empathy and need finding innovation labs.
Overview
Understanding people at a deeply empathetic level is of utmost importance because it allows us to craft user-friendly solutions. By engaging with Sustain Tomorrow, our empathy and need finding innovation labs will allow your team to practice empathy techniques such as interviewing, user research, immersion, and observation. Our reflective, interactive, collaborative, and feedback-based trainings will help you effectively understand the needs of people you are designing for, develop target audiences, and become interview aficionados. At the end of this workshop, you will receive a detailed list of your empathy-driven findings, a practice guide of interviewing tips and tricks, a follow-up coaching session with a Sustain Tomorrow facilitator, and detailed feedback on how to enhance your interview style and need finding practices.
We are currently offering three levels of empathy and need finding innovation labs for foundations and their grantees:
Gold— Harnessing Empathy to Identify the Needs of Grantees
Silver — Empathetic Community Engagement
Bronze — Sustain Tomorrow Need Finding Consulting
gold. harnessing empathy to identify needs of grantees
overview
In this highly interactive workshop, we allow foundations to collaborate with organizations they support. In the first part of this innovation lab, we teach you empathy techniques such as interviewing, user research, immersion, and observation. We facilitate activities that allow you to harness these skills and practice and provide detailed feedback. For the second part of the innovation lab, we bring in grantees to co-design and participate with you.
We provide a safe space for you to interview your grantees, immerse yourself in their day-to-day lives and ultimately better identify their needs.
who should apply
Philanthropies
Leadership and supporting team members that could benefit from empathetic design practices
The maximum capacity for these workshops are 30 participants
timing
The innovation labs are scheduled at a time that is convenient to you and your team
3 days, 5 hours/day
what do i walk away with at the end of the workshop?
A detailed list of needs that have been identified
High quality video testimonials and interviews from grantee participants
A follow-up consultation with our facilitators
Recommendations of next steps
how much does it cost?
We are currently offering discounted innovation lab rates
Rates differ by organization type and workshop size. Please contact us to discuss rates for your company
silver. empathetic community engagement
overview
Are your grantees designing services that need to resonate with a wide range of audiences? In this highly participatory three day innovation lab, we work with organizations to understand the needs, challenges, and motivations of people and create impactful solutions.
Participants first learn and practice empathy techniques such as interviewing, user research, immersion, and observation. We then bring in focus groups of community members to co-design and participate in the innovation lab. By democratizing this process, we provide a safe space for grantees to interview their users, immerse themselves in compelling situations, and ultimately better understand community needs, priorities, and goals.
who should apply
Organizations that have been rewarded grants from foundations with a focus on sustainability and energy
Leadership and supporting team members that could benefit from empathetic design practices
The maximum capacity for these workshops are 30 participants
timing
The innovation labs are scheduled at a time that is convenient to you and your team
3 days, 5 hours/day
what do i walk away with at the end of the workshop?
A detailed list of community needs that have been identified
A high quality video testimonials/ interviews from community participants
A follow-up consultation with our facilitators
Recommendations of next steps
how much does it cost?
We are currently offering discounted innovation lab rates
Rates differ by organization type and workshop size. Please contact us to discuss rates for your company
bronze. sustain tomorrow need finding consulting services
overview
When it comes to crafting compelling environmental solutions, we can progress in technology and create low cost solutions, but this hardly tells the whole story. Conversations need to be had with community members and people involved in each step of the life cycle to understand their needs, challenges, and motivations. This leaves room for a realm of possibility in service design for organizations to improve the lives of people.
At Sustain Tomorrow, we allow these conversations to be had. We create an interdisciplinary design team consisting of four designers and conduct empathy interviews of people to understand their needs, challenges, and motivations. We then synthesize these findings and craft personas with leverage points that can then be used by organizations to brainstorm and prototype services that can overcome supplier pain points. We check in with you at each phase of the process for design reviews, where the you collaborate by providing feedback on each deliverable.
who should apply
Philanthropies
Organizations that have been rewarded grants from foundations with a focus on sustainability and energy
Leadership and supporting team members that could benefit from empathetic design practices
The maximum capacity for these workshops are 30 participants
timing
Consulting services vary per project
what do i walk away with at the end of the workshop?
Deliverables vary for each project
how much does it cost?
We are currently offering discounted innovation lab rates
Rates differ by organization type and workshop size. Please contact us to discuss rates for your company
+ get in touch
We want to meet you to see if Sustain Tomorrow is a good fit for you! Get in touch with us for an initial consultation and member from our team will be in touch with you. We want to hear about the work you’re doing, talk about the details of our offerings, and set up a time to hold the complimentary design thinking session.
explore more
innovation labs for foundations.
capacity building workshops for grantees
For foundations that currently hold workshops to support grantees in achieving their goals, we are here to help! Design thinking workshops with a focus on sustainability, equity, and rapid prototyping have great potential to allow organizations to meet their goals. Using our pop-up innovation labs and curriculum, we assist organizations in refining their programmatic and narrative strategies, deepen company-wide equity practices, and strengthen relationships with their partners. Our workshops exist to foster collaboration, empathy, and innovation.
storytelling workshops
This training will help you present your vision in ways that sets you apart from other foundations. We help your team understand the basic principles of storytelling, build grantee relationship leadership skills, and demonstrate creativity and aptitude of creative communication.
portfolio vivid visioning
Do you need support in crafting visions for your future portfolios and designing equitable programming strategies that tie in the voices and stories of community members? Our portfolio vivid visioning innovation labs allows you to explore a future with empathy, strategy, and sustainability at the heart of portfolio creation. We bring facilitators with backgrounds in business strategy, storytelling, and sustainability to lead you through a series of interactive activities that will strengthen your programatic plans.
equity-centered sustainability lab
In this innovation lab, we bring equity into sustainability. we teach you how to develop your self-awareness as a equity-centered designer, empathize with others by keeping an open mind, carry out empathy interviews, and immerse yourself in the lives of others.
visual design (UI/UX) services
To set you apart from other foundations with a focus on the environment, visual design is essential. Our team of skilled designers, videographers, editors, and storytellers help you create engaging content ranging from white paper, pitch deck, infographic, and website design to podcast and video creation.