The Participatory
Design Lab

Centering Lived Experience

The Participatory Design Lab is a dedicated space for that missing conversation. We bring together individuals from diverse equity groups to share their lived realities and engage directly with the challenges, gaps, and barriers embedded in programs, policies, and services. Systems are often designed at a distance from the people who navigate them. While policies and strategies are developed with good intentions, the lived reality is frequently very different. The Lab exists to close this gap. We provide a structured space for people from equity groups to share how systems impact their lives, relationships, and opportunities.

What the Lab Makes Possible

For any program, policy, or system to be meaningful, it must reflect the real needs, barriers, and stories of the people it serves. The Participatory Design Lab is a highly efficient tool for ensuring that programs are grounded in reality. It is especially effective during the launch or experimental phase of a program or pilot. It also provides a space for those who want to review existing policies and reflect on emerging patterns. This creates a more democratic process for understanding a challenge in order to respond to it effectively.

We serve as an independent bridge between the community and the institution. Because we operate as an independent party and a nonprofit, we bring a fresh set of eyes to the work. This independence makes us a more trustworthy partner for community members who may feel hesitant to speak directly to a large system.

Our team is trained in trauma-informed approaches, which means we prioritize the emotional safety and dignity of every person in the room. We design our sessions so that participants have agency and control over their stories. This creates a reliable space for learning where the contributions of attendees are deeply appreciated. We see these stories as the essential foundation for making programs and policies truly reflect the people they serve.

How the Lab Works

The Lab is a space for dialogue and discovery. We are here for more than feedback. We are here to understand what systems feel like from the inside, and to learn what needs to shift so people can belong, access support, and move through institutions with dignity.

Intentional Dialogue: We convene circles of people from equity groups to explore specific challenges and systemic issues. Each circle is designed with care, so the conversation stays focused, respectful, and connected to real decisions.

Deep Listening: We create environments grounded in trust and emotional safety, where people can name what often goes unspoken. We listen for where systems break down in practice, where barriers persist, and where lived outcomes differ from institutional intent.

Turning Lived Experience into Direction: We synthesize what we hear and surface the core themes that systems need to face. This shared learning helps organizations strengthen how they design, deliver, and evaluate equity work across their services and systems.

Participatory systems require institutions to listen with humility and respond with action. When systems learn from the people who navigate them every day, change becomes more precise, grounded, and human.

Lighthouse illustration symbolizing deep listening and intentional dialogue in GBA Plus.

The Impact

The Lab helps systems listen differently, so lived experience shapes what changes next. It creates the conditions for people to speak with honesty and safety, and for institutions to hear patterns they often miss.

Gaps Are Identified and Addressed

Overlooked barriers are surfaced and brought into focus. This helps organizations see where harm or exclusion is showing up in practice, and make targeted changes that improve access, experience, and outcomes.

Programs Reflect Real Needs

Systems become more responsive to lived realities rather than assumptions. Design decisions are shaped by what people actually face day to day, which strengthens relevance, trust, and effectiveness.

Participants Are Supported

Contributors gain mentorship, skills, and pathways to influence while shaping more equitable design. Their expertise is recognized, supported, and amplified in ways that extend beyond the Lab and into their own leadership journeys.

post-its that say access to opportunity, hope and care for future