Brand in Action: How a Grassroots Mission Is Redefining Patient Experience

Sara Payne [00:00:10]:

Welcome back to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. I'm your host, Sara Payne, and I'm bringing you fascinating conversations with some of the industry's top marketing minds. Today's episode is a little different, but I think it might just challenge you in the best way. My guest is Mark Ostrom, founder of Joy Collaborative, a nonprofit that creates custom designed environments called Joy Rooms for youth with life limiting conditions. These aren't just renovations. They're transformations, Design spaces that foster independence, dignity, creativity, and joy. Now you might be wondering what that has to do with health marketing. The answer is quite a lot, actually.

Sara Payne [00:00:57]:

In health care, trust isn't just built on messaging. It's built on experience. It's built in the moments that feel human. And if we're not shaping that experience as marketing leaders, no campaign will ever be enough. So my Mark and I are gonna talk about how to build a grassroots movement with brand level impact, why designing for the whole person and the family around them matters so much in health care, and what health care marketers can learn from a nonprofit that earns trust, not by telling stories, but by changing them. So let's get into it. Mark, thank you so much for being here.

Mark Ostrom [00:01:38]:

Thank you, Sara. It's a thrill to be talking to you today.

Sara Payne [00:01:41]:

Likewise. Let's start off with Joy Collaborative. Can you tell us how it all began and what exactly a Joy Room is?

Mark Ostrom [00:01:51]:

It I'm not gonna give you my full background because we might be here longer than your podcast allows, but, I'll I'll jump to kind of where it really started. And that was me working in the commercial design field and and really not feeling very satisfied.

Sara Payne [00:02:06]:

Mhmm.

Mark Ostrom [00:02:06]:

I had had the idea for a pediatric focused design firm when I was in college, which for those people who can see me was, you know, a few weeks ago. And, and I couldn't find, I could not find anybody doing that kind of work other than one woman in Israel and I thought, well, then I'm crazy or she's rich or something. And, I thought, you know, there's people more mature in this industry than I. So if they haven't started it, then I must be nuts. And so it took me, you know, a number of years of pulling it off the shelf and going back and forth. And finally, one day, I kinda hit the wall with my career, and I I just said, you know what? I'm just gonna call up Make A Wish and just see what what we can talk about. And Wow. They said, you know, your timing is kinda surreal because we just had designers step off of a project and we need somebody.

Mark Ostrom [00:02:52]:

And they started telling me about it. It's super challenging project. And it was for a young person with CHARGE Syndrome and CHARGE every letter in CHARGE is for a condition that the person has. It's like one in seven hundred thousand prevalence. So super rare genetic disorder. Kodiak was, blind, deaf, cognitively delayed, GI issues, a whole host of things. And when we got done with creating a sensory room, basically a multi, a multifunctional space for him and his family, his dad pulled me aside and his dad is this big burly, you know, security installer and, and pulled me aside and and said, I need to share something with you. You know, last week, Kodia had two friends over to his house.

Mark Ostrom [00:03:39]:

That has never happened before and he's 15.

Sara Payne [00:03:42]:

Oh my gosh. Wow.

Mark Ostrom [00:03:45]:

So that's all I ever needed to hear. Sara, it's like a memory I movie I play in my head all the time. Wow. And I thought this, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Like this is taking the power of design and it is delivering it to people in a very meaningful way. This isn't decoration. Other people can do that. This is leaning hard into very difficult solutions, to the point now where we're, you know, we're doing clinics.

Mark Ostrom [00:04:11]:

We're doing larger scale spaces than just single family homes. So we can talk more about the future of joy.

Sara Payne [00:04:18]:

Yes. Such a cool story. So inspiring, and kudos to you for following your heart and and going to this need, because clearly, it's having an impact, in a very big way. And I I got goosebumps just hearing you tell that story of of, you know, one child and one family, that you have impacted through all of this. And one of the things that I I really love about the work that you do is that it is so deeply personal and yet scalable in its impact. And you're not a health care brand, but you're working at the heart of healing for these people. What does it mean to you when you think about this concept of treating the whole person? What does that mean to you?

Mark Ostrom [00:05:08]:

You know, before I started this, I did a little bit of research and there were designers out there that would, you know, throw a poster on a wall and put a comforter down and, you know, call that a a a, you know, a magnificent space. And I'm like, that's great. That's a that's better than nothing. But people who are struggling every day, like, I'm not quite sure that that really solved a problem. Mhmm. And and when I, you know, kinda drafted the concept for the company, it was like, we we fall in between, you know, Make A Wish or those kind of wish granting organizations where, you know, they're they they historically have done, you know, celebrity meet and greets or travel adventure, things like that. And, you know, the other the other end of it would be Habitat for Humanity and building, you know, great space for people who have need. And I'm like, wait a minute.

Mark Ostrom [00:05:55]:

There's, like, a spot in the middle here for people who have issues every single day that need permanent solutions. And, you know, I have amazing friends in the design and build industry, and I, you know, I lobbed the idea to them, and I said, what would you what would you think if rather than, you know, you had just done a Feed My Starving Children or you just brought a meal to Ronald McDonald House? I'm not disparaging them by any means. You're an amazing organization. But I was like, you know, we've got this need in our backyard. You know, one in five families are caring for somebody with a disability. Like, just think about that. And you have amazing skills. So why are we doing why are we taking your energy over here when maybe we could be planning it in our backyard? And so that that is the collaborative and joy collaborative and that, you know, not only is it designers, but it's the people who fund us as well.

Mark Ostrom [00:06:44]:

But I mean, it's it's really surrounding, who's ever at the center with, some very serious work. And to your question your point earlier about, you know, problem solving and digging deep, I mean, we ask some really uncomfortable questions at times, when we're doing our programming discussions. And these, you know, these can take courses of, you know, weeks or months to really get to some of the heart of some of the problems we're solving for because some of it is very difficult. Some of it is in is very challenging. Some of it might be embarrassing to talk about. But I'm telling you, if if we're doing a space for you and I don't know about your toileting routine because you have spina bifida

Sara Payne [00:07:20]:

Right.

Mark Ostrom [00:07:20]:

That's a big deal in your life.

Sara Payne [00:07:22]:

Big deal.

Mark Ostrom [00:07:23]:

And if you can't be open with us and talk about it, then we're just not gonna have a great solution. So, I do challenge our design teams to really raise the bar as high as they can and really dig into those questions because a lot of these people haven't dealt with these specific issues before, but that's the only way we're gonna have a great solution is to talk about it.

Sara Payne [00:07:41]:

You know, the the word that's coming to mind for me as you're talking is personalization. And personalization is a big important I don't just wanna call it trend, but best practice in marketing as well. Right? Cam, your work is more effective when it is specifically designed, personalized for the individual. Right? You you have both that, I wanna call it a a luxury, sort of a luxury in the ability that you are designing for that one individual and their family and their specific needs. And marketers think about this too in terms of how can we deliver deliver more personalized approach, messaging, stories in our campaigns that are gonna resonate, with people. So that that really resonated with me when you were when you were saying that. In health care marketing, we also talk a lot about patient experience, but we don't talk about the spaces people experience. Mhmm.

Sara Payne [00:08:47]:

And so what can you say about how environment influences how patients and families feel about their care and their healing journey? And and what do you think marketers could learn from that or be inspired by from that?

Mark Ostrom [00:09:04]:

I, to to take along what you just said, like, I use the term tune because my philosophy is we're all energy. And so we need to tune that space to what frequency it is that resonates with you. Love that. So, I can give you a great example. I mean, I was just there the other day at the Bridge for Youth. It's a homeless shelter for youth under the age of 17, as young as 10 Wow. Where, you know, early on well, you didn't you didn't have to interview the youth to to understand that their space was depressing. So, I mean, the space hadn't hadn't been touched for at least ten years.

Mark Ostrom [00:09:41]:

They had sofas that were ripped. They didn't have legs. I mean, it was just they had an art program and there was stuff just scattered everywhere. It was you you took these young people who come from a very traumatized background and you put them in a space that's chaotic. And the intent is to build trust. Like that's step one. Step one is we need to build trust with this person and this we have just like over accelerated the anxiety or experience that they already have before they even came in the door. And so now, you know, years later now that with the project is complete, they talk they they rave about so so the the issue in a space like that is, you know, we can't leave those kids unsupervised, Youth, I should say youth.

Mark Ostrom [00:10:29]:

Can't leave the youth unsupervised. There's always need to be eyes on them, but yet they want refuge, and they want safe space, and sometimes they need privacy. Yeah. Well, we happen to find these really cool chairs that were kind of a high back, not really sort of, that are comfortable enough. They're commercial grade so they can be hosed down, wiped down. I mean, there's a lot of durability issues that we we need to Sure. Do in commercial space. But they every time I meet with them, they're like, man, those chairs are awesome.

Mark Ostrom [00:10:59]:

We can face them around. We can face each other. We can you know? That one move is huge. I had no idea the result that that was gonna have on the well-being of these people. Not only that, not only the youth, but the staff as well because they talk about how great an experience they're having to customize that space. They tune that space to themselves.

Sara Payne [00:11:25]:

Yeah. I mean, this is, I love that that word tune. And what you're saying here is also just triggering additional things for me. One is the importance of research, really truly listening to the audience that you're trying to reach, observing, right, part listen, part observe, the realities. But then you were also talking about, you know, so the original question is sort of what is the role of environment in how people feel about their care, about their healing journey. And there can be you talked about a disconnect, right, for these the the youth that were walking into that space. Right? We're trying to create a place of trust. Right? And and they're coming from a very difficult reality in their life, and we can't have them walking into a space that feels chaotic or we're not going to achieve our objective.

Sara Payne [00:12:29]:

And I just think about that in terms of messaging and campaigns that we might put out into the world. Of course, we can't always, rarely control that reality of where someone is going to be when they are consuming our podcast episode. Right? Are they driving in rush hour traffic, bumper to bumper, and they're stressed out? Right? We can't control that. But if we think deeply about some of the things we know that they are experiencing in a health condition, in some other, you know, knowing demographically some things about various things that might be juggling in their lives. I think there's a whole realm of empathy that could be brought in. Sorry. Go ahead.

Mark Ostrom [00:13:18]:

You jump in on this one. You are you're channeling it all, Sara. It's it's amazing. You're you're hitting right on it because it's all about choices. It's all about resources and choices. And, you know, we're we're we're just starting construction now in a project for mHealth, for outpatient adolescent health. It's a rare moments here in a discussion like this that I don't break down a little bit, because it just it is so painful to look at. And maybe I shouldn't mention the facility specifically, but they're not alone.

Mark Ostrom [00:13:46]:

Your audience has has seen these spaces and and this is outpatient mental health. These are young people who are struggling with all kinds of issues. Yes. And we put them in what? A beige space that looks like a concrete bunker. And we expect them to heal. We expect them to build friendships. We expect them to have fun and grow in a space you or I would not want to spend five minutes in. And that's their reality every day for months.

Mark Ostrom [00:14:15]:

So for us to be able to work thankfully under the Thielen Foundation, and when I mentioned resources, you know, to take a space and completely transform it to an active, quiet, multisensory, physical, tactile, emotional experience, I I cannot wait for that project to get done. And that that is kind of the drum that we beat on a lot of projects is how many elements can we incorporate that resonates, that tunes that environment to that population? And not only that population, but that staff, that parent, that again, I mentioned the ripple effect. Like, what we're doing isn't isn't just centered around a single person. Yeah. Yes. You might have a common demographic that you're, you know, you're you need to address in the case of of their, you know, outpatient population, but there's a lot of commonalities that that we can, hopefully bring in the power of great, you know, experiential design.

Sara Payne [00:15:10]:

Yeah. And and this kinda tease up where I was gonna go next is is you aren't just working with the individual patient, if that's the right word depending on who you're serving, but you're also working with families, caregivers in the broader sense. And I think sometimes we can overlook caregivers or the people surrounding the individual. What have you learned about serving sort of that that that broader family or community unit, caregiving unit through your work?

Mark Ostrom [00:15:46]:

It's a team sport. Hopefully, it's a team sport. Hopefully, if you have some kind of condition in your family, you've got some support around you. It might just be yourself. It might be, you know, a relative. It might be some community, but that is hypercritical because the demands on these families. I'll give you an example of Hans, our our amazing seven year old who was denied oxygen during birth, so brain damage and a whole bunch of other conditions that are you know, he's not gonna recover from. And the the the space was working against this family and they wanted to build community because they knew how isolated this kid was even though he didn't have a lot of, you know, communication skills.

Mark Ostrom [00:16:32]:

I mean, there was an essence to him that really wasn't getting fed when he's stuck in his medical bed underneath a giant television twenty three and a half hours out of the day.

Sara Payne [00:16:41]:

Wow. Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:16:42]:

So then when we go through the project, we we, you know, interview as many people as we can who, you know, there's neighbors, there's cousins, there's a whole bunch of people who who who want better for him. There's the there's the twenty four seven in house care team that is trying to chart in a lazy boy and a and a TV tray. I mean, it's absurd. It's absurd and it's disgusting. So, you know, we get done. We we create, you know, great space for the nursing staff. We get a great space for him that's flexible, that's multifunctional. You can go on our website, you'll see all the amazing images.

Mark Ostrom [00:17:16]:

But what do I hear from the mom, you know, when we get done with the project, she says, you you showed us how to be a family again.

Sara Payne [00:17:25]:

Wow.

Mark Ostrom [00:17:25]:

Nothing we had ever talked about, But that's how important it was for them to see their son surrounded by community whether it was, you know, their in home community or people at large coming in to to spend time with their son who they love dearly.

Sara Payne [00:17:41]:

Yeah. I mean a couple of things coming out of that. I think it's a good reminder for marketing leaders listening that caregivers are an important part of their target audience for any campaign that they're doing, designing messaging, designing support programs that are just for the patient really miss that bigger opportunity. And then the other thing too, Mark, is is you're talking about this we're going back to sort of the whole person conversation again. And when you were talking about, I don't remember exactly how she said it. You taught us how to be a family again. Is that the way she phrased it? It just reminds me that whatever someone is going through from a health perspective, or even if it's not b to b to c and it's b to b, but we're talking about targeting clinicians and the burnout that they there's a lot of burnout in the industry and the stress that they experience. We are all human.

Sara Payne [00:18:47]:

And regardless of that that thing, whether it is a condition, whether it is burnout, creates additional emotional, I'm gonna call it baggage. We all it's maybe not the right word, right? But but stress, and to think about the work that we're doing to address not just conditionally, right, the problem to be solved, but that bigger reduction in stress. Right? And that that that burden someone might be carrying with them related to all of that.

Mark Ostrom [00:19:32]:

One of the reasons I started the company is I had when I was in college, I worked for the cleft palate clinic at the University of Minnesota, and I was in the insurance office filing claims. And they were historically denied, dental and medical, bounced back and forth. It was but to be able to rally on behalf of these families and get to know them personally and be able to slip a check to them and say, hey. We got your, you know, 5 figure claim paid or whatever, and they start crying. And I'm like, what what just happened here? And they said, well, we barely made our mortgage. So, you know, for me, starting this, like, I didn't know everything around cerebral palsy. I didn't know everything around, you know, mental health for children. But if you don't spend deep time with these folks and ask the questions like I mentioned, you don't really understand them because some of these families are lucky.

Mark Ostrom [00:20:26]:

You know, if they're if it's a couple, you know, do they have two incomes? If they do, how are they juggling all of the demands for raising somebody with a disability? You know, if you go down to one income, what does that mean? If your person has, you know, three different specialty providers, what does that do to your work life? There's a lot of pressure behind what you see. And it's really hard on these families. It's really hard. It's taxing on them, obviously, financially, emotionally, socially, the dynamic in their own home. But if you have other kids that are getting all you know, that aren't getting the attention, there's there's a there's a lot on the that that weighs on them. So, you know, like I mentioned, one in five families. So it's very pervasive. Don't you don't really have to go very far to find somebody with a disability, which is tragic, but it is the truth.

Mark Ostrom [00:21:17]:

And it sounds like a weird thing to say, but that's an amazing opportunity for a company like ours. And I don't mean that in a gross disgusting No. Business development way. No. You know, if there are just so many beautiful problems waiting to be solved.

Sara Payne [00:21:33]:

Yeah. I love the way that you put that and I this is just the timing of this is very serendipitous because, we just recently recorded an episode about, disabilities, people living with disabilities, and, the the prevalence of ableism in health care marketing. And I think this is a nice complimentary episode to that conversation in understanding sort of the bigger picture.

Mark Ostrom [00:22:00]:

And and and being able, Sara, to to rise up. Like, we're not shoving people in institutions anymore. We're not

Sara Payne [00:22:07]:

we're not Right. Not allowing them in public

Mark Ostrom [00:22:09]:

anymore, which was a thing. Like, let's shine a great light on them. Let's show what's possible with these amazing people. Let's give them a better outlook than what they had yesterday before they met us. Like, come on.

Sara Payne [00:22:23]:

Let's adapt let's be adaptive to them.

Mark Ostrom [00:22:26]:

There's some beautiful gifts out there waiting to be shared and we don't know what they are yet. But I'm telling you they're there.

Sara Payne [00:22:31]:

I wanna I wanna switch gears just ever so slightly. Your organization started as a grassroots effort, but you've really built tremendous partnerships with designers, builders, donors, sponsors.

Mark Ostrom [00:22:47]:

Mhmm.

Sara Payne [00:22:47]:

What advice would you give to someone trying to build a movement, a campaign that is authentic, community powered, but it has, you know, this this common thread of passion, that that all these different stakeholders can, can align around.

Mark Ostrom [00:23:11]:

I can only I can only give you some examples, and that for me it all comes back to alignment. You know, I can talk to somebody who's doing food insecurity and if it doesn't, you know, if it doesn't resonate, we're not on the same page. But you know, when I brought our first project of Gardner Builders, who's been a fan ever since and a supporter ever since, and we just saw eye to eye and they saw how important it was for this family, it made it so much easier and it made it so much fun. The the challenge was incredible. Don't get me wrong. The challenge was difficult. But, man, when you can lock arms with somebody and then to do projects again and again, it just you build community in that way. You build trust.

Mark Ostrom [00:23:54]:

You build fans. And it's it's the most fun thing ever. I mean, my as long as I'm not in QuickBooks, I'm having the best day ever. You know, and and it's, you know, we've tapped into something that's that's really fantastic. And to your point, yeah, we do have followers now. We have an amazing volunteer base, and we're doing our best with email and social and all those things, but we're still a company of one FTE, which we are working hard to, again, build those partnerships so that they understand like what we could do with a team. Yeah. Yes, we have a team and they're volunteers.

Mark Ostrom [00:24:29]:

Well, you know, good luck managing volunteers at times. I love the volunteers, bless them all. But you know, it's not the same kind of commitment

Sara Payne [00:24:37]:

Right.

Mark Ostrom [00:24:38]:

As a as a staff that you can oversee and have regular, you know, discussions around and and common goals together.

Sara Payne [00:24:45]:

Absolutely. Yeah. And so I think it's a great reminder around what you're speaking about as a shared purpose, shared ownership with these different, stakeholders that that are involved when you're building a grassroots effort.

Mark Ostrom [00:25:03]:

The the let let me just I need to kick this one in here too because Yeah. It it's it's it's just it's amazing to me. So we we finished a project, and the the one of the builders came up to me afterwards, the the the trade cabinet guy came up to me and he said, thank you. And I said I was gonna get emotional, but it's like, I had no idea how this was touching other people. Yes. Our clients, our recipients, I knew what was doing for them, but I still it blows my mind when our volunteers come up to me and thank me because I'm like, without you, we're nothing.

Sara Payne [00:25:40]:

Right.

Mark Ostrom [00:25:41]:

We get nothing done without you. So why are you thanking me? But, boy, I'm telling you, it's really profound. We our Joy Mobile, we can talk about that, was invited to the state fair, and we had, you know, a 50 volunteers. And I tell you, every single one of them had a profound story of an experience with a guest, but a good chunk of them thanked us for the opportunity. And I I I it just floors me every time that that, they see the need that we're solving for, and they wanna help move everything forward.

Sara Payne [00:26:14]:

I believe that. I believe that, and I think it's really kudos to you for being able to, communicate the purpose and the impact and to let them into that. Right? Like, they may they may or may not have the opportunity to interact with that family. Right? And and but but you are still articulating that purpose and that impact to them, and they can it's it's palpable.

Mark Ostrom [00:26:43]:

And it's It's palpable. Really personal because, again, because of the prevalence, most people have an understanding of what a better life can look like. And if we can be a part of that, man, that we just knocked it out of the park.

Sara Payne [00:26:56]:

Yeah. And I I have seen this in marketing campaigns as well, where key opinion leaders with a shared purpose for the objective. It's likely something like educating somebody about something that they you know, their life could be improved if they if they knew this thing. Right? And you can see people, I don't wanna say come out of the woodwork, but make themselves present

Mark Ostrom [00:27:29]:

Mhmm.

Sara Payne [00:27:29]:

When you are projecting that that purpose, where they will raise their hand for it. And there doesn't have to be an exchange of dollar value. Right? They can they can, in essence, volunteer their time as a key opinion leader to help scale a message, to be part of a webinar, to educate people about something. And I had same thing, Mark. I have seen them come out the other side and not ask where is the check for my time to to lead that webinar. They say to us, thank you for letting me be a part of this. Because I have seen firsthand how this particular issue inside of health care impacts all these people over here, and I feel privileged to have been a part of this movement.

Mark Ostrom [00:28:22]:

When my wife and I do our daily download, once a week for sure, I'll be like, you will not believe what happened today. And she's like, oh, here we go again. Every week, I get a new surprise, and it's glorious and wonderful. And sometimes it's exactly what we need. And sometimes it's a whole new opportunity, struggle, gem that's just waiting to be explored. And it's it's so cool now that, you know, we're getting a little bit more recognition, and people start understanding, you know, the power of what we're doing and and they wanna get on board. And that's I I nothing I had ever expected. And it's it's thrilling to be in a room full of of those people.

Sara Payne [00:29:02]:

Yeah. For sure. Just to get to dive a little deeper on on purpose, one thing I hear a lot from health care marketing marketers is that they their brands want to be known as purpose driven.

Mark Ostrom [00:29:17]:

Mhmm.

Sara Payne [00:29:19]:

But let's be real, that can fall flat if it's not genuine. Mhmm. So from your perspective, what does purpose in action actually look like?

Mark Ostrom [00:29:31]:

When when we start a project, there's a there's a vetting process that happens and, you know, we interview them, we get we get a survey form, we get photographs of whatever's happening and then and then we'll bring our design team together. And a lot like I said, a lot of these folks, like, they come with passion, but they don't necessarily have practice. And so then we need to punch a bunch of holes in the application that we have and start asking some question that, like I said, some are really uncomfortable.

Sara Payne [00:30:00]:

Mhmm.

Mark Ostrom [00:30:00]:

But you need to know, like, well, just because you have adaptive bikes, do they are they working? Like, does your population even use them? Well, what happens in dark hours when maybe you could be offering your same space up to kids who aren't your young adults using the space during

Sara Payne [00:30:16]:

the day?

Mark Ostrom [00:30:17]:

So I think purpose and action for me, the purpose part is getting to the heart of as many problems that we can solve for as possible. Sometimes you can't solve everything. Right? We're not gonna solve somebody's, you know, genetic condition.

Sara Payne [00:30:32]:

Right.

Mark Ostrom [00:30:33]:

But we certainly can ask them, you know, well, well, you told us this is working okay. Well, what could be better? Or, oh, you mentioned this thing in passing. Let's dig into that and find out, is there a place for it in this project? Or here's some crazy big old ideas that we would have never thought of, but maybe there's some relevance here. And and to me, that's purpose. That that is that is the design professional's job is to really make sure that they are exploring as much as possible. And I just jumping to the rendering because that's very common.

Sara Payne [00:31:08]:

Mhmm.

Mark Ostrom [00:31:09]:

And jumping to the rendering means you may not be thinking about the problem at hand. So I don't know if I've really answered your question, Sara, but but for me, the purpose is it's just doing the best to put your head into their shoes and really understanding what we can make better.

Sara Payne [00:31:30]:

Yeah. Understanding the the problems to be solved for sure. Mhmm. Before we wrap, can you share you've shared a couple of really amazing stories, but can you share a JoyRoom project that really stuck with you or or one that reminded you why this work really matters?

Mark Ostrom [00:31:55]:

I'm gonna ask you a question first. Sure. If somebody that you loved, got a diagnosis, fill in the blank, whatever it is, what's the first thing that you would do?

Sara Payne [00:32:09]:

Besides cry?

Mark Ostrom [00:32:13]:

Maybe.

Sara Payne [00:32:15]:

Like an action item that I would take? What would you do? Oh, man.

Mark Ostrom [00:32:22]:

I

Sara Payne [00:32:22]:

mean, I think I would call family. Right? And and and assemble assemble a community, a support system. Right. Right? And then and then put together the action plan of what are what what what's next? What's the what's the course of treatment? What's the, you know, what do we need to do next? But I think the first step is to to call your community.

Mark Ostrom [00:32:43]:

Right. It probably isn't to renovate your house.

Sara Payne [00:32:47]:

No.

Mark Ostrom [00:32:50]:

And so that's where we come in. Right? You're distracted not distracted. You're focused on building community, finding the helpers, all of those things. Because now all of a sudden you need to be you need to you've got a new hat you need to wear. And all of these things are coming at you. There's language that you don't even understand because of what might be happening at the time. So if if we can come in and be auxiliary helpers to you, like, that's that's what we wanna do. But rather than talk about a past project, I wanna talk about an upcoming project, because I'm losing sleep over it right now and that's really a good sign.

Mark Ostrom [00:33:28]:

So I mentioned our Joy Mobile, which is a mobile sensory experience that came out of working with PrairieCare who, you know, serves mental health, youth with mental health issues in the state of Minnesota. And they wanted us to, work with public schools to see if we could help them create sensory spaces in schools. Well, we talked to a couple, they were specifically interested in Minneapolis Public Schools. Well, they didn't have space to give up. They need classroom space. We'd be lucky to get a janitor's closet. Yeah. Which isn't gonna help anybody.

Mark Ostrom [00:34:01]:

And so we said, Well, hey, you know, bookmobiles, bloodmobiles. How about a sensory mobile? And they said, give it a shot. And so we did that. Shortly thereafter, get invited to the Minnesota State Fair, which blew my mind, somebody who's been a fan fair favorite forever. You know, and we saw all these, you know, 2,000 people on, you know, during the heat and the cold and whatever. And it was really profound to see people finding sensory relief in five minutes.

Sara Payne [00:34:31]:

Wow.

Mark Ostrom [00:34:32]:

It and I'm not exaggerating. We have the data to support that. And so where I'm going with that is we get a call from Affinity Plus, who we have lunch then with the, executive director of Special Olympics Minnesota who wants us to create a four times larger larger version of the Joy Mobile for the USAA games coming in 2026 in Minneapolis. Wow. So, we are just on the front of starting, a brand new project, that will support multiple people at the same time on a scale that we've never served before.

Sara Payne [00:35:10]:

Wow. Now I see why it's keeping you up at night.

Mark Ostrom [00:35:14]:

It is so exciting. It is so exciting. And it never would it have been on our radar. But again, like I said, these jewels come to us and there's no way that we were gonna turn that down. Now do we have a pipeline of projects? Yeah. Unfortunately, we do, and that's never gonna end. But until we can, you know, build up to a serious staff who can take these design projects on, we have to be very selective about what we can do. Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:35:41]:

And that's the other part that keeps me up because it drives me crazy. But, you know, the problem is so pervasive and the need is so great. I know that we'll never be able to answer to everybody, but we certainly can answer to more than four projects a year, which is our current pace.

Sara Payne [00:35:59]:

And hopefully creating a reality where others step into that need to and eventually you you aren't the only one or one of few. It becomes of many over time.

Mark Ostrom [00:36:10]:

Yeah. It's happening. By the end of the year, we will see more activation on that side because I'm working really hard on it and putting a lot of affirmations out and talking to a lot of people about the understanding around, you know, what we're surrounding ourselves with and and, who we can bring in to to help.

Sara Payne [00:36:26]:

That's amazing. Well, Mark, thank you so much for being here, and thank you even more than that for the work that you're doing to bring joy and dignity and connection to kids and families who need it most. Where can folks go to learn more about the work that you're doing and how to get involved?

Mark Ostrom [00:36:44]:

I'm all over LinkedIn, so you can certainly find me there. Otherwise, it's joycollaborative.org.

Sara Payne [00:36:49]:

Wonderful. And for everyone listening, if today's conversation sparked something for you about how your brand shows up, about what it really means to build trust, or about designing with purpose, I hope you'll take the next step. Support Joy Collaborative, share their mission, or start asking how your or how your own campaigns can do more than inform, how they can uplift. Thanks for tuning in to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence, because the future of health care depends on it. We'll see you next time.