We received fantastic entries to our 2021 Designing for Good grant competition. This marks the fifth consecutive year of the competition that offers creative and marketing pros a chance to use their skills to earn a $10K grant from us to help a favorite nonprofit.
Our esteemed panel of judges reviewed entries for creativity, feasibility, and the potential to make the strongest impact for good. We're excited to announce the three lucky winners!
Diversity and Inclusion
Keir Cullen Janey, a writer and editor with a background in tutoring English as a Second Language (ESL) students, and Jamie Loftus, a comedian and writer with a background in social justice activism, joined forces to support The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. RAICES fights on the frontlines for immigration rights, including the right to seek a safe and secure future for their families.
Keir and Jamie are best friends from high school and plan to use the grant to help RAICES fund various initiatives, including a hotline that connects immigrant communities to social services and the implementation of a brand-elevation strategy to amplify the center's message in social media and beyond.
Lifelong Learning
Victor Udoewa is the parent of a child in an elementary school that suffers from racial inequity and gaps in access to academic support relative to white children. He submitted a proposal to partner with Kindred, who works to support communities in collaboration toward the creation of anti-racist, liberated, and equitable schools.
Victor will work with Kindred to use both systems practice and futures design to engage members of the school community in the process of transformationally envisioning a racially just future and using the skills to create that. The grant funds will be used to compensate a participatory design team of parents, teachers, and students. They will also be used to create a future vision and roadmap of strategic decisions and experiments that will lead to a more racially just school. Additionally, they will create a toolkit that will be shared with other schools.
Environmental Action
Michael Alfuso is a cinematographer who covers everything from environmental conservation to action sports. For several years he has worked with the American Wild Horse Campaign, which fights to ensure the preservation of America's iconic wild horses and burros and the Western public lands where they roam.
With new funding coming from Congress to the Bureau of Land Management, the agency charged with managing the animals, many wild horses will soon be part of a cruel and costly federal wild horse roundup program. Michael's proposal will use the funds from the grant to allow him to document the government's efforts to remove wild horses. He wants to use his skills to raise awareness and to let people know there is a better way to manage these animals on public land. Michael plans to interview people on both sides of the issue to find some common ground and ultimately help develop a solution that protects public lands and keeps wild horses wild.
Congratulations to Keir, Jamie, Victor, and Michael, as well as to all the incredibly talented people who participated this year. Special thanks to our amazing panel of judges, Helen Hye Kim, Seanita Tolliver, Adam Manovic, Amil Husain, Hal Apple, and Marianne Dear.
We look forward to seeing how RAICES, Kindred, and The American Wild Horse Campaign benefit from these awesome ideas!
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