stories

to the risk-takers

Civilla celebrates co-founders Lena and Adam Selzer as they begin a new chapter

Two people stand closely together indoors, looking intently at a screen. One person wears a headset microphone; the other wears a white sweater and beaded necklace. The background is out of focus with string lights and colorful patterns.

At Civilla, we mark the seasons of the year with a team-wide pause for reflection on what has been and what is coming ahead. Today, we are marking the change of a larger season for Civilla as two of our co-founders, Lena Selzer and Adam Selzer, have decided to move back to the West Coast this fall to start a new chapter in their lives.

Civilla will be forever indebted to Lena and Adam for their founding contributions to our organization, for how they defined and led Civilla’s mission, and for all the ways they have advanced the field of human-centered design in the public sector. Their curiosity and energy are woven throughout Civilla’s culture and team, and we are both sad to see them go and thrilled to see what is next for them. 

A man in a white shirt gestures while speaking in front of a whiteboard covered with colorful sticky notes during a meeting or brainstorming session.

This transition has us reflecting on the early days: Lena, Adam, and Michael dreaming big in an empty storage closet about what might be. They started wide with a long list of ideas for how human-centered design could help build a more beautiful civil society for all. Soon, they brought in collaborators, artists, community members, and fellow dreamers with ambitious ideas. Out of many pathways, they focused on reimagining The Scroll, Michael’s name for the Michigan benefit application that he’d been carrying in his pocket for years. At more than 40 pages, it was the longest benefit application in the country at the time.

Over the next year, Lena, Adam, and Michael would spend time at kitchen tables and state offices to build the foundation for a complete redesign of the application. That initial project has become 10 years of partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to reimagine online portals, letters and correspondence, backend systems, and more. It also sparked a national design practice that expanded across states and agencies to design simple, integrated public services that are easier for residents to complete and faster for frontline staff to administer.

Learnings from those projects became Civilla Practica, a training program to help public servants build capacity for change, and laid the foundation for Civilla's creative storytelling methods, such as the Re:Form exhibit housed in Civilla’s studio. Since that initial project, more than 6,000 people have come through the studio to see the exhibit and be inspired to lead change in their own fields.  

A woman stands and points at a projected presentation while several people sit and watch. A laptop and a whiteboard are visible. The slide mentions User Experience and Design..

At Civilla, how the work gets done has always been as important as the output of the work.
Within the walls and windows of Civilla’s Detroit studio, Adam and Lena helped build a rare workplace. One that is deeply rooted in shared principles, that invests in the health and well-being of its team, and that builds intentional opportunities for connection into every workday.

The culture Lena and Adam built prioritizes treating both teammates and our external partners with respect and dignity. This work can be difficult, and they recognized that helping residents through moments of crisis requires a culture that values care for everyone involved in a project. Today, that duty of care shows up in handwritten cards to our partners, ethical interviewing techniques, and creating space for partners to reflect on systemic challenges in their work. 

Two people relax on opposite benches of a booth in an office, with their feet resting on each others legs across the table. Office supplies sit on the table and large windows let in natural light.

The vision that Adam and Lena set in the early days of Civilla still holds true. We still believe there is untapped power in public-serving institutions to create positive change at scale. We still see reasons for optimism in courageous leaders, in the rise of human-centered design within institutions, and in the appetite for change across the country. As we enter the second decade of Civilla, our team is committed to carrying forward that vision and spirit.

On the wall of Civilla’s studio is a poem from the early days of the organization. It’s written by Chad Rochkind, Civilla’s poet laureate. It opens with the lines:

Civilization stands upon the backs of the risktakers,
the tinkerers, and the experimenters, the ones who enter
the field and find its vast unknowable expanses an exhilaration

For 11 years, Adam and Lena have been our risktakers, our tinkerers, and our experimenters. They have adventured into the unknown and come back with simplicity and beauty that have improved the lives of millions of people. We thank them for their dedication to this mission and a vision for a beautiful civil society for all. Lena and Adam, you have put more good into the world than most, and we hope that continues to come back to you in the years to come. 

Two people sit on the floor facing each other under a table in a room with concrete floors. Behind them is a wall with a large, handwritten quote about civilization, exploration, and imagination.