Big Thought
Magazine aimed at policymakers, school boards, and donors to help reshape their understanding of creativity as a skill.
The client
Big Thought equips all youth to imagine and create their best lives and world. The nonprofit works toward that mission through direct-to-youth social emotional learning programs, creating social and emotional learning ecosystems, and consulting on programs to inspire empathy within large organizations.
The partnership
In 2023, Big Thought requested our help to create a publication that would “recalibrate society’s understanding of as creativity as a skill,” targeted to an audience of policymakers, school boards, and donors.
To achieve this goal, we worked with Big Thought and seven Big Thought Apprentices, ages 18 to 24, to publish the Create Great Magazine. The vision? Cast a new light on what creativity is and what it means to the world and to the young people supported by Big Thought.
Critical to the success of this project is the axiom, “nothing about us, without us.” This means the Apprentices were tasked with doing the work alongside us. In response, we launched the D Custom Content Academy, our strategic planning and publishing process for delivering high-quality, engaging magazines — a significant time commitment from the Apprentices but one they embraced fully.
The takeaways
Create Great Magazine was distributed to 25,000 nonprofits, donors, school boards, and policymakers nationwide. More important, the content academy experience was transformational for the Apprentices, many of whom have gone onto speaking engagements nationwide to tell their stories and express the power of the creativity.
Keep browsing our work.
Texas Center for Student Supports
Framework and playbook, developed in partnership with mental health experts, for training educators to support every student’s overall well-being.
The Commit Partnership
Magazine-style reports that inspire readers to support the mission of ensuring every young adult has a path to earning a living wage.