Who do we work with?

We believe great ideas can come from anywhere. Because of this, our work in the community has run the full spectrum, from supporting resident-led grassroots efforts just getting off the ground, to partnering with long established social organizations looking to drive more inclusive social change.

At the Community Innovation Lab (CIL), we also believe truly meaningful social change only happens when social organizations (nonprofits, social enterprises, government, non-governmental organizations) work collectively to tackle complex societal issues, and are deeply entrenched in the communities they serve.

To that end, we pull together a team of experts based on project needs and scope, leveraging best-practices and cutting edge insights from our experts in academia, design, project management, marketing, research and the tech world, to help our partners achieve their mission.

Our Process

When we work with you, each project starts with a series of discovery calls and/or meetings, to better understand the challenge at hand. Once we have an understanding of the challenge, we’ll assign a point person and pull together a team of experts well versed in your needs to come up with a project budget and timeline.

From there, we organize our work around four major milestones:

  • Discovery - uncover community issues using a mix of focus groups, community forums and workshops, surveys, and observational data collection

  • Ideation - facilitate the development of prototype solutions, working hand-in-
    hand with the community served to come up with solutions to test

  • Prototyping/Piloting - leverage Agile and Scrum methodologies to iterate and evolve solutions for true market fit and measurable outcomes

  • Scale - scale effective solutions by inspiring civic engagement and broader collaboration to help drive lasting, systemic change

Please contact us to see if we may be able to help you drive more meaningful outcomes for your organization and community.