S1 E27: Avocado for the Soul with Damian Bazadona

During this episode of Why Change? co-hosts Rachael and Jeff connect about Jeff’s interview with Damian Bazadona, founder of The Situation Project in New York City. This nonprofit works to create artistic, educational, and career-aligned cultural experiences using unsold Broadway tickets and extended educational engagements with young people in the city. Rachael and Jeff discuss new views on metrics of success and how to best tell the stories of transformative arts education programs.

In this episode you’ll learn:

  1. How one organization identified a new opportunity and used it to increase access to arts learning;

  2. Why measuring success can spur scalable action in other projects and communities; and 

  3. The ways that representation can impact young people’s views of their future.


Check out some of the things mentioned during this podcast, including:


Please download the transcript here. 

ABOUT DAMIAN BAZADONA

Over the years, Damian has worked with brands worldwide, across a range of industries, to develop and deploy award-winning marketing campaigns. Under his leadership, Situation has been honored with numerous workplace awards from Crain’s, Best Companies Group, Digiday, and Fortune. Cynopsis honored Damian with the Social Good Leader of the Year and HR Visionary of the Year award. Recently, Variety named him to their annual list of industry visionaries in their Digital Marketing Impact Report.

Damian is an active speaker at industry conferences and on university campuses across the country including Columbia, Yale, NYU, and his alma mater, University at Albany. He is also a co-founder of TEDxBroadway, one of the longest-running independently organized TED events.

Damian passionately invests in arts education and community engagement. In 2011, he founded Situation Project, a nonprofit that brings educational programming and immersive artistic and cultural experiences to middle schoolers across under-resourced NYC public schools. Situation Project was honored with an invitation to participate in the White House’s inaugural SouthxSouthLawn in 2016 under the Obama Administration. Damian believes that the power of the human spirit is remarkable, and he brings that conviction to his company and his clients.

WHERE TO FIND DAMIAN:


This episode of Why Change? A Podcast for the Creative Generation was powered by Creative Generation. It was produced and edited by Daniel Stanley. Artwork by Bridget Woodbury. Music by Distant Cousins.