At The Right Brain Initiative, an equity-based arts-in-schools program in the Portland area, we’re committed to marrying marketing and community engagement in the organic sort of way they were meant to be. As I advocate for arts education throughout the community, I’m really excited about developing sincere relationships and substantial partnerships. In fact, this month we’re finally reaching the apex of a really fruitful long-term collaboration with Design for Good committee of AIGA Portland, the professional association for design.

Early on, we identified our dynamic creative business community as a key outreach target. Whether they become Facebook fans, volunteers, friends, or maybe donors someday, it is a natural affinity group for us. These folks have personally benefited from the kind of education we promote.

Fortunately, our friends at AIGA wanted to do something to make a genuine impact on both our organization and arts education at large, but arriving at a collaborative model for this partnership wasn’t easy. While the global design sector has expressed great interest in addressing arts education, real partnerships between the design and non-profit communities are really hard to find. Socially focused designers are used to donating services to non-profits (Thank you! Please keep it up!), but those relationships can create an uneven power dynamic that prevent true collaboration. Designers are also fond of gathering to generate ideas to address social problems, but there is often no plan to bring those solutions to life. We had look for a new standard. After much collective brainstorming, we decided to expand the Brain Food (http://therightbraininitiative.org/brain-food/) section of our website into a living, hand-held deck of integrated arts activities. These activity decks would be available at local retailers to families eager for creative exploration at home, serving as a revenue stream for our program and publicly promoting our vision of creative learning. In schools, these activity nuggets could be used when students have free time in class, or could inspire new possibilities for in-depth arts units that teachers could integrate into their classrooms.

Over the past two years, as we developed this project, we worked with AIGA to put together a brainstorming event to create new content for the deck, a hands-on museum installation to test the activities with real families, a promotional video, a failed but productive pitch to creative firms for printing funds, and ultimately a Kickstarter campaign. Through it all, the AIGA has served as our ambassador and advocate to their community, making this feel like dynamic, wide-reaching and fully effective experience.
Here’s why this partnership has worked:

We set a precedent for honest, two-way conversations. We discussed what each group wanted to get out of this experience and designed a project plan in response—not the other way around. Throughout the duration of the project, we have maintained open communication about our changing needs.

We share a genuine desire for symbiosis.  Both groups committed to making sure everyone feels satisfied with the final outcome. Members of the AIGA originally had a vision of leading a design program with students, but when we explained that recruiting teaching artists was not our greatest need, they asked what else they could do to help. So, we helped them find a way to get meaningfully involved in our work, and produce a successful project they could share with other AIGA chapters around the nation. Meanwhile, they respected our need to make sure the completed decks accurately reflect what we do and who we are as a program. 

We’ve embraced the strengths of both organizations to create something that neither could have executed alone. To me, this is the definition of true collaboration. As we dreamed up 40 new Brain Food activities, the designers provided the kind of fresh perspectives that could only come from those outside the confines of the school systems. The AIGA team and the illustrators they recruited then provided the design services needed to complete the deck. These are both incredible contributions we could not have made. Meanwhile, our education staff edited the activities for feasibility, age appropriateness and to uphold a learning standard. And once the decks are printed, we’ll have the resources to get them into real-live schools. Both groups felt valued as they made unique and meaningful contributions. Working together, we were able to execute a bigger project than we could have independently.

We share ownership. Because the project was designed thoughtfully and collaboratively, we all felt invested in its success. We shared the workload from beginning to end, delivering solid work that got us to the finish line.

There was nothing easy or fast about this project. It took negotiation and flexibility and a lot of time. In fact, two new homes were purchased, a marriage was made, and a baby was born between those of us leading the project since the time we began. But at the end of this experience, we will have a tangible, final product that we are proud of. And, most importantly, we now have an indelible bond with the AIGA and we have created what has been described as a major “buzz” throughout the design community that has already led to other collaborations. There is no price or metric you can place upon that.