Building an open-source library on design for positive change | A Co-Design Experiment
Editor’s Note: This article is written by Sandra Camacho (She/Her), the convener of the co-design experiment, and represents her personal perspective only (versus that of the entire collective).
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
What’s this co-design experiment about?
Who are we?
We are a co-design collective of twenty people who have voluntarily come together to build a library on designing for positive change.
We stem from all corners of the world, with varied professions, lived experiences and backgrounds.
What unites us are shared values, mindsets and beliefs around creating positive change in the world.
What we will be doing?
We’re creating a non-commercial experimental space — a playground or sandbox of sorts— to bring this library to life.
Here, we can play, experiment and build without strict timelines, capitalistic pressures or unrealistic standards. This enables us to focus on care, equity, inclusion and accessibility and other shared community values.
Many of us may not have this sort of space available to us in our work or personal lives.
This space is just as much about what we’re building (the outputs) and how we’re building it (the process) — and all of the whos involved in this (who builds and designs, who decides, who benefits, and so forth).
For the what, you could call it a portal to a multiplicity of perspectives, learnings, approaches, people and communities — or perhaps a resource hub or destination for design changemakers. It’ll take shape and evolve over time as we move forward in the process of building together.
For the how, we’re still figuring this out at the start of the experiment. Our starting point is co-design, where we will share decision-making power with one another and with the communities who will benefit from the library. Other methods, disciplines and practices will surely be layered into this process.
For the whos, we are starting with self-identified volunteers and will be intentionally expanding that over time.
What to expect from us?
We will be documenting our journey over the next months as a collective in the Design Changemakers Medium publication. Different co-designers in the collective will share their candid perspectives on our learnings, challenges and processes.
We will also share the code and infrastructure behind the experiment under open-source and Creative Commons licenses so that a larger community of changemakers can benefit from our experiment. This could potentially help spur the creation of other libraries and non-commercial projects.
We currently have no funding or resources besides what each of us voluntarily brings to the table — we’re hoping that making this journey public will help to fuel community support and funding for the experiment and amplify our impact.
The origins of the experiment
The idea of a co-design experiment came to me in March 2024 in the aftermath of a personal health crisis/burnout, which I wrote about at length on LinkedIn.
I’ve been on a rugged path toward designing for social impact and positive change over the past 6 years since leaving a stable corporate job at Google. It hasn’t been easy to do impact work sustainably as an independent practitioner, especially in the face of capitalist pressures and white supremacist norms.
Over the course of several months in late 2023, I invested my heart and soul into building a learning platform, including an early-stage library, on designing for positive change.
But I felt tremendously alone and overwhelmed in the work (leading me to a two-month health emergency). I decided to put the entire platform on pause and shift my energy to community-based collaborations around the library.
I first put out a call for support on reimagining the library in one of my newsletters, where kon syrokostas raised his hand as a volunteer. After that first conversation with kon, the project took on a new lens — as an open-source, co-design experiment that could have wider community impact.
Our conversation inspired me to put out an invitation on LinkedIn (and an initial experiment overview on Notion) to bring others into the fold:
📍What if we could build a free community-powered library to help people move from good intentions to concrete actions?
📍What if we could subvert the idea that equity, inclusion and accessibility considerations are a burden, especially for early-stage or low-resourced projects?
📍What if we could build the library through co-design to not only share responsibilities and decision-making power but to give people a chance to practice designing for positive change?
📍What if we could document our learnings, challenges and process in real-time so others can learn with us and help shape our approaches?
kon and I were humbly surprised by the response — over 20 people volunteered to join in on the experiment.
What’s next? Can anyone join in?
We’ve been navigating the murky waters of organization and coordination (and getting to know each other) over the past 3 weeks.
We’ve just formed a coordination circle, a small group of people in the larger co-design team who will help coordinate and organize the process. They will determine how to bring more folks into the experiment.
Stay tuned to our Medium publication for upcoming news on how to get involved as a co-designer and/or contributor (and updates on our progress).
And if you feel compelled to contribute to our transparent OpenCollective fund, no matter how big or small, that would make a tremendous difference to compensate volunteers and fund the work.
Note that Sandra By Design LLC (Sandra Camacho’s business structure) will assume all tax liability and legal liability for this experiment (for now). Have questions or comments? Don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
