Sappi Fine Paper North America’s 2012 Ideas that Matter competition is an innovative annual grant program that provides monetary support to produce the creative ideas of designers working for social good. Through this program, Sappi aims to inspire others to contemplate “the greater good” by financially supporting the meaningful ideas behind the aesthetics of design.
More than a decade ago Sappi established the Ideas that Matter grant program to recognize and support designers who donate their time and talent to create communications materials for a wide range of charitable activities. Ideas that Matter judges are given the task of evaluating each proposal on creativity, potential effectiveness and practicality of the implementation plan. Sappi takes pride in selecting judges who recognize the role that good design plays in inspiring people to take action. This year’s panel is comprised of design leaders who are widely recognized not only for their award-winning work, but also for their leadership in design for social good: Rich Hollant, Principal/Design Director at co:lab inc., Hartford, CT; Sam Shelton, Principal/Designer, Kinetic, Washington, DC; Mariana Amatullo, Vice President, Designmatters Department, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA; Mike Weikert, Partner at Weikert Design, Baltimore, MD; and Tracy West, Creative Director, 50,000feet.
For the University of Hartford, diversity of every sort is integral to its academic mission, along with connections to local, national, and global communities. In keeping with this philosophy, Professor Natacha Poggio started Design Global Change.
Ideas that Matter remains the only grant program of its kind in the design industry. Since commencing the program in 1999, Sappi has awarded more than $12 million in grants worldwide to designers who are performing pro-bono work for non-profit organizations. Grants support projects designed to enhance lives and positively impact society across a wide range of issues, reflecting concerns and needs of the communities that designers live in and care about most.
The AED Center for Social Marketing and Behavior Chance (CSMBC) fuses the best strategies of commercial marketing with behavioral science, psychology, anthropology, and sociology to increase the effective participation of people in social change programs.
Last year, Bao Design Lab received a substantial grant for the implementation of Project Dose (see below, bottom), a program which addresses the issue of improper medication delivery affecting millions of sick children in developing countries. Its project, in collaboration with Ugandan partner Technology for Tomorrow, used a prototype-based system to enable nurses, pharmacists, and parents to safely and reliably divide and re-package adult tablets into smaller doses for children. As a result, the project is providing children with the dosage they need to stay protected from life-threatening diseases such as malaria and HIV infection.
The mission of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center is to eliminate cancer through programs that integrate patient care, research and prevention, and education for undergraduate and graduate students, trainees, professionals, employees, and the public.
Grant awards range from $5,000 to $50,000 per project and may be used to cover implementation and out-of-pocket costs. Applications for this year’s Ideas that Matter program must be postmarked by July 20, 2012. The winners will be announced in September.
To obtain an entry form and for more information about Ideas that Matter, visit www.sappi.com/ideasthatmatterNA or call 800-882-4332.
Bao Design Lab is a nonprofit consultancy that uses design to improve the well-being of people in parts of the world where resources are scarce. For the past year and a half, Bao has been working with Ugandan partner Technology for Tomorrow (T4T) to address the widespread problem of improper medication delivery to millions of sick children in developing countries.