Lived Experience Interview:
Dr. Angela Frusciante — Knowledge Designs to Change (KD4C)

In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Angela Frusciante shares how collaboration drives her work bridging academia, philanthropy, and community. As founder of Knowledge Designs to Change (KD2Change), she delivers innovative research methods and fosters intentional partnerships in and through community to advance equity and social change.

JCEC:
Can you tell me a bit about yourself, the work that you do, and how you ended up being connected to the URBAN Research Network?

Angela:
I am an independent scholar and am also the founder and director of something called Knowledge Designs to Change (KD2Change), which kind of summarizes what I do. I share social science research methods with people, mostly in the foundation and nonprofit sector, to support and enhance and maximize social change initiatives. I work with people who are interested in equity and change and making society a better place for as many people as possible. And I do that support through bringing creative, innovative, flexible and engaged research methods to change agents who often don’t have access or funds to connect with university resources. I try to be as flexible as possible and bring my expertise in that area. One of my strengths is that I have worked across sectors. I’ve worked in community settings. I’ve worked inside academia and within university-community-foundation partnerships, and I’ve been inside the foundation world. So, I try to serve as kind of a bridge or link between those spaces.

I got involved with URBAN Connecticut through a colleague whom I had the pleasure of providing funding for when I was in philanthropy, and she introduced me to URBAN many years ago. It is probably over the past four or five years when I became more active. She invited me to be the co-chair of URBAN Connecticut, which is the regional affiliate to the national URBAN Research Action Network. I said yes at that moment and later took on the chair role, which in terms of how the organization is structured, put me as a member on the National Planning Team for this 2025 conference and a co-host for this year’s national conference. There’s a lot of high energy that happened at the intersection of what URBAN Connecticut was doing, what URBAN national was doing, and the conference.

JCEC:
How do you tend to think about collaboration and what kinds of collaborative relationships or practices are you or your organization engaged in?

Angela:
So, for me, collaboration…well, first, it’s the way anything gets done and it’s all about rolling up your sleeves and working together. I come from a working-class background so, to me, that’s how relationships are formed. That’s how society is created. You know, we’re always all in it together. The key thing is whether we’re doing it intentionally and consciously; that’s a key component. If we’re framing something as collaboration, it’s that we all realize that we’re each essential to what’s happening and we’re all valuable in the process. In terms of what kinds of collaborations I am engaged in, there’s a range, right? So, sometimes I’m working with a community leader and I’m delivering daffodil bulbs to an open space that is emerging as a central location for learning in an urban community. Other times, it’s working together on some type of research project. It could be creating something like a new journal, or co-hosting the conference.

So, for me, it’s interesting because when I first started as an independent scholar and in my own consulting firm, I had very specific ideas. I thought I would do very particular types of collaboration and this was part of my business strategy at that time. And now, eight years in, I just look for the relationships. I ask myself the question, is it a meaningful relationship and an honest, valuable relationship and is the work good work? I try to put less emphasis now on whether it fits into my scholarly role and more on if I can bring something to the collaboration, to the partnership. So, yeah, things look a lot different now than they did earlier in my career and that’s been really exciting.

In terms of how this changed for me….Once I was slightly outside of a career track, if you will — so, I mean earlier on when I was in academia, or even when I was inside a foundation, there were certain steps to the career ladder. That was both helpful, because it gave direction and helped with deciding which things I would participate in, and it was also very constraining. Once I was my own boss, beyond paying the bills, which is still a driving force, everything else was my choice regarding where I put my time, how much I got compensated for my time, and when I do pro-bono work or reduced rate work. Now, all of those things are up to me to decide.. That opened up a lot of possibilities.

JCEC:
Based on your experience, what would you say are some collaboration-best-practices that you would suggest others use in their collaborative relationships — particularly in this current context of great social upheaval and uncertainty?

Angela:
I think one of the most important things that I’ve found in any collaborative, regardless of where I was and, again, I’ve been on the receiving and facilitating funding side, I think that transparency and honesty were the most important. I know colleagues that get into a funders position where they’re managing resources and they seem to think that those resources are theirs. I always had the practice of saying, “This is where I fit in the structure;this is what I can advocate for; this is howI can advocate for something and this is my view of how important the work is, but really letting people know that there was a whole process that was beyond my control. I never pretended that I was the all knowing, all powerful person. And that was the same when I was in academia and I was working with students. I was very clear about where I was in the structure and that gave me the ability to be honest about what I believed.

There have been times when I’ve presented at a session, for example, at the Connecticut Legislative Office Building where I was at odds with where my organization stood on a particular issue and I could be honest because I could say, “This is where I sit, and this is what my organization believes. This is what I believe.” And again, there’s a lot of freedom in that, in not taking on the identity of the organizations or institutions that are around you. I think that’s really important with collaboration, because all of us are sitting in different locations professionally, personally, and there are different identities or where we are, how we show up in the world, and if we can be honest about that in any role that we’re in, I think that really enables the collaboration — to be about the human beings that are working together and to really function in these complicated times and all of these very complex structures that are created around us. I think that that’s the absolute most important thing: if you start with self-honesty and honesty with the people that you’re working directly with, then everything else can be worked out.

JCEC:
Is there anything you would like to add?

Angela:
I’m just really excited about the journal and about highlighting collaboration.