Creative Resilience in Mission-Driven Work
Mission-driven creative work is meaningful, and it’s also relentless. In a time of great uncertainty and a rapidly shifting funding landscape, every organization faces hard moments, whether it’s a budget cut, a tight timeline, high-stakes messaging, or emotionally heavy subject matter. These moments are part of the job, and how leaders prepare for them matters as much as how they respond. Join us for an honest conversation with creative leaders about building healthy team environments and about how designers, including those working solo, can stay connected to their creativity through difficult seasons
SPEAKERS:
Jessica Teal
Jessica recently joined the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation after founding and serving for 18 years as Principal of Teal Media, a creative agency with a conscience. Prior to Teal, Jessica was the Design Manager for the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign where she oversaw all things brand and design. She later took a brief sabbatical from Teal to work at the Obama White House as part of the U.S. Digital Service, where she served as the Head of the Design Community of Practice.
Jessica has been featured in Forbes Magazine as part of the Self-Made Women series. She was also featured in DC Magazine’s Power Player issue, and was selected as “The Top 50 Women Leaders of DC” by Women We Admire. Jessica was also a Founding Member of Chief, a private network built to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there.
Jessica lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Jeff, and two pups, Finnegan and Rascal.
Erin Barnaby
Erin is a communications professional with a background in storytelling, design, and nonprofit work. Throughout her career, she’s been especially interested in how creativity and storytelling can make complex social and systemic issues easier to understand, challenge assumptions, build connection, and imagine new possibilities.
Since joining the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in 2022, Erin has worked across communications, fundraising, and storytelling. She was part of the team that led Amica Center through a renaming and rebranding process, as well as two additional organizational rebranding processes earlier in her career. These projects allowed her to think deeply about how organizations tell their stories, communicate their values, and build stronger connections with their communities.
Before Amica Center, Erin managed communications at Spectrum Youth & Family Services and developed communications strategies for public-sector clients at Resonance, a global development consulting firm. Along the way, she has also taught digital arts, worked in museum communications and digital strategy, created interactive exhibitions, and taught artists and makers to use tools like laser cutters and vector software for CNC routing.
Erin has a Master of Fine Arts in Emergent Media from Champlain College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communications from Endicott College.
Kara Basabe
Kara is the Senior Director at the Creative Studio at the at National Geographic Society.
MODERATOR:
Samuel Adaramola
Samuel Adaramola is a creative director and narrative strategist who has spent the past decade making work for movements and the organizations behind them — Color of Change, Grassroots Law Project, New Voices for Reproductive Justice, Nonprofit Quarterly, Bernie 2020. He co-founded the creative studio Fufu and Grits and now runs Ponder Village, his storytelling and strategy practice. As host, he’s most interested in how mission-driven work actually gets made — the tradeoffs, the collaborators, and what it takes to do it well without burning out.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS:
Design Continuum Fund:
AIGA DC runs the Design Continuum Fund Scholarship,which provides scholarships for underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students who are studying art and design disciplines in colleges and universities in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area. A portion of profit from this event will automatically be routed to this fund. You can see all future AIGA DC events at dc.aiga.org/upcoming-events.
Ticket Info:
Virtual tickets are available for $15.00.
