Our Public Benefit Commitment

Echo&Co is a human-centered design and development company that applies digital technology to promote social and environmental wellbeing for people and communities around the world. In our work, we:

• Design and build digital technologies that enable organizations in the public and social sectors, as well as social ventures, to expand the reach and scale of their work.
• Support staff within these organizations to develop internal expertise and practices in human-centered design and product development, so they can better use modern technologies to benefit the people they serve.
• Create opportunities for people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, women, and others who are underrepresented in digital technology disciplines to inclusively and equitably train, work, and excel in human-centered design and product development roles within our company, our partner and client organizations, and our field.

We share our talents and time with civic and social leaders working to apply digital technology as a powerful force for good.

Our Approach

We are an advisor and resource to the social sector on developing leadership, advancing learning, and committing resources so that human centered design and development is applied as a powerful force for social change. This work is rooted in a deep understanding of the economic, organizational, and social challenges and opportunities that continue to shape our field.

We empower some of the most talented digital leaders within nonprofits, foundations, and socially driven companies to use design thinking to tackle the “hard problems” and build user-centric approaches that transform organizations and the communities they serve. Our focus equally balances innovation and maintenance and creates meaningful structures within organizations to lead both aspects of the work. Our clients share a common desire to think differently about how they design communication, products, programs, services, and campaigns.

We are committed to equity, inclusion, and excellence in service — we work with our clients to unlock a culture of mentorship and co-creation driven by inclusive learning and sharing. We create innovation spaces and incubate ideas. We bring the best user experience, design thinking, theory of change, and digital product research and development methods to every engagement and use our ability to continually learn from our relationships, experiences, and field as the foundation for our growth. 

We remain focused on the future — we seek out and collaborate with leaders in social innovation and digital technology so we can work together to shape the future of social and civic tech. We make connections among pioneers, researchers, builders, and funders. We help large organizations become agile and small organizations scale. Our team actively speaks, writes, and teaches on social innovation, design thinking, user experience, and digital product development and collaborates with top thought leaders in the field.

Our History

When our founders first imagined a new company, they knew they liked robots and wanted to harness the power of digital for driving social change. They met while working on Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign and later moved from Vermont to Washington, D.C., where they conceived of and launched EchoDitto in 2004.

A decade passed and the digital technology landscape changed dramatically. So did Echo.

Our CEO, Nicco Mele, moved to Boston and joined the faculty of Harvard University in the Kennedy School of Government, feeling strongly called to academic work. He opened a Boston office for Echo, which today is located in Davis Square. 

In 2014, Nicco published The End of Big, a study of how the radical connectivity of the internet is undermining the power of large institutions and driving our world into a new kind of future. He drew from 10 years of experience helping Echo clients use digital technology to improve the democratic relationship between citizens and the institutions and agencies who serve them. 

During Echo’s nascent years, our future leaders were among the first professionals helping shape the emerging fields of user experience (UX), content strategy, and open-source product development. They were gaining expertise leading commercial brands, media institutions, institutes of higher education, government agencies, and nonprofits in tackling immense governance, design, and technology challenges — all the while being called to apply their expertise for social good. Several of them, in addition to working in leading UX, design, and technology agencies, left agency life to lead digital work and teams within nonprofit organizations.

Graziella Jackson was one of them. The new future of Echo began to emerge in 2012, when Graziella left digital consulting to head up digital for a national environmental advocacy nonprofit. A journalist who left that field in the early 2000s before studying the convergence of culture and technology at Georgetown University, she believed investing in social impact leaders and technology was our best hope for solving the world’s most critical social issues — but that the technology landscape was shifting so rapidly that mission-driven organizations were falling behind. She had witnessed it happen time and again as a UX consultant and knew what had to be done.

EchoDitto was one of several agencies Graziella worked with while at the nonprofit, and we immediately stood out. She understood our mission and saw our potential — if Echo developed our expertise in organizational change and governance as well as user experience design and product development, we would become a truly powerful force for change.

This convergence launched a two-year collaboration to reinvent EchoDitto as an industry leader in applying the top design thinking and product development methodologies and talent to creating digital experiences, products, and services that strengthen organizations, promote equity and inclusion, spur citizen engagement, protect our natural world, and make leaders more effective.

Graziella joined EchoDitto in 2014, just before we rebranded as Echo&Co and expanded outward to engage with new partners in achieving our vision. One of the first projects we completed under our new brand and approach — a new website for Greenpeace USA — was named an Official Webby Honoree in 2016.

Our New Chapter

In April 2019, after 15 years of practice, our ownership transitioned from founders Nicco Mele, Justin Pinder, and Michael Silberman to our acting leadership team: Graziella Jackson (CEO) and Peter Sax (CTO). Echo&Co registered as a public benefit corporation and received Certified B Corporation® status from the nonprofit B Lab. With Graziella serving as majority partner, we entered a new era as a woman-, Latinx-, and veteran-owned B Corp™ committed to social and environmental good.

Our Community

We seek team members, partners, and clients who share our values and want to use creative design and emerging technologies to improve lives, communities, and the natural world. If that's you, then let's talk!