Gensler Gives Back: Community Impact in 2020

5 min readDec 10, 2020

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Podcast guests: (Top left) Gail Malone (AT), Elaine Asal (BT), Tyler Miller (BT), Kathleen Jordan (NC), Stephanie Bauman (NC), (Middle left) Bonny Slater (DC), Diana Farmer-Gonzalez (MI), Jorge Bernal (MI), Ryan Glick (PH), Lindsey Breitschwerdt (RL), (Bottom left) Kari Ann Stamatoplos (TM), Noel Keesee (TM), Kathleen Carey (FW) Host: Brandon Larcom

As we enter the holiday season in this exceptionally challenging year, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for your continued readership and listenership. This podcast continues to grow because of you. Thank you! And if you’ve enjoyed listening to our episodes, please rate and review us wherever you listen. These small actions make a big impact in helping us grow and continue to deliver exceptional content on this platform.

*Gensler Baltimore’s Design for Distancing Project at Station North in Baltimore, MD* © Gensler

We also wanted to take a moment to highlight the impactful work some of our offices have done to give back during this unprecedented year. In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Community Impact champions in each of our eight offices in Gensler’s Southeast region. Moderating the conversations is our host Brandon Larcom, global product development leader at Gensler. You’ll also hear from a new voice at the top of our episode — our Firmwide Community Impact leader Kathleen Carey. From her home office in New York, she is responsible for the firm’s worldwide community engagement efforts including the volunteer, pro-bono, and philanthropic work that aims to make an impact in some of the biggest issues facing cities today.

Global Impact, Local Roots

Early in the pandemic, Gensler co-CEO Diane Hoskins said:

“In this time of humanitarian crisis around the world, we need to double down on our Community Impact efforts.”

Almost immediately, many of our colleagues took that advice as a personal call to action. As we all adapted to a new world, our community impact efforts evolved along with us. Pro bono and volunteer initiatives typically completed in person were reimagined so that we could still come together despite being apart. And in the future, our firm’s community impact mission will continue to evolve as the people, communities, and problems they face evolve as well.

*Members of Gensler DC’s Community 2 Studio painting a mural for Community of Hope in Washington, D.C.*

From Philadelphia all the way down the southeast coast to Miami, we’ll hear stories from each of our region’s eight offices of how they’ve made an impact in their communities. Though each story is unique and fulfills a different need, there’s an overarching theme across all the projects that speaks to a unified approach: empathy. When we truly listen to the needs of others and put ourselves in their shoes, we can develop a deeper understanding of the matter at hand and what actions we can take to provide help in a way that better serves those organizations, neighborhoods, and individuals in need. This approach is exactly what makes each of these projects so impactful.

Design for Distancing

At Gensler Baltimore, the Design for Distancing challenge — organized by the City of Baltimore, the Neighborhood Design Center, Baltimore Development Corporation, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — called on the city’s design and public health communities to scope, develop, and implement interventions to reactivate its main streets and arts districts.

Through the competition, Gensler partnered with the Station North Arts District and Central Baltimore Partnership. The collaborative team, including Mayson-Dixon Companies, QWRK, Ornamental Nature, Guppy Management Services, and B+B Lab reimagined the 1700 block of Charles Street and North Avenue to create healthy and safe spaces where local businesses can thrive once again. The design gives small businesses the means to operate outdoors, and to do so safely in environments that lend themselves naturally to social distancing. Built on 20 volunteers’ commitment to show up in person and sweat through more than 630 hours of work, the Design for Distancing interventions provide tangible economic viability during a crisis, preventing the loss of an entire generation of small business in Baltimore.

We all can identify aspects of the “culture” of our workplace. Descriptions such as “hard-charging,” “laid back,” or “entrepreneurial” may come to mind. But beyond these general descriptors, almost all companies’ cultures contain some component of community outreach. Community impact work extends beyond people’s day-to-day job responsibilities and helps fulfill the fundamental human need that our work has meaning and purpose. Working for others who may be less fortunate provides a focal point during the challenging re-opening process and will strengthen a company’s culture long after this crisis passes. Although the new workplace may look and feel very different from the one we left, no re-opening plan is complete without community impact’s potential to demonstrate positive and long-lasting benefits on our workforce and our culture.

We hope you enjoy hearing from our offices, and we hope this episode encourages you or your organization to find ways you can give back or continue giving back in the year ahead.