People - Co-Design Institute

The People

The power of co-design comes from the power of people. Our bench of utility players brings their depth of expertise across co-design, community engagement, lobbying, communications and project management to your work to support you where you need it.

We put the people in people power.

Meet The People Behind Co-Design

Samuel Martin

General Manager

Meet Sam

Samuel’s journey through advocacy has led him to working with government administrations, corporations, and non-profit organizations to develop legislation and policies that positively impact the lives of his community.

An alumni of care, he has worked on legislative agenda setting and advocacy with organizations like Casey Family Programs, Foster Club, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), and Foster Care Alumni of America (FCAA). He is also an experienced lobbyist, trainer, and public speaker, having been featured as a speaker and facilitator for organizations like Treehouse, Community for Youth, and City Year.

With a combined 15 years of community engagement experience, Samuel is committed to tapping into the power of experience to elevate the voices of those impacted by policy and empower them to use their voice to advocate and lead. He engages a wide variety of audiences with positive intent and impact.

Samuel has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Washington – Seattle Campus and a Master’s in Public Administration at Seattle University.

He lives in Seattle and in his free time enjoys playing video games and watching classic Japanese anime. He also loves spending time with his 2 nieces and his nephew Maddie, Mason, and Zoe.

Rachel Grubb

Co-Design Specialist

Meet Rachel

Rachel gained a passion for advocacy working with individuals with developmental disabilities and through serving patients and families as a care coordinator in the non-profit health care setting. She strives to serve others as a compassionate advocate for positive and equitable change in communities. Her goal is to help develop connections to community resources for crisis prevention, stabilization, and community building. Rachel earned a bachelor’s degree in Applied Psychology and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Social Work at Eastern Washington University. A military brat born in the Philippines and raised abroad in Japan, Rachel now calls the Inland and Pacific Northwest her home. She enjoys backpacking, hiking, camping, and fishing. When she is not exploring the wild, you can find her listening to vinyl records and enjoying a glass of wine as she crafts, creates, and celebrates the day to day with her husband and their cat.

Ginny Engholm

Marketing & Communications

Meet Ginny

Ginny Engholm grew up in rural Mississippi and Alabama but calls Baton Rouge home now. And she loves story. Of any type. She’s a proud book nerd, a committed film freak, and a rabid TV junkie. And while she loves all genres, her favorite stories often exist somewhere in the realm of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi and almost always feature complex, flawed, charismatic female leads.

Ginny thought for many years this meant she was destined to be an English professor. But after earning her Ph.D. in American literature and being an English professor for 15 years, she found herself wanting to harness the power of stories for good.

So Ginny made a career change to marketing, where she’s been rewarded with meaningful work telling the stories of nonprofits and other people doing good in the world. After working at a marketing agency and seeing the challenges nonprofits and other mission-oriented organizations faced firsthand, she decided to launch For Good Content, a nonprofit marketing firm committed to helping people harness the power of content for good.

At the Co-Design Institute, Ginny and the CDI team use the principles and methodology of co-design to radically transform marketing and communications. From branding to website design to communication campaigns and everything in between, we put lived experts at the center of our communications work.

Let's Chat

Want to learn more about co-design or interested in working with us to make a difference?

Reach Out