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Designers for Learning’s History

Designers for Learning was founded in August of 2014 with a charitable purpose to provide instructional design support to underserved social needs through service learning. From 2014 to 2019, Designers for Learning engaged instructional designers in our 100% virtual professional development courses and real-world service projects in both small cohorts and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to gain instructional design experience and provide learning and performance improvement solutions to the social impact sector. Over this time, participants created, implemented, and evaluated learning and performance improvement solutions customized to the needs of mission-driven organizations. These efforts included the design of learning experiences, the development of educational resources, and the use of instructional technologies to help nonprofits achieve their purpose. Over 4,000 people volunteered with us to gain instructional design experience while creating solutions crucial to the success of a variety of social enterprises. In other words, our participants gained experience for good!

Our service-learning projects involved college students, their faculty sponsors, and other instructional design and subject-matter experts. Our first volunteer service-learners designed and developed open educational resources for the adult basic education program at Grace Centers of Hope, a nonprofit based in Pontiac, MI that provides General Educational Development (GED) test preparation for homeless individuals who have not graduated from high school. We then expanded on this work within large-scale open service-MOOCs (massive open online courses) starting in 2016. Through the efforts of our participants, we’ve built a large repository of free lesson plans and associated open educational resources (OER) for adult educators and their students that are aligned to the College and Career Readiness Standards (see our Adult Learning Zone on OER Commons).

In 2017, we began offering reduced-fee professional development courses for those interested in building their instructional design skills. All proceeds of these fee-based courses supported Designers for Learning’s nonprofit mission. In addition to these opportunities, we also designed and facilitated service-learning projects to target specific identified needs.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator style=”double” el_width=”70″][vc_column_text]

Designers for Learning’s Mission

Designers for Learning (EIN: 47-1639401) is organized as a nonprofit corporation in the State of Illinois, and operates exclusively for charitable purposes in accordance with section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. We envision a world where all organizations in the social impact sector have access to high-quality learning and performance improvement services to realize their goals. Our mission is to provide service-learning opportunities for instructional designers to help nonprofit organizations create the solutions necessary for effecting positive change.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1420″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_shadow” img_link=”http://www.ilsos.gov/corporatellc/”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=”double” el_width=”70″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Our Motivation

Few nonprofit organizations have resources to create the needed learning and performance improvement solutions crucial to achieving their missions. There is an enormous opportunity for the instructional design community to offer our expertise to help this underserved need while providing real-world experience to designers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Our Two Aims

1. To provide nonprofit organizations with high-quality learning and performance improvement services to realize their goals.
2. To provide instructional designers and others with service-learning experiences to develop their skills and positively impact others.

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Our Core Values

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Service

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We support the charitable missions of the nonprofit sector through our facilitation of service-learning experiences, community engagement, and collective action efforts.

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Impact

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Our work is results-oriented and focused on the needs of our service-learning participants, our nonprofit clients, and the communities served.

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Transparency

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We operate in a way that makes it possible for others to see our actions and impact, and to demonstrate our purpose as a charitable organization serving the public interest.

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