ImpactMS

Social Impact Design Practice

An Atlanta-based design practice building bridges with modern tools so communities can adapt, collaborate, and grow — online and IRL.

Founded by Shawna Chase — solutions design, intelligence systems, and measurement infrastructure for the people inside the system, not just the ones funding it.

Partner on a Project Founder's Story

✓ Mission-led pilots

✓ Cross-sector partnerships

✓ Practical toolkits

The Framework

Social systems fail in patterns. We design the solutions, the intelligence, and the visibility to interrupt them — starting in Atlanta and built to travel.

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Design

The arts carry the skills we need to heal, learn, organize, adapt, and grow together. Design starts there — with the human experience inside the system, not the org chart above it.

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Systems

Twenty years inside complex systems — building, shipping, measuring. The engineering discipline to design solutions that hold weight and move at scale.

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Measurement

Infrastructure that shows what's working, what's reaching people, and what isn't — built for the people inside the system, not just the ones funding it.

The Journey

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I followed the work upstream from projects to root causes and what emerged was a design practice: arts, systems, and measurement as one framework. ImpactMS became the container for what I'm here to build.

ImpactMS began as

a service offering delivering technology and product work. Over time, the work expanded and so did the questions behind it. I kept noticing the same gap: we're surrounded by tools, yet people feel more disconnected. We have culture everywhere, yet access still feels uneven.

The shift...

toward root causes: isolation, access, and practical pathways to participation. So I re-centered the work around what I know best, building usable systems — and what I love most: the arts as a source of connection. That's when the practice became clearer.

Now... (practice + projects)

ImpactMS is a social impact design practice — a container for mission-led initiatives that make participation easier. Livin'in is the first build, with additional layers in development: infrastructure experiments, toolkits, and convenings designed to help partners move from intention to action.

Next… (pilots/partnerships)

We're partnering with funders and community leaders to run focused pilots, publish what we learn, and scale what works. The goal is simple: fewer dead ends, more open doors — so communities can feel the difference.

Ways to Work Together

We design initiatives with measurable outcomes and transparent learnings.

Launch a Community Pilot

Support a 30–90 day initiative in a specific community or partner network — with defined outcomes, simple reporting, and a clear next step for scale.

Explore Pilot

Support Toolkits, Summits, Expos

Sponsor practical resources and convenings that help local leaders implement faster — reducing friction from ideation to execution.

Explore Sponsorship

Back Collaboration

Fund cross-sector sprints that align arts + civic + tech partners around shared outcomes — so collaboration leads to pilots, not just conversations.

Explore Partnership

Let's build something that communities can feel.

If you're a funder, partner, or host looking for a mission-led approach to strengthening community programming and access — let's talk.

Start a conversation See the work