We were lucky to catch up with Mark Ostrom recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mark, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.

I started a nonprofit! I had worked in commercial interior design for almost 20 years then a stint in furniture sales. Neither paths were stirring my soul until I realized it was kids with limitations that due to no fault of their own, were stuck in spaces that didn’t work for them. Often times the caregiving team is depleted of resources and energy to make meaningful changes on their own. Founding Joy Collaborative is providing me with the soul-filling design-driven purposeful work that I feel I am meant to lead.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I am the Founder and Executive Director of Joy Collaborative. We are a design-driven nonprofit company focused on the creation of spaces for youth with life-limiting conditions. Our nonprofit makes transformations for kids with a medical diagnosis, or who are experiencing homelessness or poverty. Our work is focused on both families and organizations in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area.

Our Joy Rooms are delivered in partnership with contractors, interior designers, architects, graphic designers, and a gazillion product manufacturers and their sales teams. Our projects incur zero costs to our clients through the generous donations of in kind goods and services and financial support by individual donors, grants and corporate sponsors.

We exist to bridge the gap between basic “paint and stickers” designs and full service renovation services. Like a traditional design project, we are after creative design solutions, but in the case of Joy Collaborative, we are looking at solving for daily barriers. When complete, we are providing joy in the form of hope, bravery and a shift in trajectory from the conditions from where we started in a project.

Joy Collaborative provides a space where we can strive for excellence alongside the creative teams, manufacturing partners, and sponsors who are looking for ways to give back. We are blessed in that we get to know our customers on a very personal basis, some of them in very challenging situations.  Seeing them slingshot into new possibilities is rewarding beyond belief.

There is nothing better than seeing the faces of our customers light up on a celebration day and see their wishes and dreams materialized. Every kid, despite their conditions, deserve a space where they can be themselves.

I had no idea when I started that as an early stage company (we are headed into Year #3), that by the end of 2022, our Joy Rooms would scale to be accessible by 5,000 kids in the region!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

There are 6,000 homeless youth on the streets in our cities every night. 1 in 6 kids has a disability. 11% of our kids live in poverty. These are unfortunate figures. However, they are motivating to me as they show the need is vast and design challenges abound. If we do our work right, we can continue to provide spaces of well-being to young people who just want to learn, make friends, and play like everyone else. With continued support, we can do this work across market sectors, and also independently as revenue generating projects that can fuel other Joy Rooms. The structure of a nonprofit also allows us to pull in expert Board members to encourage a progressive and innovative strategy. It’s daunting, challenging, and invigorating.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I’ve always demanded of myself that I stay on the high road. I’ve had a few senior managers who didn’t and I suffered for it. That trauma has been with me for a long time and has become a foundation of my business ethic and a strong reputation. I can genuinely say that I love my clients now and I know they feel that. Our meetings, our agendas, our design processes are fun, and sometimes silly. We have that freedom as we’re not only solving for kids and their wonderful creative requests, but also because the tone of the company is light-hearted balanced by a very serious focus on solving critical problems.

People would likely call a me creative person.  I’ve always felt like I can use my unique energy and way of thinking to be a helper.  Now along with my amazing teams, get to lift kids up in mind, body and spirit, and those impacts have lasting effects.

I know if the design is right when there are smiles around the table—who doesn’t want that?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://joycollaborative.org/
• Instagram: joycollaborative_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joycollaborative.org/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/65549963/admin/
• Twitter: @joycollab
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxDGNymvBcAlu5f4-1U6dew?app=desktop

Image Credits
Dallas Smith and Kathy Jalivay