Designing Tomorrow: Creative Strategies for Social Impact

Every nonprofit leader has told themselves the same story: if funders just understood us, they'd fund us. Eric and Jonathan make the uncomfortable case that misunderstood impact is usually a you problem, and that what looks like a storytelling gap is almost always an identity gap. Close it, and funding, talent, and trust all get easier. Episode Highlights: [00:01:15] The identity impact gap, defined [00:04:05] Why the gap quietly starves your funding [00:08:20] Why a widening gap can be a sign of growth [00:12:50] The three pillars: identity, expression, perception [00:30:00] "That's a you problem" [00:38:40] Why trust isn't built on your 990s Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:04:20]: "I would urge orgs to figure out: if there was only one thing that everyone could know us for, what might that one thing be? And do a really good job beating that drum." Jonathan Hicken [00:25:20]: "It has to start with a deep understanding of self. Before you can get to expression, before you can get to perception, you have to know yourself." Resources & Links: Seymour Marine Discovery Center — seymourcenter.ucsc.edu Cosmic — designbycosmic.com Who are you Becoming? https://designbycosmic.com/podcast/who-are-you-becoming/ Who Are You Becoming — designbycosmic.com/podcast/who-are-you-becoming/ Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Most leaders know how to fight through a crisis. Almost nobody's ready for the moment things start working. That's where Jonathan finds himself. Five years into running the Seymour Center, the survival years behind him. Funding's solid. The team's humming. He walks the halls, thinks "we're good," and tells me that stability feels strange. Almost uncomfortable. Like a problem he doesn't have the muscle for yet. What I keep seeing after 15 years is that that's exactly how good organizations stall out. The bold, experimental swings that built the momentum are the first thing leaders quietly retire the moment things feel stable. So the real discipline is refusing to coast, and building from a place of stability instead of scarcity while you still have the calm to think clearly. Episode Highlights: [00:01:35] Momentum is a different kind of problem [00:10:45] Three viable paths, one hard choice [00:19:05] Build from stability, not scarcity [00:20:10] The trap of business as usual [00:23:05] Owning your wins in front of funders [00:29:10] What got you here won't get you there Notable Quotes: Jonathan Hicken [00:28:55]: "Keep the foot on the gas, and lean into what I know has worked — which has been big, creative, different, bold swings." Eric Ressler [00:20:35]: "The trap would be, okay, it's working now, we just move into business-as-usual mode. That's how orgs stall out a lot of times." Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Is culture something you design, or does it emerge from the people you hire? I think you design it, through the decisions you make every day. Jonathan thinks it starts with the people and grows from there. The more we talked, the more the two came together: culture isn't your values poster, it's the consistent decisions a team makes over and over, plus the guardrails and tools that help everyone make them well. Episode Highlights: [00:03:22] Why culture always starts with who you hire [00:05:15] The case that American work culture is broken [00:15:19] The hardest call: firing a high performer who's a culture misfit [00:17:12] How good short-term decisions erode culture [00:26:14] Guardrails: scorecards and "the Seymour Way" [00:31:25] If you ask your team to grind, do you have to grind too? Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:23:55]: "Culture is built by the consistent decisions and actions that you make as an org, not by your value statement or your posters." Jonathan Hicken [00:26:50]: "We recently started calling it the Seymour Way rather than core values. Because I can't actually tell somebody what their values are. What I can say is, 'This is how we do it here.'" Resources & Links: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni — https://www.tablegroup.com/product/dysfunctions/ Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Two camps are forming around AI in the social impact space. One says boycott it. The other says you're already behind. Meanwhile, the biggest decisions are being made without us. Kaz McGrath and Stephen Silveira of Play (PLAI — Purpose-Led AI) make the case for stepping into the conversation, holding space for skeptics and builders at the same table, and using AI as a tool for imagination and mission. Episode Highlights: [00:04:30] "You are behind" — the message the sector keeps hearing [00:08:00] What if nonprofit professionals became the builders? [00:15:30] Tracking endangered species in the Amazon, led by Indigenous elders [00:19:00] The one filter for every AI decision: does it further your mission? [00:26:30] The environmental truth: your impact depends on where you live [00:35:30] Decisions are being made for us, not with us Notable Quotes: Stephen Silveira [00:26:10]: "People are using AI to be that silver bullet. They want this future we're trying to describe, and they want to say AI is the thing." Kaz McGrath [00:35:55]: "These decisions are being made for us, not with us. For us, not without us." Resources & Links: PLAI — weareplai.com Conor Grennan's AI Mindset — ai-mindset.ai Berkana Institute, Two Loops Model — berkana.org Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

I have this problem, and I have it bad. At Cosmic I'm the bottleneck on more things than I should be, holding onto work because explaining it feels slower than just doing it. Jonathan doesn't get stuck there as often, so we dug into how executive directors and CEOs tell the bottlenecks that are right from the ones capping the whole org, and how to climb out of them. Episode Highlights: [00:01:05] The bottleneck problem, named out loud [00:05:05] The real fear behind not letting go [00:12:08] Right sizing your role as the stakes rise [00:16:10] The ego question every leader has to confront [00:21:00] "Just this one time" and how it multiplies [00:30:20] The time audit that pulls it out of your head Notable Quotes: Jonathan Hicken [00:02:15]: "I'm a big believer in hire people that are better and smarter than you, and then let them cook." Eric Ressler [00:21:00]: "Just this one time I'm going to do it. And then all of a sudden I've done that just this one time five times now." Jonathan Hicken [00:26:00]: "You hear stories of executive directors copy editing every single email that goes out. That is the most catastrophic failure of that organization." Resources & Links: Cosmic : Eric's creative agency for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations Seymour Marine Discovery Center Science Solutions Santa Cruz podcast Drafting Our Strategic Dream Team : Eric and Jonathan’s past episode on YouTube Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Nonprofit leaders want more people to see their work, but almost none of them want to be the one posting about it. Saralynn Finn and I dig into what changes once you get past that resistance: story stems, a repeatable format for turning an ordinary moment into a post worth reading, and the difference between posting out of obligation and posting because something actually needs saying. Saralynn brings a nonprofit CEO's 90-day LinkedIn experiment into it, and I bring my own inconsistent posting habits. This is a second conversation, picking up where an earlier episode on visibility left off. Episode Highlights: [00:04:00] Story stems: the copy-meme format built for LinkedIn posts [00:10:00] Madeleine Ballard's 90-day LinkedIn pilot, and what it actually delivered [00:16:00] Eric's own LinkedIn burnout, and what caused it [00:23:00] Personal pages vs. brand pages: where ideas actually travel [00:29:00] Authenticity, sanitized brand voice, and what political campaigns already figured out [00:34:00] Why LinkedIn rewards patience: posts take three weeks to peak Notable Quotes: Saralynn Finn [00:06:25]: "Story stems, posts with familiar patterns, get three times the engagement of posts that don't have a story stem." Saralynn Finn [00:33:20]: "This humility does not require invisibility." Eric Ressler [00:16:05]: "I'm feeling a little burnt out by LinkedIn right now, and it's my own fault." Resources & Links: Community Health Impact Coalition — https://joinchic.org/ Dr. Madeleine Ballard — https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleineballard/ The Sidebar — https://theside.bar/ Saralynn Finn — guest's site and consulting practice. Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Every social impact leader believes in their mission. Funders assume that too. What they actually want to know is why you, specifically, over the ten other orgs working the same issue, or the bigger name with more reach and a longer track record. Most leaders answer with passion, good programs, being impactful. Genuine things that still don't add up to a strategy. In this episode, Jonathan and I dig into a framework we use with clients constantly: naming your organization's exact role inside a broader social impact ecosystem, specific enough to defend, credible enough to believe, and clear enough that funders, staff, and partners all describe your org the same way. Jonathan brings Seymour Center into it as a live example, working through the question in real time. Episode Highlights: [00:00:46] Why differentiation is the one thing social impact leaders don't spend enough time on [00:03:25] Why "we do good work" isn't enough to win over savvy funders [00:04:45] Jonathan's own evolving answer to what role Seymour Center plays in Santa Cruz [00:06:38] The vague language and buzzwords that quietly sink an organization's positioning [00:21:24] Mapping the ecosystem: the first exercise Cosmic runs with every client [00:27:41] The moments that call for revisiting your role, from new leadership to ecosystem disruption Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:19:20]: "Passion is not a strategy. It's not a position. It's not a role. We can't compete on being the most passionate, because who's going to claim otherwise?" Jonathan Hicken [00:17:45]: "Someone's like, I love the ocean, I want to save the ocean, so we're going to create a museum to save the ocean. But that's the vagueness we're talking about." Resources & Links: - Seymour Marine Discovery Center: https://seymourcenter.ucsc.edu/ - The Nature Conservancy: https://www.nature.org/ Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Sarah Newkirk became executive director of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County in the middle of a capital campaign, the same week Jonathan Hicken took over at the Seymour Center. Five years later, she's landed a $15 million farmland deal, a wildlife crossing Caltrans is now replicating statewide, and a strategic plan built around one question: what would have to be true for this to work? She and Eric talk relationships, risk, and why joy is the real return on conservation work. Episode Highlights: [00:01:30] Coming in as the new ED mid-capital-campaign, the same week Jonathan started at the Seymour Center [00:06:30] Beach Ranch: taking flood-prone farmland out of production to let marshland move inland [00:07:30] Retiring 47-year-old branding and finally owning the "conservation incubator" identity [00:09:30] Inside the Highway 17 wildlife crossing, now a model Caltrans is replicating statewide [00:16:00] The Land Trust's three beneficiaries: wildlife, working agriculture, and people, together [00:26:00] The "what would have to be true" method that turned a twice-failed ballot measure into Measure Q Notable Quotes: Sarah Newkirk [00:28:00]: "We made a list of what had to be true, and we made those things true." Sarah Newkirk [00:39:15]: "When you provide this kind of conservation work to the broader public, the public loves it, and therefore they love you. That is a beautiful, virtuous cycle." Eric Ressler [00:39:30]: "I love that the answer is joy. I think we need a lot more joy in how this work happens." Resources & Links: Land Trust of Santa Cruz County — landtrustsantacruz.org Highway 17 Wildlife Crossing — landtrustsantacruz.org/protected-areas/highway-17-wildlife-crossing/ Beach Ranch wetland restoration — hilltromper.com/article/wetland-restoration-beach-ranch-benefits-nature-wildlife-and-people Learning the Land podcast — landtrustsantacruz.org/podcast/ Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

There's a push right now to democratize strategic planning. Survey the community, poll the staff, put the big calls to a vote. I get the instinct, but it goes too far. Influence is not the same as decision-making power, and collapsing the two is how good orgs freeze. In this episode, Eric and Jonathan draft their ideal strategic planning teams fantasy-sports style from a pool of ten possible inputs, and work out how much weight each voice actually deserves. Episode Highlights: [00:00:00] Drafting fantasy strategic planning teams from ten possible inputs [00:02:30] First picks: leadership team vs. the community you serve [00:05:15] Influence vs. decision-making power, the distinction that runs through everything [00:08:45] Gut and intuition as a legitimate strategic input [00:10:45] Data beats opinions, and predictive vs. directional data [00:15:45] Why boards should support more than they decide [00:28:30] Synthesizing every input into a decision you can own [00:33:00] Win-win as a cheat code, and why pleasing everyone signals a weak choice Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:05:35]: "The community should have a lot of influence, but I don't think this work usually works when it's truly democratic." Jonathan Hicken [00:11:05]: "We have a saying at Seymour Center here where data beats opinions 100% of the time." Eric Ressler [00:33:35]: "If literally everyone is happy, maybe the decision was too obvious and weak." Resources & Links: Designing Tomorrow Spotlight interview with Rob Acton on designing effective nonprofit boards Cause Strategy Partners — Rob Acton's firm, focused on nonprofit board placement and governance training Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

There's a number treated like gospel in philanthropy: the 5% annual payout private foundations are required to hit. It was written into law as a floor. Kristin Todd has watched it become a ceiling instead. After nearly two decades at the Daniels Fund, a $1.5 billion private foundation, she now leads the NoCo Foundation in Northern Colorado, where she's more than doubled annual grant-making by refusing to let donor dollars sit still. Episode Highlights: [00:01:00] Running a $1.5 billion legacy fund vs. a nimble community foundation [00:07:00] Why mergers stopped being a taboo word for nonprofits [00:11:30] How NoCo doubled its grant-making by keeping money in motion [00:12:30] The 5% floor that became a ceiling [00:20:30] Stop calling them charities. They're businesses with social impact. [00:34:00] Punching above your weight locally instead of waiting on Washington Notable Quotes: Kristin Todd [00:12:30]: "In the private foundation world, that 5% has become a ceiling, not a floor." Kristin Todd [00:11:30]: "We do not want to be a sponsor of DAFs that are warehousing dollars, and in fact we are not." Eric Ressler [00:21:30]: "These are the hardest problems in the world that no one else has solved, and yet they're not getting the same attention as the latest AI startup." Resources & Links: NoCo Foundation — nocofoundation.org Daniels Fund — danielsfund.org Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Everyone keeps predicting the death of the website. First it was social, now it is AI. But it is still the one channel you actually own and control, which is exactly what makes it your most durable asset. So when a site has gone untouched for five years and a redo runs six figures, the real question is whether it is worth it, and when. Episode Highlights: [00:03:00] The identity impact gap, and when a redo is the wrong call [00:10:30] The 10-second homepage test 90% of nonprofit sites fail [00:13:00] Brand as coherence: the Apple experience, and your version of it [00:17:30] What happens the moment a funder leaves your meeting [00:23:30] What funders actually look for: financials, team bios, clear impact [00:28:00] The underperforming employee analogy, and the player on your team Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:05:20]: "I still believe that your website is your most important and your most durable asset as a brand." Eric Ressler [00:26:20]: "Your website should be your best fundraiser, not your only fundraiser." Jonathan Hicken [00:29:10]: "Website is almost the wrong word. It's a player on your team." Resources & Links: Seymour Marine Discovery Center — seymourcenter.ucsc.edu Candid — candid.org “Are Website's Dead?" — earlier Designing Tomorrow episode. Joel Breakstone interview — earlier Designing Tomorrow episode. Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

For the last 50 years, we've operated under a single dominant idea: the purpose of business is to maximize shareholder value. But what if this whole era of extraction and short-termism isn't the natural order at all? What if it's just a blip? Sarah Gillard, CEO of Blueprint for Better Business, has spent 25 years inside major corporations watching what happens when companies forget what they're actually for, and she makes the case that business has both the power and the obligation to change it. Episode Highlights: [00:02:42] Two very different business models: profit maximization vs. employee ownership, from inside the same industry [00:06:37] The ESG rollback in context: what the data actually shows about corporate commitments [00:09:03] The forces of gravity that act on companies as they scale, and why purpose needs structural defense [00:12:17] The 70% problem: why intangible assets dominate organizational value but get ignored [00:15:27] Rethinking the social contract: why government, business, and civil society can't afford separate swim lanes [00:27:07] AI as a force for good or fragility: the questions businesses aren't asking but should be [00:37:58] Blueprint for Better Business's two foundational ideas, and why neither is as radical as it sounds Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:25:20]: "We need more in culture imagining what that future could and should be, instead of constantly only warning about what it's looking like it's going to be." Sarah Gillard [00:38:40]: "Historically we will see these last 50-odd years as an odd blip. How do we take the most powerful shaper of our societies and just go: just focus on the money? Just weird." Sarah Gillard [00:40:20]: "Good intentions are necessary, but not sufficient. You need legal and governance mechanisms that keep you on track even when there is significant pressure to move." Resources & Links: Blueprint for Better Business — Sarah's organization; the one-page AI framework for boardrooms is available on their website John Lewis Partnership — The UK's largest employee-owned business, where Sarah led purpose strategy The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson Dear Alice : Utopian anime yogurt commercial — mentioned by Eric as a rare example of positive future imagery Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Jonathan recently learned that the Seymour Center is about to absorb a permanent new expense in the $150,000 to $200,000 range. On a $2.2 million operating budget, that's roughly 10% of the whole thing, and it's not a one-time hit. The instinct for most leaders is to pull back: tighten the budget, pause the big swings, and try again in a few years. But contraction changes the story you can tell funders, and that cost is harder to recover from than the budget hit itself. Episode Highlights: [00:00:30] Contract or keep pushing? The fundamental question. [00:02:00] The outdated overhead myth and why it makes budget shocks worse [00:05:30] The power of flexibility that reserves actually buy you [00:08:00] Eric's pandemic-era decisions at Cosmic: no layoffs, no pay cuts in 16 years [00:12:00] Why liftoff windows are sacred and rarely repeat on your timeline [00:17:00] The story you can tell funders when you're in motion vs. when you've pulled back [00:20:30] Separating ego from mission in high-stakes financial decisions [00:22:30] The case for nonprofit mergers in a shrinking funding landscape Notable Quotes: Jonathan Hicken [00:17:00]: "I can go to those meetings right now and sit down at the table and look at these people in the eye and authentically tell the story of this liftoff. If I start to contract, I can't do that." Eric Ressler [00:18:10]: "There's a saying in the business world: never need a deal. I think we're wired as humans to just be super attuned to desperation." Resources & Links: Seymour Marine Discovery Center — https://seymourcenter.ucsc.edu Visibility Beats Impact — Designing Tomorrow podcast episode Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Most social impact campaigns are built on two ingredients: information and emotion. The data makes the case. The storytelling makes people care. But caring, on its own, has a shelf life. Saralynn Finn, founder of Sett & Sley Consulting, joins Eric in the studio to argue that the third ingredient, what she calls "the hands", is where campaigns succeed or quietly die. Not more awareness, not more storytelling, but actionable pathways that give audiences something real to do with everything they now know and feel. Episode Highlights: [00:01:30] The head, heart, and hands framework for social impact campaigns [00:05:00] "the hands": actionable, attainable pathways that create real impact [00:06:00] Why "the hands" breakout at Skoll World Forum was the most well-attended [00:10:00] The celebrity collaboration that drove 30K subscribers but didn't change healthcare [00:15:30] Vote by mail in 2020: same message, radically different messengers [00:26:00] The end-of-year fundraising campaign that 5X'd revenue Notable Quotes: Saralynn Finn [00:06:00]: "It's the piece of most campaigns that's missing, that people are trying to break the nut of and figure out: how do I create a pathway?" Eric Ressler [00:13:00]: "Campaigns need their own little mini theory of change." Resources & Links: Skoll World Forum — https://skoll.org/skoll-world-forum/ Represent Us — https://represent.us/ Saralynn's LinkedIn article about the AI documentary in Rural America. Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Most social impact leaders got into this work because they care deeply about the mission, not because they wanted to be public figures with opinions. But that instinct to stay quiet and let the work speak for itself may be doing more harm than good. Developing and sharing a strong point of view isn't a nice-to-have; it's a moral obligation for leaders in this space. Episode Highlights: [00:01:00] The hesitancy Eric keeps seeing in leaders who won't go public with their thinking [00:04:00] Defining "point of view" as a pattern of lived experience, not expertise [00:08:00] Eric's origin story: from attention economy manifesto to a new framework [00:10:30] Introducing the identity impact gap [00:18:00] Why therapy made Jonathan a better leader [00:24:00] Devil's advocate: what about pure open-mindedness as a leadership philosophy? Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:11:05]: "The bigger the difference between who you actually are and how you are perceived by the people that you care about reaching, the bigger all of your problems are going to be." Eric Ressler [00:29:35]: "People need to do research, they need to develop hypotheses, they need to publish those, not just think about them in their brains." Resources & Links: Seymour Marine Discovery Center — seymourcenter.ucsc.edu Kevin L. Brown — Mighty Ally Glen Galaich — Stupski Foundation Kevin Starr — Mulago Foundation Skull World Forum Strategy Tier ranking episode - "Most of Your Brand Strategy is a Waste of Time" Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

There's an unspoken rule in the social impact sector: we tell the truth, we follow the science, we play fair. But those rules are increasingly a losing strategy, because the industries we're up against don't have to win the argument. They just have to muddy it. Joelle Lester, Executive Director of the Public Health Law Center, has spent 25 years studying how Big Tobacco manufactured doubt, and how that same playbook now drives opposition to progress on climate, food, and public health. Episode Highlights: [00:04:00] Merchants of doubt: how the tobacco industry wrote the playbook for manufacturing scientific uncertainty [00:09:00] Why philanthropy needs to step up right now, and which foundations are leading [00:15:00] The strategic calculus of when to resist publicly versus when to go underground [00:24:00] Why scientists with integrity are at a structural disadvantage against opponents with none [00:33:00] “Cultural engineering” — Alessandra Orofino : why culture is always upstream of public policy [00:40:30] Why public health groups need to get better at storytelling and soundbites Notable Quotes: Joelle Lester [00:05:00]: "The art of it is that they don't try to disprove it. They just try to raise doubt in people's minds about how believable the science is." Joelle Lester [00:41:05]: "Having all the evidence and having the legal authority and being right is not getting us where we need to go." Resources & Links: Public Health Law Center — https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/ Cooking with Smoke report — https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/sites/default/files/resources/Cooking-With-Smoke.pdf Merchants of Doubt (book & film) — https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/ Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

There's a trend called looksmaxxing that says appearance is everything, and optimizing it is just pragmatism. Apply that same logic to nonprofits and you get an interesting thought experiment: what happens when an organization goes all in on brand? And what happens when one deliberately strips brand away entirely? This episode explores the spectrum between "brandmaxxing" and "debranding," two extremes that reveal something important about how the sector thinks about visibility. The social impact sector has been structurally imbalanced toward the debranding end for decades, and the reluctance to invest in brand often masquerades as virtue. But humans are influenced by brand the same way they're influenced by appearance, and refusing to play the game doesn't make the game go away. Episode Highlights: [00:00:00] The looksmaxxing trend as a lens for brand strategy [00:01:00] Defining brandmaxxing vs. debranding as a spectrum [00:06:25] Why brand is a game you have to play, even in social impact [00:08:50] Trust through depth vs. trust through visibility [00:14:00] People follow people, not logos: the Amanda Litman insight [00:23:00] False humility and the arrogance of staying behind the scenes Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:06:30]: "Humans are influenced by brand. You can be humble about it, but at some level, you got to realize you have to play the game." Eric Ressler [00:23:15]: "Get over yourself, because that is actually kind of a pretentious point of view. You're not saying you're not good enough. You're saying you're too good to put yourself out there." Resources & Links: Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something — Prior Spotlight episode . Amanda Litman’s Substack Run for Something Science, Solutions, Santa Cruz Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Every major technological paradigm shift has broken society before it fixed it. The printing press, radio, television. Each one reshaped how we communicate and what we believe. Now the internet, social media, and AI are repeating the pattern at unprecedented speed. Joel Breakstone, co-founder and executive director of the Digital Inquiry Group, has spent over a decade studying how people evaluate online information, and what he's found is alarming: students, academics, and everyday adults are failing at even the most basic tasks of digital discernment. But his research also reveals a path forward, built on the surprisingly simple strategies of professional fact checkers. Episode Highlights: [00:01:55] Was the internet a huge mistake? [00:08:30] From Stanford History Education Group to the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum [00:12:35] Fact checkers vs. PhDs vs. Stanford freshmen: who evaluates sources best? [00:15:20] Lateral reading: the counterintuitive skill that changes everything [00:26:20] The collapse of institutional trust and rise of influencer trust [00:31:05] AI as both threat and tool for digital literacy Notable Quotes: Joel Breakstone [00:11:25]: "The myth of the digital native is very much a myth. Young people, like the rest of us, need help making sense of the unbelievably crowded and confusing landscape that we encounter when we go online." Joel Breakstone [00:27:30]: "It can become really easy to just throw your hands up in the air and say, 'Nothing's real. I don't know what to trust.' And that is a really dangerous place for us to end up because it plays into the hands of authoritarians." Resources & Links: Digital Inquiry Group — https://www.inquirygroup.org/ Civic Online Reasoning (COR) Curriculum — https://cor.inquirygroup.org/ Verified by Mike Caulfield & Sam Wineburg — https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo207015182.html Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

There's a quiet belief running through the social impact space that being too visible somehow cheapens the work. That good organizations should let their impact speak for itself. But the orgs that get the funding, the talent, and the momentum aren't always the ones doing the best work; they're the ones who've made their work visible. This episode makes the case that visibility matters more than impact, and that staying humble is a belief most orgs can no longer afford. Episode Highlights: [00:00:00] Visible orgs outperform high-impact orgs [00:02:30] The humility trap and the "scrappy org" fallacy [00:03:30] Why the most funded orgs are the most visible, not the most effective [00:08:30] Visibility as the most underleveraged strategy in social impact [00:10:00] The visibility test: can people describe what you do? [00:17:00] Building visibility into every program from the start [00:25:00] From skeptic to podcast host: Jonathan's visibility journey [00:31:30] Using media to scale your face time with future donors Notable Quotes: Eric Ressler [00:01:05]: "Orgs who are consistently good at visibility outperform and are more successful, generally speaking, than orgs who are really good at impact." Jonathan Hicken [00:02:25]: "There is just some sort of moral objection to maybe if we're too visible that devalues the sincerity or the authenticity of the impact. There's a sort of humility thing in there." Eric Ressler [00:14:00]: "Visibility, man. At least you get the chance. If you have no visibility, you don't even have a chance." Resources & Links: Seymour Marine Discovery Center — Jonathan Hicken's organization at UC Santa Cruz Science Solutions Santa Cruz — Jonathan's new video podcast. Gallup Poll: What's in a Name? Affordable Care Act vs. Obamacare Obamacare/ACA polling data — Measures of public opinion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

The social impact sector has made community co-creation almost sacred. Design with people, not for them. Give everyone a voice. But what happens when the loudest voices aren't the most informed, and the planning process stalls because nobody can make a call? Taylor Stuckert, CEO of Lead for America, has lived this tension from every angle. Eric and Taylor dig into the question nobody in social impact wants to ask out loud: can too much community input actually be a problem? Episode Highlights: [00:01:30] Wilmington, Ohio and the day DHL disappeared [00:06:30] The guerrilla flyer campaign that drew hundreds to a town hall [00:08:30] When community input becomes a double-edged sword [00:14:00] Stop trying to please everyone [00:17:30] There is no "the community" [00:28:00] Why the brain drain narrative misses the bigger story [00:37:00] Why AI will widen the divide we never closed Notable Quotes: Taylor Stuckert [00:17:40]: "We act as if the community is this unified object that has complete consensus and you're either engaging them or you're not. And that's just so inaccurate to reality." Taylor Stuckert [00:14:10]: "We have to get away from this notion that we're going to make perfect decisions. You're not going to please everyone — but that shouldn't take away from how we engage everyone." Resources & Links: - Lead for America — https://www.leadforamerica.org/ - American Connection Corps — https://www.leadforamerica.org/ - Carnegie Corporation of New York — https://www.carnegie.org/ Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday. → Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com Listeners, now you can text us your comments or questions by clicking this link. *** If you liked this episode, please help spread the word. Share with your friends or co-workers, post it to social media, “follow” or “subscribe” in your podcast app, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We could not do this without you! We love hearing feedback from our community, so please email us with your questions or comments — including topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes — at podcast@designbycosmic.com Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.