Designers and Nonprofits Solving Social Problems

CreativePro Staff

Press release
Last month the Aspen Design Summit, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, gathered a small group of experts, NGO leaders, funders and designers in Aspen, Colorado, to propose human-centered solutions to problems that challenge the quality of life.
Presented by AIGA and Winterhouse Institute, the four-day Summit was comprised of six designer-led workshops, each focused on a specific social problem such as delivering rural healthcare or counteracting childhood obesity. Projects were selected for their ability to benefit real people without the means to address impediments to human dignity and achievement, whether benefitting people directly or the environment on which human activity depends.
“Our purpose in convening the Summit was to demonstrate the value of design thinking in helping to solve complex problems,” said Richard Grefé, executive director of AIGA, the professional association for design. “It was wonderful to see such inventive approaches to global issues, and we’re looking forward to seeing how the proposed solutions turn into tangible results over the next year.”
Coming full circle
In many ways, the 2009 event was a return to the ideals of the original International Design Conference in Aspen (IDCA). When Chicago industrialist Walter Paepcke established IDCA in 1951, he and his wife, Elizabeth, envisioned Aspen as a place where designers, artists, engineers, business and industry leaders from throughout the world could gather to share ideas. The IDCA grew out of the Paepckes’ belief that Aspen provided an ideal environment for nurturing the whole human being—isolated from the distractions of urban life and inspired by the abundant natural beauty, people could take advantage of Aspen’s recreational, intellectual and cultural resources.
“When the International Design Conference in Aspen was launched… the goal was to bring designers and business leaders together to foster understanding of what design could accomplish. Foremost, design was shown to be a strategic force in improving business and cultural interests and enhancing global prosperity. More than a half-century later, the 2009 Aspen Design Summit restored a kernel of the conference’s original mission by uniting designers with the primary beneficiaries of their talents and insights,” wrote the editors of Change Observer, who reported on outcomes of the 2009 event.
In 2004, IDCA collaborated with AIGA to protect its legacy by raising funds and making arrangements for its archives to enter the collection of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. At the same time, the IDCA was transformed from a conference to the smaller Summit in which design thinking guided the integration of concerns and solutions, often presented in the context of broader forums of decision makers like the Aspen Ideas Festival or the World Economic Forum.
Outcomes of the 2009 event
This year’s Summit was especially successful: Five teams each came up with solutions that key stakeholders found both transformative and promising. Participating designers demonstrated their value—to foundation leaders, the Mayo Clinic, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and UNICEF—and helped to reinforce credibility for communication designers in a new role.
Change Observer, in cooperation with AIGA and Winterhouse Institute, has published the following reports from the 2009 Aspen Design Summit:
Aspen Design Summit: Initial Report
Aspen Design Summit: Background
Aspen Design Summit: Participants
Aspen Design Summit Report: Hale County Rural Poverty Project
Aspen Design Summit Report: CDC and Healthy Aging
Aspen Design Summit Report: Sustainable Food and Childhood Obesity
Aspen Design Summit Report: Mayo Clinic and Rural Health Care Delivery
Aspen Design Summit Report: UNICEF and Early Childhood Development
Aspen Design Summit Report: UNICEF Menstruation Challenge