DesignlabGive, closing the cycle of poverty through creativity
DesignlabGive (DLG)
(
Non-governmental organization (NGO)
)
#SDGAction56865
Description
DLG, as the nonprofit arm of DesignLab Miami, extends the studio's mission by focusing on social impact and community engagement. The objective is to use fashion & design as tools for social change, specifically by addressing poverty among women and promoting sustainability. DLG takes the core values of creativity, skill-building, and environmental awareness taught at DesignLab Miami and channels them into projects that serve underprivileged women. This includes teaching sustainable practices, utilizing local materials and fostering a mindset of environmental responsibility in diverse settings. As DesignLab Miami's nonprofit, DLG is committed to creating educational opportunities that go beyond typical fashion design classes, aiming instead to empower women to use creativity as a means to improve their economic conditions and environmental impact. This allows DesignLab Miami to have more profound impact with its students and their social impact, through volunteering and giving back to underserved communities of women everywhere. DLG operates as a fully volunteer-driven initiative, with a team dedicated to creating social impact through design and sustainability. The founders themselves are volunteers, as are the teams that travel to deliver hands-on workshops. Many of these volunteers are students of DesignLab Miami who gain experience not only in teaching but also in community service. This volunteer-based model teaches young designers the importance of giving back, fostering social responsibility, and encouraging them to contribute to positive change in underserved communities.
DLG's initiatives are carried out through a range of programs and partnerships focused on addressing poverty among women and promoting sustainability in fashion. Here's how DLG typically operates its mission:
1. Workshops in Underserved Communities: DLG brings workshops to women in communities in need, allowing participants to learn fashion design, sewing and sustainable practices in accessible and familiar settings. These workshops emphasize creative skills like garment & pattern making, and upcycling using locally available materials to teach eco-conscious practices and empower individual women with practical skills.
2. Donation of Materials and Resources: To continue creative learning after their departure, DLG donates materials and resources. These donations include sewing machines, fabrics, and tools. DLG allows individuals to keep honing their skills, creating a self-sustaining learning environment.
3. Free Virtual Tutorials: DLG ensures that the communities it serves have the resources needed to continue creative learning after their departure. DLG offers a library of virtual tutorials on its website. These resources cover everything from basic sewing techniques to advanced sustainable design practices. The virtual platform ensures that the teaching extends well beyond in-person workshops, allowing anyone to learn or revisit skills at any time.
4. Student-to-Teacher Model: To foster local ownership and sustainable learning, DLG encourages students to become mentors for the next group of participants. As students gain confidence and mastery in their skills, they are invited to guide new learners, passing on knowledge and building a supportive network of community-based instructors among the women. This model creates a ripple effect, empowering individuals to lead and contribute to the ongoing development of their community.
5. Community Engagement and Awareness Events: To raise awareness and celebrate the impact of its programs, DLG, together with its partner Designlab Miami, hosts events like fashion shows and pop-up markets. These events not only display participants' creations, but also serve as platforms for educating the public about sustainable fashion and the positive impacts of DLG's work.
6. Ongoing Feedback & Program Improvement: DLG continuously gathers feedback from participants and partner organizations to improve its offerings. This feedback loop helps refine future workshops, ensuring they remain relevant to community needs and maximize their social and environmental impact. By embedding these practices, DLG effectively creates accessible opportunities for skill-building and economic empowerment in fashion while promoting sustainable, environmentally conscious choices that benefit both individuals and their communities.
DesignlabGive (DLG) workshops and projects create an impactful knowledge-sharing ecosystem for both the fashion industry and its women beneficiaries. By teaching sustainable practices in fashion, DLG offers hands-on workshops that focus on local material exploration and creative solutions to poverty-related challenges. This approach not only equips beneficiaries—often students and community members—with practical skills and environmental awareness but also encourages them to give back by becoming responsible, socially conscious creators. Industry insights and techniques shared within these workshops promote cross-generational learning, fostering a community of sustainability advocates who can drive innovation in the broader fashion sector. Through these efforts, DLG empowers individuals with both the technical skills and the sustainable mindset needed to make positive changes locally and globally.
This initiative is governed through a structured partnership framework that aligns our mutual goals for social impact & sustainability. These include:
1. An Advisory Board- Responsible for setting strategic directions ensuring the nonprofit stays aligned with its mission, and overseeing the ethical and financial integrity of its operations.
2. Operational Leadership- Our Head of Growth at DLG, oversees daily operations, develop and implement programs and coordinate with DesignLab Miami. This leadership works to ensure program quality, community engagement, and adherence to sustainability goals.
3. Shared Resources & Accountability-DesignLab Miami provides resources such as expertise, staff (volunteers) and materials (fabrics, sewing machines, notions, and more) to support DLG's initiatives. Regular meetings and reports are set up to establish and track progress, review budget & allocations, ensuring both entities are accountable to their shared mission.
4. Impact Metrics & Reporting-To maintain transparency & gauge success, DLG measures its impact by keeping track of the number of communities served, educational outcomes, and sustainability milestones. These reports are available to share with supporters and donors to demonstrate effectiveness and reinforce commitments.
5. Community Feedback- Engaging with community partners and participants is essential for governing the initiative effectively. Feedback allows DLG to understand local needs, refine programs, ensure the approach remains relevant and impactful.
To measure the impact of DesignlabGive’s (DLG) initiatives effectively, critical assessments are key in understanding both the immediate and long-term effects of their programs. Here are some areas of impact assessment that DLG employs:
- Skill Development and Knowledge Retention: Assessing participants’ technical skills before and after workshops helps DLG understand how much they have learned. This involves pre- and post-workshop evaluations or practical tests to measure proficiency in areas like sewing, upcycling, and sustainable design. Follow-up assessments a few months later gauge long-term retention and practical application of these skills.
- Community Engagement and Participation: Tracking the number of participants, volunteer engagement, and local partners involved provides insights into the initiative’s reach and community acceptance. High levels of participation, volunteer retention, and repeat collaborations with community organizations indicate positive engagement and sustainable community support.
- Sustainability Practices Adoption: Measuring the extent to which participants adopt sustainable practices after DLG’s programs is critical. This is tracked through surveys or follow-up interviews, asking participants if they’ve continued using local materials, upcycling, or incorporating eco-friendly practices into their work.
- Student-to-Teacher Model Success: DLG’s model of training participants to become mentors for future groups is evaluated by tracking how many graduates return to teach or volunteer. Assessing the quality of peer-led instruction and feedback from new learners helps DLG determine the model’s effectiveness in fostering community-driven learning.
- Economic Empowerment: In programs focused on social enterprise, DLG assesses economic impact by tracking metrics such as income generated from product sales, the number of participants starting small businesses, or the demand for products made with DLG training. Economic surveys can also reveal changes in participants’ ability to support themselves or contribute to their families.
- Utilization of Donated Materials: To understand the ongoing impact of donated materials, DLG checks in with communities to see if the resources are still in use and if they’ve facilitated continued creative projects. These follow-ups help ensure that the materials DLG leaves behind are truly contributing to sustained creative activity.
- Virtual Tutorial Engagement and Feedback: For the free virtual tutorials, DLG tracks website analytics to see how often these resources are accessed and which topics are most popular. Participant feedback on these tutorials provide qualitative insights, allowing DLG to refine online content and ensure it remains useful.
- Social and Environmental Awareness: Assessing shifts in participants’ attitudes toward social responsibility and environmental sustainability can reveal DLG’s influence. This is done through surveys or interviews, asking participants if their understanding or actions regarding social and environmental issues have changed since joining the program.
- Overall Satisfaction and Feedback: Gathering feedback from participants, volunteers, and community partners through surveys or interviews provides critical qualitative data on the program’s effectiveness. This feedback helps DLG understand what’s working, what challenges may exist, and where improvements are needed. By implementing these assessment methods, DLG can gain a holistic understanding of its impact, ensuring it meets its goals of empowering communities through creativity, sustainability, and social responsibility. These insights also allow DLG to make data-driven adjustments to maximize positive outcomes for each community they serve.
DesignlabMiami, a creative studio in North Miami
SDGS & Targets
Goal 1
End poverty in all its forms everywhere
1.1
By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day
1.1.1
Proportion of the population living below the international poverty line by sex, age, employment status and geographical location (urban/rural)
1.2
By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
1.2.1
Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age
1.2.2
Proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
1.3
Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable
1.3.1
Proportion of population covered by social protection floors/systems, by sex, distinguishing children, unemployed persons, older persons, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, newborns, work-injury victims and the poor and the vulnerable
1.4
By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance
1.4.1
Proportion of population living in households with access to basic services
1.4.2
Proportion of total adult population with secure tenure rights to land, (a) with legally recognized documentation, and (b) who perceive their rights to land as secure, by sex and by type of tenure
1.5
By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters
1.5.1
Number of deaths, missing persons and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population
1.5.2
Direct economic loss attributed to disasters in relation to global gross domestic product (GDP)
1.5.3
Number of countries that adopt and implement national disaster risk reduction strategies in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030
1.5.4
Proportion of local governments that adopt and implement local disaster risk reduction strategies in line with national disaster risk reduction strategies
1.a
Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions
1.a.1
Total official development assistance grants from all donors that focus on poverty reduction as a share of the recipient country's gross national income
1.a.2
Proportion of total government spending on essential services (education, health and social protection)
1.b
Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions
1.b.1
Pro-poor public social spending
SDG 14 targets covered
| Name | Description |
|---|
Deliverables & Timeline
Promote Environmental Awareness & Sustainable Practices: Using sustainable materials & eco-friendly techniques
Empower Communities through Skill Development: Hands on skills that generate income, thus alleviate poverty
Build a Network of Socially Responsible Creatives: Knowledge sharing & a volunteer drive program that develops responsibility and social impact
Enhance Global Awareness of Local resources: Using local materials and regional resources in workshops
Resources mobilized
Partnership Progress
Feedback
Action Network
Share
Timeline
Entity
SDGs
Region
- Africa
- Europe
- North America
- Latin America and the Caribbean
- Global
Geographical coverage
Other beneficiaries
The project work of DesignlabGive (DLG) benefits a range of individuals and groups, creating a multi-layered impact that extends beyond immediate participants. Key beneficiaries include:
1. Underserved Community Members: women in economically disadvantaged areas gain access to fashion design and sustainable practices through DLG’s workshops. By learning these skills, participants can explore creative expression, develop practical knowledge, and gain potential pathways to income generation.
2. Youth and Emerging Designers: Young people, especially those who volunteer or participate, benefit from hands-on experiences in teaching, mentorship, and social responsibility. DesignLab Miami students who volunteer with DLG gain real-world experience in giving back, fostering a sense of social responsibility, leadership, and empathy that they carry forward in their careers.
3. Families of Participants: Families of the women that participate in DLG workshops, in underserved communities, may experience secondary economic benefits since a family member is able to create and sell products from skills learned. Additionally, the mothers' engagement in positive, educational activities can contribute to family well-being and pride.
4. Broader Community and Environment: By emphasizing sustainable practices, DLG helps foster a culture of environmental consciousness within communities. The use of local materials, upcycling, and eco-friendly techniques contributes to environmental benefits, encouraging a more sustainable approach to consumption and waste.
5. DesignLab Miami as a Business: DLG’s initiatives support DesignLab Miami’s mission by reinforcing its commitment to social impact. Through this partnership, DesignLab Miami also strengthens its brand as a socially responsible business that educates students not only in design but in the broader impact of their work.
6. The Public through Online Resources: Anyone interested in fashion and sustainability can access DLG’s free virtual tutorials, benefiting from accessible, high-quality educational resources. These tutorials support lifelong learning and spread DLG’s teachings to a wider audience globally. Through these layers of impact, DLG’s project work reaches individuals, families, local organizations, and the public, creating a sustainable model that empowers communities and promotes creativity, economic opportunity, and environmental stewardship.
More information
Countries
Contact Information
Paula Villamizar, Co-founder & Head of Growth