make sure that we implement it back into that local NGO or charity and to also that effective community. Because that is where lasting change happens, that you take it back to where it belongs. One of the big challenges when designers come from a corporate environment where everything's moving super fast, sometimes like way too fast, and you enter into an NGO where you're aligned with large organizations like the United Nations, the speed change, there's a whiplash to it, that everything moves a lot slower.

12:53And you've got these kind of mandates that have discrete time periods. So it's a one-year time period for each goal. Is that right? Two, yeah. So the first year we innovate and the second year we implement. Yeah. Okay, gotcha. And, you know, two years sounds like a lifetime in the software world, but it can end up being not that long in the NGO space. How do you deal with that with just like the tempo of projects and partnerships? Yeah. So when I say two years, that is the timeframe where we need to make it happen. but the real mandate that what the designers that are in the alliance actually do is minimum of five days per year so when they go in they obviously have their full-time job next to this so we have an agreement with our alliance member that maximum of five days a year you dedicate to this so in that sense it's quite speedy for the innovation and impact that we're seeing in the world of course we see that knowing designers, they are very passionate people.

13:53So many of them spend more than that. But the minimum is five days, which is not a lot to make the impact that we have seen today. Can you just break it down for us, like the projects a little bit? So you've got this partnership, you've got a clear mandate for two years. There's the design it phase of a year and then build it phase the second year. Are they volunteer designers who come in for five days? What's their involvement? Where do developers fit in? How does it all work? Yeah, so what we do is that when we finally have that design challenge, we basically look at the challenge and say, okay, what do we need to make this happen?

14:31And then we look at our 1 ,600 designers that we have in our network, and we probably have access to the most talented designers in the world. And we create this task force of needed skill sets for this project. and we have a project lead that we set to be the contact person to the local NGO. And then we also realize that even though we call design for good, we start the process with only a design team from these companies. But as we move forward, we also need other skill sets for it to be implemented. You need development skills if you're creating an app. You need copywriting if you're telling a story.

15:11You need a game designer if you're designing a game. And that is something that we're also helping to source as the project move on. And the designers are then there to let us know what extra skill gaps they need to get it implemented on the ground. A lot of our audience is familiar with human-centered design, design thinking, those types of principles. But your organization focuses on something slightly different called life-centered design. Could you talk about that philosophy? Many of us, including myself, my background is in human-centered design. But last five years, I've been looking at a more holistic way of looking at design, a holistic way where you are more interconnected with nature and where you are giving actually nature a voice in the design process.

15:59And I believe that that is very much a deep system thinking awareness, maybe more so than only thinking that we're designing for a user. there are many other key stakeholders in the ecosystem. So what we're trying to teach through our projects, but also through our academy, is more of a deep system thinking mindset and skill set that they need to be able to solve for these wicked problems of United Nations. One of the real challenges for designers stepping into work like this is just understanding the domain. So for example, I led a team inside of Resolve to Save Lives, where we were working on epidemic preparedness.

16:41And I was working with epidemiologists all the time. And there's so many acronyms. And it's hard to even understand the language in meetings, let alone build like design and build something that will be successful in a country I've never been to. How do you help designers be successful so they understand the language, the background, the context that they need to create relevant solutions? Yeah, it's a very good question. And actually learning that we had from the first cycle of water, we realized that even though we have access to the most talented designers in the world, there is something different when you design for these wicked problems.

17:22Hence, we have started an academy with one of our alliance members, Royal College of Art. We call it Royal College of Art Design for Good Academy, where we actually are training our designers on all topics relevant to this. So how do you actually co-design with affected communities? How do you measure impact? How do you use AI to look at predictive impact numbers? How do you even look at these system approach, like an ecosystem mapping? How do you do that and how do you integrate nature in your process, in your line of thought? These are topics that we train every year in different kind of aspects because we have a different focus of the United Nations SDGs.

18:08That has proven to be very successful. So we started our first cohort a year ago with 279 designers. Last quarter had a double up on 500-ish. And in October, we start the new one with, we hope, over 1 ,000. So this learning mechanism where we feel that, yes, it's important of the impact we're making on the ground with the projects that we do. That is the heartbeat of the Sun for Good. But we are also here to change mindset and skill sets in the designers because they are having their new learnings and hopefully they take it back to their own organizations, making a ripple effect of change. Curious how you approach research and prototyping.

18:54We know it can be really tough to design from a distance if you're not on the ground in some of these locations. One of my colleagues at Stanford teaches a class called Design for Extreme Affordability, where they design products and services for developing countries. And they make a point of sending the students to the countries. And some actually really successful products have come out of it. The Embrace warmer for one of them, the story you might be familiar with. But yeah, just curious, how do you get people like firsthand knowledge of the problems that they're trying to solve? In some projects, we've been really lucky that we actually have been able to ship the design team to the location.

19:29So in general, we were able to ship the design team to Mexico, where they did a week of research and they totally pivoted the whole idea and came back with new game knowledge, which we know that that's key for research. In prototyping, especially also collaboration tools, we are still looking at tools that could help us even better because we're working across borders, time zones, countries. You need good prototyping and collaboration tools. So we have just started to look into that and hopefully we have some organization that will help us to use maybe the potential of AI as a tooling to free up more time for us to do even more research and to collaborate better.

20:13But that is something that we have raised and are currently working on to improve for our design teams. Tell us more about that. It seems like for the type of work that you're doing, AI could be perfect. There are things like cursor, lovable, replete, lots of other things where you could design something or just design as you're building. And be able to put this idea, a solution in front of real end users in these different countries where they can test things out. Instead of having these long cycles, we have to go back and forth with developers. How is it changing the workflow? What tools are you using?

20:52What are you seeing designers do on projects? Yeah, so we are currently investigating tools to your point where we can free up them even more to do more research and do more prototyping. And I also see a potential for us. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at designbetterpodcast.com slash subscribe. Once you do, you'll get access to every full-length episode, all ad-free, monthly AMAs with inspiring people in design and tech, and recordings of all our past AMAs. The podcast is available to everyone through our scholarship program. If you can't afford a subscription, just email us at subscriptions at thecuriositydepartment.com, and we'll help you out.

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22:08day gathering in Sonoma on September 28th and 29th. And let me set the scene. This is wine country at its most beautiful, rolling hills, golden light, the kind of place where you can finally hear yourself think and walk away genuinely inspired. The format is intimate by design. Just 40 liters are going to be there. It's no stage. It's not really an audience format. It's very conversation first. It's the kind of room that challenges you to think bigger about your work and your craft. And Eli and I will be there in person the whole time. So this is a real chance to hang out with us and swap ideas and get into the good stuff together.

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