WHO WE ARE

Just as products are designed to fill a consumer need, programs and systems are designed to solve community challenges. Yet, the women+ of color closest to our city’s economic inequities are often excluded from the processes, powerbrokers, and resources allocated to solve these challenges. 

The Women of Color Equity Design Institute is a one-of-a-kind initiative that brings together women+ of color with the most lived experience and expertise navigating obstacles to mental, domestic, and economic wellbeing in our community, to design more effective programs and policy alongside local corporations, non-profits, and public sector partners.

OUR FEMIFESTO

We envision a world where liberation, safety, & unapologetic existence are possible for Women+ of color, in Columbus and everywhere we are.

We co-design space, experiences, policies, community (and whatever the hell we want!) through taking space, connecting authentically, centering lived experience & brilliance, and investing in healing-centered practices.

We are fueled by lineages of ancestral wisdom, collective power and love.

We imagine.
We collaborate.
We design.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A DESIGN Client?

Do you have a new program, project, or idea that could benefit from the valuable community expertise of people with lived experiences? Do you want to engage your team in community-centered principles, while creating innovative and dynamic solutions to systemic inequity? We work with corporations, non-profits, and public sector partners who are launching, re-launching, or re-imagining programs and policies that will impact diverse populations.

WFCO

“I found that… the participants were very prepared and really open to learning and supporting the project. [Co-designers] were honest and thoughtful and really pushed the bounds of our project in a positive and meaningful way.”

Project: Re-design a research study protocol that creates safe and empowering space for WOC to be vulnerable

YWCA

“We worked with young people with lived experience with homelessness. Everyone was respectful and welcoming of our team and approached everything with a curiosity that was very refreshing. I felt like true relationships were formed.”

Project: Design a youth space within the YWCA Family Center

Workforce Development Collaborative

Our design sprint with the workforce development collaborative focused on building supportive and connected routes toward shared prosperity. Through deep community collaboration, we designed four possible pathways forward that focus on collaboration and lasting impacts to expand equitable opportunities across 11 counties of central Ohio.

What if we… design and expand roadmaps that practice and pilot career development opportunities for: High school students (14-21), recent post-graduate students, early career professionals, and current employers, companies, and stakeholders to build supportive and connective routes towards shared prosperity for communities across the 11 counties of central Ohio?

Mother’s Trust Alliance

Our design sprint with Mother’s Trust Alliance (MTA) generated four possible pathways toward creating a program that is aligned with the assets and needs of Black parents and pregnant people.

What if we… provided consistent, stable income during pregnancy through three years post-partum for Black pregnant people towards a reciprocal community-driven cohort model that invests in the brilliance of Black pregnant people, their collective power building & economic freedom?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A CO-DESIGNER?

Our co-designers may not think of themselves as designers. They are creatives, activists, professionals, entrepreneurs, dreamers, community organizers, and young people who identify as women+ of color in Columbus, OH. They have LIVED EXPERIENCE navigating challenges in their lives and community, and coming out on the other side. They are passionate about creating a more equitable community where women+ of color – and everyone – can thrive. 

  • “​​Women+ and non-binary folx are natural designers because we are born to reconfigure systems and rules not designed for our livelihood. This program helped me REMEMBER who I am, helped me remember my natural instinct and power. That kind of reminder is invaluable and will ripple across the personal and professional parts of my life.”

  • Not only have I met women of color during these sessions who I plan to keep in touch with and who will have a direct impact on my business, but I have shifted my mindset about my identity as a designer, found tools and examples of designers who existed before me, and found that being celebrated by other women of color have lifted my mental health SO MUCH. There’s something to be said about being in the room with so many women who had the same goal.

  • I think engaging with so many amazing women of color was so uplifting and restored some hope I have in this work. I think moving through this world can really suck you dry and this space has been restorative for me.

  • “A WCEDI Sprint is a space to co-create from truth, not just theory — rooted in equity, possibility, and lived experience”

  • “I found the facilitation excellent; this created the setting for trust building, valuable discussion, and then clearly outlined next steps”

  • “It’s all inclusive. No detail was spared. When you are chosen, it’s because you have something to contribute. You will leave better than how you came”

  • "We got SO MUCH DONE in the space of a weekend. I’ve never seen design work done this well”

SEE OUR IMPACT

In the spring of 2023 we posed the question: “In our quest to create an equitable economy, how might we design a city that hears, responds to, and implements a vision of economic prosperity designed by those most impacted by the obstacles - women of color?” The Women of Color Equity Design Institute was our answer.