Founded in 2011, IDEO.org is a non-profit design and innovation organization focused on solving challenges in poverty and spreading human-centered design through the social sector. Human-centered design enables organizations to create and deliver innovative solutions to pressing challenges that are rooted in the needs of people. IDEO.org works directly with organizations on projects using the human-centered design process across a wide range of focus areas related to poverty, including health, financial services, gender equity, water and sanitation.

 

IDEO has been working in the social sector for more than ten years. Recently, it became clear that launching a nonprofit organization focused solely on social innovation would allow IDEO to make an even bigger impact on global poverty. To establish IDEO.org, IDEO provided substantial seed funding.  Now, as a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit, IDEO.org relies on fees for service and philanthropic donations to cover our costs. 

 

What We Do

IDEO.org works with nonprofits, social enterprises and foundations. Through Human-Centered Design projects, we're bringing stability, hope, and dignity to communities around the world that are wrestling with poverty. Along the way, we’re sharing what we learn and accomplish with everyone—so we’re all learning together. And through the IDEO.org Fellowship Program, we’re fostering a community of future leaders with expertise in design thinking, then letting them loose on the world.

 

We ask the nonprofit partners we work with to pay the direct costs of our work with them. And we raise money through fundraising to cover our indirect costs, which include our Fellowship Program and our storytelling and knowledge-sharing efforts. By raising philanthropic capital, we are able to select the projects we undertake based on their potential for impact, rather than an organization's ability to pay.