The shifts in our country — and world — over the past few months have dramatically affected our daily conversations and changed the focus for whole populations in innumerable ways. At Moment, it not only makes us more grateful and proud of our company’s diversity, but fiercely protective of our values and beliefs. With that said, as a large, conscientious group of like-minded designers, how can we both go about our daily work, while also seeking opportunities to spark change?
We’re grateful that AIGA has taken the first steps toward tackling these issues by creating a call to action in the form of the Citizen Designer Pledge.
As a company, we’ve signed the CDP, which means that we, along with the other companies who’ve also signed, commit to:
- Allowing staff time off to vote in local and national elections
- Dedicating resources to at least two civic causes per year
- Donating time or resources to support the broader community of citizen designers — whether by serving as host, organizer, or sponsor
- Encouraging employees to either donate one working day each quarter to civic causes — more if possible — or participate in internally led civic projects
In support, we’ve enacted a new volunteer time off policy that reflects the commitments laid out in the Citizen Designer Pledge. Signing the pledge and making changes to our company’s policies and handbook are just the first steps though.
So far this year, some of the more civically-minded projects that groups of our designers have worked on include: Kidfund, an app that helps families save funds for their child’s future while donating a percentage to those in need; the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights on a project on voting rights; and MetaMe, an app that aids those that suffer from symptoms related to IBS. Additionally, John Payne, one of Moment’s managing directors is a member of the board at Public Policy Lab. UPDATE: In October 2017, Moment participated in and won (!) the Refugee Hack Summit. Read more about it here.
We’re open to opportunities to use our skills as designers to help civic organizations in need of design services. This could mean facilitating a workshop to help an organization realize their strategy and roadmap, a research project to better understand the needs of constituents, or concepts for a digital product that engages users. We’ve also got offices in New York and Chicago that can host panels or discussions around these topics.
If your organization could use our help, we’d love to talk.
We hope you’ll read more about the Citizen Designer Pledge and consider signing.
A version of this post was originally published at momentdesign.com.
