Strategy:

I was leading strategy at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. I needed to make the case to the Bosch Foundation that funding operations in Japan and Korea, for the first time in 10 years, would be a successful endeavor — based on the health of the social entrepreneurship landscapes in those countries.

Our goal was to successfully tell the story of how robust “change making” in this region could be. It wouldn’t be enough to lead with hunches. We needed to tell a story, and use data to back us up.

Specifically, to build out this donor strategy and communication:

  • I built an end-to-end methodology that uncovered the landscape of changemakers across any given country in the world where Ashoka has staff

  • I designed an interactive map that easily communicated the region’s potential for investment and future grant-making.

Role: Project Director, Service Designer, & Strategist

Team: Amy Neugeubaur, Deputy to the President; Nana Watanabe, Director of Ashoka Japan; H. Zhu, Data Analyst

Strategic Partner: Bosch

My approach:

  • Connect with executive leadership to understand scope of inquiry

  • Define analysis and build corresponding research methodology

  • Assemble teams across Japan, Korea, Germany and the US to execute research

  • Manage data scientist to understand best method for visualizing data

  • Analyze results for patterns and conclusions to inform senior leaders

  • Codify process to be replicated in future country-launch scenarios

  • Reflect analysis through mapping, shared through presentation with Bosch Foundation

Results:

The final results enabled myself, the Director of Japan and the Deputy to the President to tell a story about the fullest potential for grant-making in the region. Through this visual mapping, we uncovered 100 new changemakers in each country and conferred confidence in the Bosch Foundation’s team to fund Ashoka’s re-launch of these two country offices.