The job board was started in 2017 by two design friends — Mollie Ruskin and Sarah Fathallah — who have spent their careers working in non-profit, international development, tech and government design. They’d been hired, hired other designers, done contract work, and helped organizations grow their design muscles from all angles.

After noticed a growing interest in designers turning to social impact work, and organizations looking to grow their design capacity, they created a free international jobs list to help accelerate all this design goodness.

A vibrant community had emerged and interest in more connection arose. In spring of 2019, a Slack community was created to spark more connection and support between seasoned and newby designers-for-good alike.

A few definitions
(for our purposes)

“Design” =

All fields and disciplines of design, not limited to but including:

> Design/user research
> Design strategy
> Service design
> Interaction design / UX / IA
> Product design
> Communication design / Graphic design
> Illustration
> Content design

“Social change” =

Working toward some kind of world betterment, through means such as:

> Advocacy & organizing
> Direct service
> Philanthropy
> Government reform
> International development
> Social enterprise
> Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
> Journalism

BEHIND THE BOARD

Mollie Ruskin

Mollie is an independent designer with a focus on social justice work. She has a hard time picking which design tools she likes the best — she has been called a user researcher, visual designer, service designer, product manager, creative lead, UX designer and an activist.    

Mollie was a founding member of the US Digital Service in the Obama White House, working to improve the government’s ability to deliver human-centered services for the American people. She worked on a wide array of efforts — from creating the government's first digital web design standards to improving how low-income Americans apply and enroll in public assistance programs.

Before this, she served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, where she led a human-centered design project to improve Veterans’ experiences with VA services.

Mollie sits on the board of the Alliance for Youth Action, a national network of organizations building political power of young people in the U.S.

Check out some of her work over at ru-design.org .

Sarah Fathallah

Sarah Fathallah is an independent designer, researcher, and educator, who specializes in applying participatory research and design to the social sector, and is passionate about shifting the way we engage communities in research and design processes in less extractive, harmful, and paternalistic ways.

They have worked on engagements on various topics ranging from reproductive health to labor organizing, with impact-driven organizations such as the International Domestic Workers Federation, the International Rescue Committee, and Open Society Foundations. Sarah’s design work has been honored by the Core77 Design Awards, the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), ONE Prize, and the GSMA mWomen Design Challenge.

Sarah is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, where they studied International Business and Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Affairs. They also studied design innovation at the Paris Est d.school, user experience design at General Assembly, and participatory design at MIT.

You can see more of their work at sarahfathallah.com