Insight Labs

Insight Labs was a nonprofit organization I founded to produce strategic insights into organizations' core problems. The format was built on a counterintuitive premise: breakthroughs come not from the most knowledgeable experts, but from talented, creative, generous individuals who have never thought about a problem before.

After several pro bono sessions for Chicago nonprofits held in partnership with Manifest Digital, I developed Insight Labs into a formal nonprofit with Jim Jacoby, Howell Malham Jr., and Andrew Benedict-Nelson. Soon we were holding Labs every month with some of the most prominent institutions in the United States.

Over five years, we held more than 50 Insight Labs in 15 cities across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Rwanda. More than 600 thinkers from every background imaginable shared their time and talents to help organizations take on difficult problems.

The organization disbanded in 2014. This archive, created with Andrew Benedict-Nelson, documents this work: a record of all Labs, the organizations that participated, the principal questions addressed, and outcomes where relevant. It also honors the hundreds of thinkers who made these sessions possible—and to whom I remain grateful.

International & Human Rights

• U.S. Department of State + Community of Democracies

• Kigali Genocide Memorial + Aegis Trust

• U.S. Department of State + Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

• U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Government & Public Policy

• NASA Langley Research Center

• National Endowment for the Arts + Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

• Illinois Commerce Commission

• Illinois Student Assistance Commission

Health & Medicine

• Harvard Medical School + Family Van + Mobile Health Clinics Association

• Children's Memorial Hospital

• American Parkinson Disease Association Young Onset Center

• Medical Intelligence

Higher Education & Research

• USC School of Social Work

• School of Visual Arts

• Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education

• University of Illinois Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership

Philanthropy & Social Enterprise

• Ashoka

• Echoing Green

• TED

• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

• SOCAP

• Boeing Global Corporate Citizenship

• UX for Good

Business & Professional

• Starbucks

• Cannon Design

• Law 2023

• Akina + Generation Generosity

• Illinois Chamber of Commerce

• Professional Convention Management Association

• Executives Breakfast Club of Oak Brook

Arts, Culture & Media

• GRAMMY Foundation + MusiCares + New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation

• West Collection

• Chicago Public Media

• The Creative Coalition

• Illinois Humanities Council + Indiana Humanities Council

• Chicago Sinfonietta

• Fifth House Ensemble

• League of Chicago Theatres

• Silk Road Theatre Project

• Genesis at the Crossroads

Education (K-12 & Youth)

• 826 Chicago

• Academy for Global Citizenship

• North South Foundation

Civic & Community

• One D

• YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago

• World Sport Chicago

• Foundations of East Chicago

• Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory

• Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Foundation

• Union League Boys and Girls Clubs

• Jewish Child and Family Services

• Our Time