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uniting experienced groups with disagreements

A nonprofit startup hired Designit to understand how people across the United States lived their financial lives and what they could do to support them while staying financially sustainable themselves. We were brought in as part of a super team of experienced agencies with strong, differing opinions about the problem space. The startup counted on us to provide a unifying service strategy that was compelling to each one of their diverse partners.

having coffee with Americans everywhere

We braved blizzards, hurricanes, and cockroaches to visit over fifty people throughout eight sprawling metro areas to understand how they handled their finances, why they did things that way, and how they thought the economy worked. To ensure that we were reaching people of all kinds, I developed sophisticated screeners for several factors including rurality, belief systems, and household income structures.

busting outdated narratives

Our thorough research surfaced many insights that did not fit well into traditional design synthesis models, and also didn’t fit traditional theories about the space the nonprofit’s partners held. Developing novel ways to convincingly explain this knowledge and make it actionable for a range of partners with staunch principles was an exciting challenge. With these unique artifacts in hand, we facilitated several conversations to win over partners to double down on a new way of thinking about the space.

The nonprofit startup is making progress communicating their nontraditional strategy to potential funders, and will likely impact your life with its work in the coming years.