SCHOOL NEEDS RETHINKING.
THE RETHINKERS NEED INSPIRATION.
Buckminster Fuller and students hanging from the geodesic dome at Black Mountain College (a ‘22-23 Inspiration Project guest)
OUR WORK IN 2024-2025
The Inspiration Project was founded in 2020 to help the leaders trying to rethink education find inspiration in unfamiliar places. Since then, we have hosted immersive experiences and fellowships that offered windows into some of the most innovative learning environments across the globe and created space for hundreds of people to consider what it sparked for their own work.
We have been humbled to see the ripple effects of these small but mighty spaces. Over time, we realized that many participants were not just seeking a dose of inspiration but also the opportunity to strengthen their "inspiration muscle"— either learning to draw insights from diverse sources to fuel innovation, or even to use our methods to share their own work in more compelling and actionable ways.
For this coming year, we’re taking a pause from our signature virtual series to collaborate more deeply with those leaders. We’re piloting 3-4 month engagements with social impact organizations that fit into one of two profiles:
PROFILE 1:
Organizations that are tackling a big question or establishing a vision and want to use inspiration as a way to push and clarify their team’s thinking.
For example: Good Reason Houston is working to expand high quality early-childhood in their city and wanted to gather a coalition of leaders to answer the question, “what are the ingredients of excellent “Pre-K?” We partnered with them to design custom artifacts and a two-day “field trip” to explore places in the city where our littlest students encounter unforgettable learning.
PROFILE 2:
Organizations that have a powerful and unique approach that others can learn from; but who have yet to figure out how to effectively capture and share it.
For example: A school in New England has a long history of crafting high school course catalogue that blow the minds of students and visitors alike. But behind the catching titles is deep intentionality about what makes a class worth teaching. They partnered with us to make a beautiful, but simple tool to make that meta explicit and available to anyone trying to learn from their work.
We are actively looking for two additional organizations to partner with, starting in January - March 2025.
We are looking for groups who fit into either of the two profiles above and who: 1) have a discrete need or opportunity that we could uniquely support and 2) have the time and team capacity to work in partnership with us to in the coming months. We have secured philanthropic support to supplement or cover our spring work, so we are prioritizing groups doing important work but who otherwise might not be able to resource this project. If you think you might be a fit or know of another group we should partner with, let us know!
EXPLORE OUR PAST WORK
Our virtual “field trips” have offered bite-sized access to diverse, inspiring organizations, each of helped educators explore the pressing questions coming up in their work — from what it looks ike to truly operate in partnership with families, to the ways we can reframe disability in our schools, to understanding the power of play regardless of age.
ABOUT US
The Inspiration Project is collaborative project brought to you by Brittany Erickson, Christina Jenkins, Marielle Narcisa, and Rob Strain. Learn more our team here.
We are an initiative of Franklin Street Studio, a learning design firm based in Denver, CO — and fiscally sponsored by Cambiar Education.
Our 2024-2025 work is generously supported by Margulf Foundation, who has been a steadfast believer in the power of inspiration to transform education.