Dear changemaker,



At Greater Good Studio, we think a lot about implementation. It’s the least sexy part of the design process, but crucially important—the last leg of a marathon. Yet many social change projects struggle to make the leap from design to implementation.



One way we’ve been able to support that leap is through ensuring stakeholders have a sense of ownership. We’re aware of the long and enduring legacies of academic research and urban development, which treated community engagement as a box to be checked. What if instead of giving a proverbial thumbs-up to an initiative, community members co-created the initiative themselves?

I believe that ownership can be baked into every step of the design process, and that this leads to solutions that are not just implemented, but championed by the communities they are meant to serve. I gave a talk about ownership recently, and would love to hear your thoughts. How do you ensure ownership from the get-go? And what are other critical ingredients in taking projects from design to implementation? Let me know what you think!