ABOUT

Mollie Ruskin is a technologist, designer, artist and organizer ever aspiring to apply the tools of her trade to make meaningful dent in building a just and free society.

Working to build inclusive teams and kickstart new social change initiatives, she has led exercises in design, product strategy, and facilitation in service of rich exploring and improving complex systems and programs. Her work is grounded in activist roots, shaped by a social justice ethos, with a rich background in issues of racial justice, voting rights, immigration, environmental justice and people-centered government programs.

Mollie is currently co-founder and Partner at Trestle Collaborative, a non-profit strengthening social movement technology.

Previously, she was a co-founder of the U.S. Digital Service, a Presidential Innovation Fellow in the Obama administration, and an independent designer, strategist and facilitator working with partners such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Higher Ground Labs, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Color of Change and Democracy Works.

Background

Switching to first person, because one can only speak about themselves in third person for so long.

Early years as an organizer shaped my appreciation for how movements and campaigns can build power and affect change. My time in the federal government equipped me with a unique understanding of how public policy and programs are designed and executed. Collaboration with philanthropy has informed how I understand movements must sustain themselves in vision and action.

I have specialized in working in the early stages of high-impact public-interest civic and social change projects, building and leading small cross-disciplinary teams, establishing design direction and product plan to launch and prototypes new ideas grounded in iterative user research.

I spent much of my career working to push the potential of design as a powerful set of tools for making change, and encouraging designers toward social change work. To this end, I co-founded Design Gigs for Good, a job board for designers looking to put their skills to work for world betterment. I am a board member at the Alliance for Youth Organizing, a member of South Brooklyn Mutual Aid and an advisor for GivingSide.

To all these broad structural challenge, I believe in bringing a little light to all this hard work. Craft, community, and humor remain things I always try to make space for. I'm pretty keen on road trips, french fries, rooftops and art.