Hi friend,

How are you??

I have so much on my mind to tell you and here I am, SCRAMBLING in the eleventh hour to deliver the April Issue Space Letter while my calendar laughs in my face. Did we always used to do so many things in a day?? It feels nuts.

Also — have you ever done Pilates?

Let me back it up a bit...

The other day I was somewhere between genuinely enjoying and straight up trying to survive an evening Pilates class when I zeroed in on something the instructor said again and again:

“Find yours.”

As in — “Find your position.” “Find your breath.” “Find your flow.” Find yours.

If you’ve been in yoga, Pilates, or other bodywork spaces, you’ll recognize the framing. It’s a way of being guided that basically says, “Look. We’re all going to try this thing together, but we know out the gate that the execution is not going to be exactly the same for any two of us. So don’t even worry about that. Just find your own way.”

It makes so much sense. I just wish we got that reminder in more than Pilates. 🥲

Because let me tell you — the way the upturned world of social impact is colliding with the choose-your-own-adventure energy of 2020s career-building? That Pilates-approved, ‘find your own path’ ethos will not be optional. 

The less clear the roadmap, the more essential it becomes to know how to follow your own sense of direction.

Some of you may know my work story (or can read it in the tea leaves of my LinkedIn) — I’ve had a fairly twisty career. I’ve traveled from entertainment to impact, agency to independent work, B-Corp to nonprofit organizations. 

The throughline, of course, is me. I can see — feel — how my story makes sense for who I am, how I’m driven, and where I’m gifted, and I can hold fast to that assurance when the work-world around me has completely flipped the script. 

It’s not as though my trajectory was always crystal clear, and I’m not implying that we should pretend to be clairvoyant when life — and work — paths make so much more sense in retrospect. 

But it is about another kind of clarity. Specifically, the relative calm and focus that a strong sense of intuition and self-knowledge can bring when searching for work that captures your values and your worldview. And after a year like 2025, I think it’s vital for those of us in a space as volatile as social impact to know which moves will suit our unique professional offerings best — even if some of the moves we make are unexpected.

And for that, there really is no substitute for your own gut.

Here’s when and why I’ve learned to trust mine:

Let’s hear it for the sensitive souls. The noticers, the questioners, the empaths — honestly, probably most of us who are drawn into work as humane and evocative as social change.

But the cruel irony of being gifted with a sight and sense that others lack? 

Other people literally don’t know what you’re talking about. 🙃

Where you see a pattern, a foreshadowing, a tension, an opportunity, others see…well, I don’t really know. Nothing? The status quo? But it’s usually not what you’re picking up.

I feel like the leaders, forecasters, and entrepreneurs especially will back me up on this — it’s important to make peace with the fact that what you see as an exciting new frontier for purposeful work may not always be affirmed by the masses, or really anyone, right away. But that alone isn’t proof you can’t trust it.

This idea can feel scary when we're talking about work, where, if you’re lucky enough to choose what work you do at all, your livelihood becomes tied to the bets you take. Will a certain sector, practice, program, or business model stand the test of time? We don’t know, and that’s stressful, on top of the other stress our sector can bring.

But consider the alternative. Not trusting. Not experimenting. Not moving. I can remember plenty of times I had an instinct that was minimized by other voices in a room, only to have that same thing appear in vivid color later, this time with enthusiastic participants and the ‘right’ validators. (And actually, sometimes the minimizers and participators were the same people.) 

In the instances where I let my insecurity drown out my instinct, the only thing that changed was that I got left behind in a direction that I myself had spotted. So I don’t let that happen anymore.

All this is to say — if it speaks to you, it kind of only has to speak to you. 

Do your homework, but also think about making a move. Before you know it, the masses might move, too.

Have you noticed how much we love jargon in this work? One day, you’re just trying to make a positive difference, and before you know it, you’re saying impact-community-movement-change on an endless loop. While holding space and meeting people where they are, of course. In solidarity.

I joke (and am deeply guilty of participating in this jargon parade), but the truth is that this work of ‘making the world a better place’ is hard to talk about without getting a little fluffy. Human language is so limited. Mass media even more so.

Why does this matter? Because even as ‘insiders’ working for the same kinds of positive change, we talk past each other all the time. I suspect without even realizing it.

My “impact” may not be your impact. My “community” may not be your community (that one can hurt). My “progress”, “allyship”, “empowerment”, and “transformation” may all be entirely different from what you envision when you hear the same things.

Collectively, those disconnects can cost us when we lack aligned platforms and strategies; that’s bad enough. But more personally — while it may not feel crucial to hone an individual understanding of every idea in our space, the reality is that each of us is a person, not an ideology. We have our own perceptions, motivations, boundaries, histories, and goals. And what each of us sees as the most meaningful, optimal, and personally-aligned versions of the words we all toss around is ultimately going to affect whether we arrive in a given purpose-driven space, scene, or organization and feel like we fit in. 

There are, as ever, multiple things that are true:

We need to work with enough shared definitions, evidence-based approaches, and consistent applications to be effective, transparent, and ethical as a whole — and, within the vast landscape of how that work takes shape, we each need to find the spaces where we feel enough belonging to bring our most inspired ideas to the table, build connections that can help our cause, and stay personally motivated for the long haul.

I have worked with folks who turn up their noses at working on corporate purpose, and others who run toward major brands to help drive change. I have swapped points-of-view with people who won’t humor a campaign brief that’s not attached to hardline KPIs, and others who are just fine with the ambiguity of hard-to-evaluate change.

Because they each know who they are, they can go toward where they belong.

You deserve to, too.

I recently shared some reflections about my biggest career pivot to date, going from the music industry to social impact. (It was actually originally part of an interview series from Zocalo founder Kimberly Aguilera; if you want a window into her first-hand insights on the world of impact work, peek back at our recent text exchange in “A Work Thing”!)

It’s one thing to make career moves strategically, like the folks who’ve had the foresight to go, ‘Gee, maybe I should get into AI.’

But it’s another thing to evolve your profession because you are evolving. It’s less cunning, more leap-of-faith-ish. Especially when what you’re leaping toward — perhaps an exploration of what purpose-driven work looks like for you — is a tangle of interdependencies and best-laid-plans.

Even so. 

I truly believe that the callings we feel are there because the world needs them. Yours might be steering you toward a job, or a venture, a passion project, or a piece of art. I think the world needs these outputs from you. Your offering. Your purpose.

Find yours.

I’ll say it again — we are so lucky to live in a time and a place where what we do for living is a fate in which we get even some say (though, in a job market like this one, I can appreciate that it doesn’t always feel that way). My humble advice — if you get a ping to pursue a certain pivot that would change your career trajectory and maybe your life, greet it with openness, curiosity, and faith. Thank your subconscious, even, for showing you what really matters to you. Because I do not think you’re feeling it on accident. And I do not think it’ll abandon you wherever your work takes you.

—

You guys.

Thank you for being on this journey with me as I explore the intersection of work and life, personal purpose and public interest. I am rooting for us all. I am thinking of you always. And I’m proud to be part of a generation who cares, and tries.

We’ll get there. Wherever that is for each of us.

In community (my version, anyway 😉),

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Hey, friends!

If you’ve ever attended an Issue Space event, there’s a good chance you’ve run into Joshua Murphy, creative impact strategist extraordinaire.

Impact work decision-makers love Josh because of his keen sense of where culture meets opportunities for impact — did I mention he’s the creator of Gucci’s long-running Changemakers program for inclusion in the fashion industry?

I love Josh because he’s as humble, kind-hearted, and good-natured as he is brilliant and committed to positive work.

Recently, Josh told me everything about his new venture, Oliver, a digital companion designed to help creative dreamers and doers get 👏🏾 things 👏🏾 done.👏🏾 I found his insights about Oliver to be a refreshing account of what tech looks like when it’s designed around bringing out our best.

Read my chat with Josh below, and don’t miss his pearls of wisdom, from one humanitarian creative soul to another.

(Cat Addo) Josh! This is so exciting. First, give us the intro — how do you describe yourself as a purpose-driven professional?

(Joshua Murphy) I would describe myself as a creative impact strategist. Most of my career has been spent in philanthropy with the Rockefeller Foundation and leading the design and execution of Gucci’s North America impact work, Gucci Changemakers.

I've built initiatives from scratch, designed leading communications platforms, and used the power of culture and art to shift systems and empower grassroots communities. It's work that feels deeply important to me, especially during this time as we have to lean on the community more and more to sustain ourselves and dream of a better future than what we see and experience around us right now. 

What — or who — is Oliver, and what inspired you to start it?

Oliver is a creative companion who helps guide anyone in their everyday creative endeavors. Oliver helps frame your goals, navigate roadblocks, and guide you as you go back and forth between strategy and execution. Most importantly, he does this based on your creative fingerprint.

This vision started almost five years ago with a simple idea of how I could help ordinary people start and finish a creative project, even when they get stuck or fall off the track.

You're a creative strategist, and Oliver is devoted to helping people understand and, for lack of a better word, optimize their creativity. Why did it feel important to measure and support creativity specifically? 

This felt important to me because I truly believe creativity is innate — everyone has creative talent, even if it's unrealized. Most people think of creativity as something only artistic people have — for example, someone who paints or designs — but in reality, we are all creative. Creativity is very much part of how we go about our day-to-day lives. It's researching and writing a paper, or brainstorming ideas at work or with friends, or planning your birthday party. It's about having a vision for something, mapping out goals and outcomes, then setting out to do it. 

And that was the question or challenge that has guided this work — not only how do we measure creativity, but what is the creative process that we all go through in any given project? And we define the creative process as 7 stages: brainstorm, exploration, visualization, prototyping, reevaluation, review, and share. Each person has a dominant creative trait, but in reality, we all cycle through all of them, often not sequentially. 

What do you think is the significance of having – or lacking – a strong creative practice in social impact or purpose-driven business? 

It's so important to see creativity as a multidisciplinary strategy. Creativity is about asking the right questions; using the power of culture and diversity to shape initiatives; using storytelling to engage different communities; and, yes, using art and design to shape solutions to unique challenges.

Everyone has a role to play in using creativity to innovate and solve problems. Creativity is simply about putting ideas into practice. Companies and organizations that use this framing are more innovative and can see new opportunities that didn't exist before. And that might be the most important advantage of creative impact: being able to imagine a future that doesn't yet exist, but should. 

—

There’s a LOT more good stuff in my interview with Josh. Read the full Q&A and how to explore Oliver here.

You guys remember Something Sweet, our most beloved memories from work in social impact. But this is a space for a little spice. 🌶️🔥

Unpopular Opinions capture your takes on how our sector could be better. As you let it out, we call folks in to reflecting on what matters.

This month’s take is from a researcher who wants to see more investment and less assumption when it comes to serving communities:

I love the heart of this take, which, as an ‘upstream’ social impact worker, I recognize as ruthlessly honest. There can be huuuuge distances between the people directing plans and resources and folks meant to benefit from those decisions. “Lived experience” is a buzzy phrase that doesn’t always make it into itemized budgets the way Brittany recommends.

What’s your reaction to this take? Do you see the assumption-instead-of-investment dynamic play out where you work? Have you had any success advocating for the research you need to really know who you’re serving?

We’d love to hear from you — you can share your own unpopular opinion about this or other pain points in impact work here.

💌 Are you on the mailing list to receive this letter? If not, sign up here.

🎧 Hear the Issue Space podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and these streaming platforms. We feature diverse social impact pros on the lived experience of social change work.

🤝 Wanna team up on events or content? Brands, organizations, or other entrepreneurs who might connect with our community can send partnership inquiries to [email protected].

🗣️  Have an insight about life in the business of impact or an idea for the Space? We’d love to hear from you! Send a message on Signal at @issuespace.24, or email us at [email protected].

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