Yes, we all know: Change is here. It’s taken up residence in the White House (we hope). It’s having its way with every system—financial, housing, political—to which we faithfully subscribed and that kept our world running. And now change has come to Design Observer, one of the most authoritative blogs on design. Change Observer will be the new venue for Design Observer to highlight the activity, development, best and worse cases at the burgeoning intersection where design meets social impact. It’s a way for the contributors (specifically the new additions to the team, Julie Lasky of ID Magazine and Ernest Beck, a former Wall Street Journal reporter) to focus their keen editorial insight on important efforts underway in social innovation. It’s a way to begin to affect change through increased knowledge and understanding. And it’s much needed.

The need to drive awareness around the impact design can have when applied to some of the world’s most intractable problems is one of the insights that emerged this summer during a “Design for Social Impact” workshop Continuum led with support from The Rockefeller Foundation. The goal of the workshop was to think about how we could create the “infrastructure” to increase the design industry’s systematic contribution to the social sector. (The outcomes of this workshop can be read here)  Bill Drenttel from Design Observer was a key participant in these conversations—and took the lead in thinking about how a robust site—in his terms, an “uber site”—could most effectively report on the activities, knowledge and progress of the collaborations that emerge from this sector.  The belief is: If we can increase awareness about the efficacy of these collaborations, we’ll start to see an increase in involvement.

As Maria Blair, our partner at The Rockefeller Foundation, stated to the 20 leading design professionals during the workshop:

“I came here understanding very little about the design industry. And you came here knowing very little about the world of NGOs. A road map that outlines how we get that experience, knowledge and understanding on our way to the long term vision is a very exciting path forward.”

We’re thrilled to watch the launch of Change Observer this summer, a critical first step forward on this path we hope will lead to an increased (and systematic) involvement of design firms in the social sector. We welcome the Change to the Observer.

Download the Social Impact Report here.