If creating the world we want means getting people to change what they currently do, how can we get people to change?

That’s a question we hear a lot when we tell people what we’re doing at Creating the Future. We share that we are building a movement for making visionary community results the norm in social change work, rather than the exception. And the standard response is, “That sounds great. But how will you get people to change their ways?”

Consultants and funders and people involved in capacity building work all seem to live with the same frustrations. How do we get people to change?

Here’s what we’ve found about “getting people to change.”

People will change their habits if they are inspired to change.

People won’t change because you tell them to. They won’t change because it’s best practice or because that’s what other groups are doing. They won’t change if you scare them into doing it (they may DO something differently, but they won’t change how they feel about it, which I can guarantee will rear its head somewhere else, when you least expect it…).

But people will move mountains if they are inspired to do so.

So if we want to change norms, change culture, change habits, the recipe is simple:

1. Meet people where they are, with what they think they need.
2. Open the window just a crack, so they can see what’s possible beyond their comfort zone. Create the environment that inspires them and gives them the confidence to take that small step.
3. And for those early adopters who are absolutely ready to take huge leaps forward, provide the means for them to do so as well.

Think about your mission from the top down and from the bottom up. From the people who can’t wait to make massive changes, and the people who believe they just need a little tweak.

Whether it’s about eating one more helping of vegetables a day or changing food policy; about quitting smoking or banning smoking; about learning 3 new consulting tricks or transforming your practice…

How can you meet people where they are, with compassion and wisdom, and then inspire them to just take that next small step into what is possible?

We’re excited to be launching a new program in the next few weeks – a program that readers here, and colleagues at Facebook and LinkedIn all said would be a huge help.

Board education in digestible chunks.  20-30 minute audio classes for listening in your car or with your board. Going deep into a narrow topic, with thought-starters to move you from “listening” to “discussing and making it your own.”

Easy, convenient, affordable ($9.95/month), practical education, aimed at making organizations as effective as possible at creating extraordinary community change.

From the insightful and encouraging advice you all provided, both here and at LinkedIn and Facebook, we will be starting the Flash Class program with Governance and Planning classes.  Which leads to the most important question:

• What topics are the most important to cover?
• If you could get your board to spend 1/2 hour talking about any education topics at all, what would those topics be?
• What topic, if it were presented, would you say, “Oh thank goodness – our board really needs that!”

We will assemble all the responses we get, and those will become the topics of the classes.  So what do you need? What will be most helpful?

We can’t wait to get started!!!

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/04/04/what-do-you-wish-your-board-would-learn/feed/ 3 http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/04/03/board-orientation-do%e2%80%99s-and-don%e2%80%99ts/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/04/03/board-orientation-do%e2%80%99s-and-don%e2%80%99ts/#comments Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:05:26 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=4484 I was thumbing through our Board Recruitment & Orientation workbook this weekend, looking for a particular form. (I shouldn’t confess how often I’ll be almost done creating a form, only to do a palm-smack to the head, remembering that the exact form I need is in a book I wrote. Not that that’s what happened here… Ok, it’s precisely what happened here. But I digress…)

Anyway, while paging through the book, I found this and wanted to share it here.

Board Orientation Do’s and Don’ts

Don’t focus on the operational / fiscal oversight issues to the exclusion of the reason the organization exists – the difference you intend to make in your community.

Do strike a balance between oversight issues and leadership issues – how board members can be effective leaders towards the difference your organization intends to make.

Don’t let decisions about content be entirely staff-driven.

Do have board members themselves determine what new board members need know, with input from the CEO. Do set aside 15 minutes for the board to answer this question: “What do you wish you had known when you joined the board, that would have made you more effective more quickly?” If their responses focus entirely on oversight issues, do ask, “What do you wish you knew about our mission? What do you wish you knew about the difference we are making?” Use that list to determine the content of the orientation session.

Don’t allow the orientation activities to be entirely determined by the staff.

Do have the board’s Governance Committee use the board’s brainstormed list to create the day’s agenda. Do have the committee determine which portions the staff should present, and specifically what content they want presented at that time. That will help alleviate situations such as a staff person waxing eloquent for ½ hour about his/her program.

Don’t make your orientation program a whole day of lectures and reports. And don’t consider the day “interactive” simply because you provide time for Q&A after those reports.

Do have board members spend time in discussion about the passion that led them to this organization and this board.  Do have them share the path in their lives that brought them to the board, the difference they are hoping to make by being part of the board.  This will not only provide context for the oversight issues they will be learning about; it will immediately engage them with each other’s hearts and minds.

Don’t wait until orientation to provide a tour of your facility(ies).

Do have the tour occur as part of the getting-to-know you of the recruitment process. After all, how can someone say “yes” to governing the organization if they are not certain what they will be governing? A tour with deeper information may be a great part of the orientation, but don’t let that be the first time your board members have become physically familiar with the place!

Don’t put off the orientation until board members “have time.”

Do calendar the board’s whole year’s activities, from adoption of the budget to election of officers / annual meeting, to the annual orientation. That will give everyone notice a year in advance of the orientation!

Don’t think just because someone holds a professional position in their “real life,” that they necessarily understand financial matters. A great number of board members from all walks of life make financial decisions without completely understanding the core financial issues at hand.

Do include a brief review of 101 level finance in your orientation. Do have the treasurer offer to privately mentor anyone who is embarrassed that they don’t understand financial matters.

Don’t think orientation is just for new board members.

Do have the board annually determine what all board members need to learn in order to govern, and have them all attend orientation every year. You can call it “Orientation and Board Re-Training”!

Don’t stock your board manual so full of “stuff” that it is no longer useful.

Do ask the board what materials would be helpful to have with them at all times, and use that list to build your manual.

Don’t forget boards need ongoing education, all year long – both on the specifics of what the organization does, and on overall themes related to Governance.

Do consider making some of your “orientation” an ongoing year-round learning process, perhaps just 15 minutes at every board meeting.

Don’t forget the simple introductory things that make the human side of boards work more smoothly.

Do wear name tags at all meetings. It helps new people feel less new, and helps outsiders address board members by name, instead of “The gentleman in the brown sweater.” And do have food, even if it’s just popcorn – people work better together when they’re fed!

Don’t make your annual orientation all business.

Do have a light dinner immediately following your annual orientation. Boards work best when they know each other better, and the orientation will give board members much to talk about over dinner afterwards!

And most of all, DO have fun!

But beware: If your orientation program is fun, board members will expect to have fun at board meetings. (Which seems like it is leading to a Do’s and Don’ts post for meetings, now doesn’t it?!)

Now it’s your turn – what Do’s and Don’ts would you add to this list?

This list has been adapted from Board Recruitment & Orientation: A Step-by-Step, Common Sense Guide (3rd Edition).

That is what this post will attempt to do. And I say “attempt” because there was so much that we learned, that we’re thinking it may become a book! For now, I’ll try to hit the highlights.

First, a quick chronology of the campaign from start to finish:

December 6: Blog post asking whether or not to embark on a campaign.
December 16: Decided to go for it.
December 29: Shut down the campaign.
December 30: Posted initial thoughts about what we had learned, knowing there were things that “just didn’t feel right,” that we needed to explore further (hence, today’s post!)

Learning #1: It’s all about Context
“What we learned” all depends on the context of the question. If the context is fundraising tactics, the answer becomes about the immediate task at hand – what worked and what didn’t work re: raising the money we set out to raise. For those tactical questions, the posts here and here pretty much cover it.

The problem we had with our campaign, though, was not tactical. It wasn’t even strategic. It was philosophical, rooted deep in our vision and values.

Mark Riffey’s comment from the December 6th post at my blog sums it up:

“If we are going to rebuild the charitable world, are we going to start doing so by funding it the same way that Friends of the Woolly Mammoth (et al) would do it? And if so, how is that congruent with the mandates/mindset of The Pollyanna Principles and Creating the Future?”

When put into that context, it becomes clear why we felt pulled between tactics and values. It also becomes clear what questions we, as a sector full of individuals and organizations, indeed need to be asking and answering.

What would it look like if resource systems were about sustaining thriving communities, rather than figuring out how to meet payroll?

Sustaining thriving communities would require cooperative systems – rooted in our interconnectedness, rather than rooted in competition (if for no other reason – and there are PLENTY of other reasons – than that cooperation lends itself far more easily to being self-sustaining than competition does). Those systems would be rooted in the abundant strengths and assets communities already have, rather than constantly having to infuse those systems with external resources (i.e. cash).

Sustaining thriving communities would require systems that aligned with core values, rather than requiring us to constantly choose between core values and economic survival.

That’s just some of what systems would look like if they were aimed at their highest potential – sustaining thriving communities.

Learning #2: It’s all about Current Systems
Current systems do not look at all like that. There is nothing strength-based / abundance-based / cooperative in any of our current resourcing systems. Rooted in scarcity, weakness and competition, those systems actually go directly counter to values that will lead to sustaining thriving communities.

Interestingly, though – and I’ve written about this extensively in articles at our website – current systems ALSO go directly counter to creating sustainable organizational resources.

No sustainable dollars + no sustainable communities
= Lose / Lose Scenario

The current system looks loosely like this:

1. Organizations need short term funds.
2. We use systems and approaches and tactics aimed at generating short term funds.  While we might call these approaches resource development systems – they are really fundraising systems.
3. Those fundraising systems are rooted in assumptions of scarcity. Even the very word – fundraising – suggests that we do not have what we need (which we assume to be money), so we must raise it. Our strength relies on people outside our programs to make us strong.  And that dependence upon others for our very survival embeds fear into every effort.
4. That said, though, the result of those fundraising systems is that they do indeed raise short term dollars.
5. However, there are also other results. Because current systems depend on support from outside the organization, we must constantly go out and find the dollars that will keep our efforts alive. Fundraising becomes an ongoing job, separate and apart from the actual work we are doing to build strong communities.
6. Because we need what others have, the system requires that we identify everyone associated with our work by the dollars we believe they can give us. We therefore value those with money more than we value those without money. Of course we say we value everyone, but in truth, we treat small donors like money trees – we only communicate with them when we send another ask letter.

   That said, however, we ALSO treat LARGE donors like money trees. We are just more attentive to those trees. We fertilize them and prune them. We pay homage to them, nurture them… until, of course, they stop bearing fruit, at which point we move on, finding new trees upon which to lavish our nurturing attentions in the hopes that they will be more productive.

7. All that said, it is important to repeat that money DOES come in from these ongoing efforts. Enough comes in to allow us to survive until the next fundraising letter or event. But with no long-term investment in our strengths and in each other – and the ongoing requirement that we compete rather than building strength together – the money only lasts so long.
8. And so we find ourselves back at Step 1: We need short term funds.

Learning #3: It’s all about Fear and Human Behavior
In late November of last year, Dimitri and I decided to stop the part-time consulting that was supporting both ourselves and this fledgling organization. If Creating the Future is to accomplish its mission, committing ourselves full time is the only way that will happen.

However, committing full time – and giving up the small amounts of consulting that were at least keeping the doors open – meant there was no longer any income at all. Yes, there was a business plan for generating revenues, and we are currently working 24/7 to implement that plan. But until that kicks in…

And so it was that a week after making the decision to dive into the deep end of the pool with no floaties, we realized, “Year-end is statistically when the very most money is donated to charity. If we did a year-end campaign, we could raise enough money to bridge the next few months.”

The rest of Learning #3 might as well say “See Learning #2.”

When we humans are scared, we don’t have the strength to buck trends and head out on a limb. We might know everything I have written here thus far – heck, I’ve been writing this stuff for years. And in that time, I’ve used that wisdom to help organizations accomplish amazing things.

But there is a big difference between being the dispassionate consultant and being organizational founders who are worried they won’t be able to pay their mortgages the next month.

Fearful about how we would make ends meet in the near term, Pollyanna Principle #6 led every one of our actions: “Individuals go where systems lead them.”

And all the systems – not some, not a majority, but virtually all the systems in this sector lead to “fundraising as it is done.” Case statements and asks and all the stuff that is so institutionalized that it is taught as “Best Practice” in some of the most notable universities in the world.

Even though we knew in our hearts that that was a path rife with scarcity – a path that went counter to everything we were working to achieve for this sector – the bottom line was the same bottom line it is for our clients.

We needed money. And the current systems was the only system around.

Learning #4: It’s all about Changing the Systems
So was our fundraising campaign a failure? Hardly. In addition to all we learned, we raised $7,000 in 10 days with virtually no mailing list and our hearts clearly conflicted.

But wait, that’s not entirely true. Because raising that money was not really in addition to all we learned, but entirely because of all we learned. And that’s because $5,000 of that $7,000 came from a donor who appreciated our courage and willingness to shut down the campaign – and to do so transparently – based entirely upon the core values we wanted to uphold and model to the world.

Which brings us back to the comment Mark Riffey made when we first raised the question of whether or not to raise the money.

What would funding look like if it is NOT the way we’ve always done it? What would resourcing these efforts look like if their focus was sustaining thriving communities?

Learning #5: It’s all about Changing the Norms
As we ask those very different questions and come up with the answers, one thing is clear: Nothing will change until it all changes.

Until a strength-based, cooperative, interconnected, life-affirming approach is the norm for how we build and support community-building efforts, individuals who are living in fear of paying the bills will be pulled into the scarcity-and-fear-based system that currently IS the norm.

Individuals will indeed go where systems lead them.

If Creating the Future is to live up to its mission of guiding this sector to reach its potential, we must change the systems upon which we are sustaining our communities. And we are indeed dedicated to accomplishing just that.

And so, in the words of our friends and colleagues Trae Ashlie-Garen and Troy Alford, we are “beginning as we intend to continue.” Yes, that applies to our efforts to sustain our work, but it also applies so very much to our efforts to engage transparently in all that we do.

We are quite certain we would not have learned nearly this much this quickly, had we not been committed to sharing each step with you. That decision has “kept us honest.” It has kept us more mindful and aware, and working far less in reflexive auto-pilot mode (or as Dimitri calls it, Zombie Mode).

Engaging at every point also reminds us that we are not alone – that this is, indeed, a cooperative effort, built on trust and relationship. We do have significant strengths upon which to build. We have a community. We know this is part of what it will take to reconsider not just funding and resources, but everything.

And so to you, our co-conspirators on this adventure to change how social change is done – we bow in deepest and most humble gratitude. And we cannot wait to see what’s next.

Photo Info: Cups Completely Empty shot by me, at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO during our 2010 Midwest Tour.

In today’s world, is an annual report of the traditional kind important for nonprofits? Smaller as well as larger? We are debating how much money and staff time to put into some kind of publication – we haven’t done a paper newsletter in a couple of years, and typically do a monthly enews that’s got a very different purpose and focus – the paper one is stories and pictures that really give a feel for the big picture; the enews is more “here’s what’s happening this month that you can do.” Our annual report has been very traditional – pretty pictures, stories and the financials and donors. Curious what people you talk to think gives you the most bang for the buck/time/effort!

My response was simple – don’t ask me, ask them!

Which brings me to the two reasons I smiled so wide when I got this note. First, last night we sent out Creating the Future’s monthly e-newsletter.  This month’s newsletter is dedicated entirely to Community Engagement, to celebrate the 5 Year anniversary of FriendRaising. It appears Jenny was penning her note to me at almost the exact moment we were sending her the answer!

The second reason has to do with the way we have been building Creating the Future – making all our decisions by engaging transparently with everyone who might be affected by those decisions. There have been several reasons for our doing things that way, one of which is simply to model what that might look like if you were to engage more transparently in your own work.

So let’s turn the blog into a mini-classroom right here, right now.

Off the top of your head, share with us a decision you are wrestling with.

If you work at an organization, perhaps it’s a discussion you’ve been having around the office, trying to decide on an approach to some problem or opportunity. Perhaps it’s a strategic direction for the organization, or an item you’ve been bumping from meeting to meeting on your board’s agenda.

For consultants, it could be a new direction for your consulting practice, or a book you’re thinking about writing.

For anyone at all, it could be something in your personal life.

Share at least one of those decisions right here in the comments.

Let’s all brainstorm together how engaging others in your decision-making might enhance your decision AND your work overall. And let’s come up with a list of people you might engage.

Let’s start breaking down those walls of transparency right here now!

What if “what boards need”
is help with uncorking and putting to use
the wisdom they already have
just from living life?

What if “what boards need”
is encouragement to trust the life experience
that is the reason they were recruited
in the first place?

What if “what boards need”
to complete their legal oversight role
is just a checklist -
not training, just a to do list?

And what if what boards DON’T know -
how to do the actual work of the organization,
how to fundraise…
what if that is the job of the staff?

What if it is really that simple?

Photo info: Tequila! January 2011

We’ve had an idea for a program at Creating the Future, and in following our own advice, we don’t want to launch anything until we get all the possible insights we can.  Programs are so much more effective when they’re built by the people who will use them!

This will be a program for people who are working in the trenches – executive directors, social entrepreneurs, board members (as opposed to consultants or funders). It would be small chunks of education, going deep into targeted topics, sent monthly via audio and worksheets.

We’re thinking about calling them Flash Classes.

Our Thinking
There is a ton of information available to program leaders about traditional ways of doing everything from governance to fundraising.

Many people are frustrated that those systems don’t seem to be working for them. But because they are the only systems around, those individuals begin to feel, “Maybe it’s just me,” rather than “Maybe those systems aren’t effective!”

Frustration sets in.

We know this because it is what people tell us when they find articles and videos at our site.

“Where have you been all these years? I’m so tired of banging my head against the wall and being told if I just do more of the same, I’ll get better results.

“But finding your stuff is so refreshing! It is the exact perspective we’ve been searching for – something that will bring us far closer to what we know in our hearts we can accomplish!”

To date, finding practical advice on how regular organizations can create extraordinary community change has required that folks find the articles at our website, or read my books.

If we want this sector to achieve its potential, however, information about how to reach for what is possible has to be just as ubiquitous as the traditional advice currently is. It can’t just be in an article or two at our site, or a book or two. It needs to become the norm.

And the first step towards that becoming reality is that the information be significantly more accessible. More abundant. Everywhere.

The Flash Classes are part of that effort. The goal is simple: Provide small chunks of education that make it easy to do an organization’s day-to-day work in ways that are more effective at making a bigger difference in the community.

Topics
We’ve been thinking about two topics to start with:
• Governance and Planning
• Building and Sustaining Strong Programs

Governance and Planning
How do we reach for our board’s potential to make a difference – the reason we got on the board in the first place? What does that mean for recruitment? What does that mean for policies? What does that mean for our agenda? How can we re-energize our board? How can we increase attendance at meetings? How can we deal with micromanagement?

How can our planning make a bigger difference, for our organization and mostly for our community? How can we make it less reactive, moving us forward? How can we get past the same old problems, year after year? How can we reach our organization’s potential to make a difference in the community?

Each of those topics and a slew more would all be addressed from the perspective of creating maximum impact in the community – the focus of everything at Creating the Future.

Building and Sustaining Strong Programs
How can we build programs that accomplish more for our community? How can we embrace others who do similar work, rather than always competing with them? How can we ensure our programs survive? How can we collaborate without all the “stuff” that sometimes comes with collaboration? What does community engagement mean anyway?

And again, these topics and a ton more would all be addressed through the Creating the Future lens.

Format
We’ve been thinking these would audio classes, so people can listen in their car, while they work out or at their desk. They would be quick – hence the name “Flash Classes” – 20-30 minutes apiece, going deeply into a narrow topic each month. Each class would provide exercises and a worksheet.

We also want these to be VERY inexpensive – under $10/month – so that organizations can’t afford NOT to have their ED or board chair learn. We’re thinking there would be no obligation to sign up for a whole year – that again we make it accessible so people can jump in for under $10 and jump out whenever they want.

Prior to signing up, we would want to have a full sample class that someone could listen to, complete with worksheet, so they could see if it is for them without having to pay for it.

Help Us Figure It Out…
So before we head much further down the road with this idea, we want to know from you:

1. Overall, what is it about this that you find interesting or exciting? What is ho-hum?
2. What has been your experience with similar classes? If you’ve been in a program like this, has it been helpful?
3. Do you think there is a need for this kind of “quick and deep” education?
4. If you are an ED or board member, what questions would you want answered before you would consider trying the classes?
5. Are the two threads – Governance and Sustainability – of interest? If not, what topics might be? (We want to start out with only 2 threads of topics, so we don’t make ourselves crazy.)
6. Is the format reasonable – listen in the car or at your desk, with a worksheet? If not, what makes more sense?
7. What about the name – Flash Classes?
8. Is there something we missed? What do you think it would take for a program like this to be successful, given its goal that there be effective learning about new/different approaches at a VERY LOW price point?

I am sure I have left something out, both in the information and in the questions. So please help us flesh out our thinking. If we decide to do this, we want to launch in the next few weeks, so people can start their year out learning.

Your thoughts, please!

In a post early last week, I asked whether or not we should do a year-end fundraising appeal.

We received many responses to that post (sadly, most of those responses were off-line – what is it about some questions that leads to the responses coming off the blog?).  Some, like the comments by Alexandra Peters and Mark Riffey here, gave us great stuff to consider as we made the decision. Virtually all the other responses encouraged us to go for it.

And so, figuring we had nothing to lose, we decided to do a combined social media / email / snail mail appeal, and see what happens.

Getting Started
When Dimitri and I founded and ran Tucson’s Diaper Bank, our direct mail campaigns were highly successful, and so we weren’t worried about that aspect of the campaign. And since then, we’ve proven we could raise money through social media, as we did to purchase the domain names for Creating the Future earlier this year.

But email fundraising? The fundraising Dimitri and I did for the Diaper Bank was 10 years ago, before most organizations even had email (forget actually using it for fundraising!).

And so I thought (silly me) that I would find samples of great email appeals, adapt our considerable experience from our Diaper Bank days, and be up and running.

How to Write An Effective Email Appeal
My first step was obviously to ask for samples of effective email appeal letters. I defined effective as “an appeal that met or exceeded the fundraising goal for that appeal.”

I asked on Twitter and Facebook. I asked on Listservs where consultants gather. I asked individuals who had been professional fundraisers for a very long time.

In response, I received zero samples of effective appeal letters. People suggested websites where I could learn how to do an appeal. They forwarded appeals they had thought interesting (but most them not interesting enough for that person to have donated).

After a while, the tone of my tweeting and Facebook notes changed. Here is what I posted this morning:

For 3 days I’ve been seeking samples of successful email appeal letters, with virtually no response. Can it be that email is less effective at raising money than we’ve been led to think?

The response to that post was interesting. Marketing and communications consultant Clover Frederick noted the following:

I don’t have any samples handy but certainly, the trend has been that email appeals are good for small donations of specific amounts (often related to something in particular.) For instance, one of my organizations requested donations of $15 – each would provide a safe taxi ride home on St. Patrick’s day. Somehow, people don’t mind getting out their credit card for that rather than for big end-of-year donations.

And Marcia White, Director of Community Development Philanthropy at Nebraska Community Foundation posted this:

Funnily enough, research shows that hard copy letters are more effective at driving online donations.

Once Again Being the Guinea Pig
It has been our mission this year to transparently share our work with you all. We are doing this for a variety of reasons, the most important in our minds being a matter of walking our own talk, putting The Pollyanna Principles into practice.

If we are all truly interconnected and interdependent, and if being the change we want to see really does mean walking the talk of our values (two of the Pollyanna Principles) – and if keeping those principles front of mind as we do our work increases the likelihood of that work effecting change - then engaging with authenticity and transparency about our work seems the only logical course to take.

There are two additional reasons we have chosen to do our work by engaging transparently.

1. We want to prove it is not only possible to work in this way, but that it is more effective (and more fun!).
2. By engaging discussion about our work in this way, we all get to learn together.

So that’s our plan – to share every step of this campaign, to share openly what works and what doesn’t.

In the next few days I will share our dollar goal. I’ll share our approach – who we are targeting in the mailings, our reasoning, and the content of those emails. We’ll be asking for your ideas about those emails (unless, due to our tight timing, they will have already gone out, and then we’ll ask you to armchair quarterback what you would have done…).

Then together, we can all see what works and what doesn’t. We can cheer or groan together, and most importantly, we can learn together.

So if you have samples of successful email fundraising letters to share – emails that have met or exceeded your dollar goals – please share those with me. (My email is Hildy_at_CreatingTheFuture.org – please make the subject line “Sample Email Appeal” so I don’t confuse it with all the spam I get at this time of year.)

And please, make a donation right here now. Let’s start this campaign off with a bang!

I can’t wait to see how it all goes, and what we all learn – together!

Year-end is always a time for wrapping up, but these days around our office, we feel like we are just getting started.This ramping-up year at Creating the Future has meant inspired leap after inspired leap, lightning bolt after lightning bolt. I never dreamed so much creation could happen so instantly!

Of course, it’s not really instantly. We have spent the past few years seeing what happens when we put The Pollyanna Principles more deeply into practice. We’ve spent hours and days watching the growing army of consultants who have trained with us – watching what they accomplish, how they move beyond what challenges them, tapping into their clients’ highest potential to create amazing communities.

The result has been a plan for developing the programs that will aim this entire sector’s work at our potential to create the future we all want.

I hope you’re strapped in, because this is going to be one heck of a ride!!!!

Our Vision for the Future
The story of our planning began with the same questions we would ask in any planning session: What future will we aim our plan at creating? That vision has been so solid for so long that this was an easy question to answer.

Our mission and programs will be tethered to the peaceful, joyful image of a healthy, vibrant world. A future where each of us naturally and reflexively reacts from a place of kindness and possibility. A future where that is what we expect as the norm.

A Mission to Accomplish
We then began to reverse engineer that future, asking, “What pre-conditions have to be in place for that future to be reality?” To each response, we asked the same question again. “For those conditions to be in place, what would have to happen first? What would cause that? What would it take?”

It was during this process that the first surprise hit us.

We had thought our mission for the next 5-10 years was to change the modus operandi of the Community Benefit Sector, so that every aspect of the sector’s work is aimed at creating that vision of the future.

What became clear is that we hadn’t drilled down deeply enough, to establish all the steps along the critical path.

The big huge honking piece we missed was this:

“Sectors” don’t change. Neither do “organizations” or “systems.”

People change.

People change their beliefs and assumptions and expectations, which then changes their actions. That is the combination that will change systems and organizations and yes, the whole sector.

And so the mission we are working to accomplish in the next 5-10 years is this:

1) To change the assumptions and expectations of people working in and influencing this sector, regarding the extent to which visionary community / global change is possible

2) To embed those new expectations into every aspect of the work being done by people in this sector, and

3) To ensure that all leaders of organizations know how to make that level of visionary change practical and doable.

Programs that will Accomplish the Mission
If our mission was to make those 3 bullet items the reality of this sector’s work, what exactly would we do to accomplish that?

Focusing on people vs. institutions changed everything about the programs we considered. Reverse engineering continued as we asked ourselves, “What is it that creates behavioral change?” In both our practical experience and our research, we have found repeated success with two basic steps:

• Meet people where they are in their thinking
• Then show them a path for moving beyond their frustrations, towards what is possible.

That’s when another aha struck.

Capacity building initiatives have been aimed at positions (board member, executive director, foundation CEO) and at organizational life cycles (start-ups, growing orgs, sustaining orgs, etc.). Where they have not been aimed is at real live people! No wonder the capacity building movement has not succeeded in creating a strong, effective sector!

So what might happen if we create a capacity building effort for the whole sector, focused on real people making those changes?

What if we helped move people’s assumptions and expectations towards our collective potential to create the world we want?

What if we acknowledged people where they are, embracing that “where they are” is at all different stages along a spectrum of willingness / readiness / being-ness to move towards that potential?

And what if we provided a range of programs for every field – a range of programs for boards, a range of programs for consultants, a range of programs for funders, and etc. – depending on where an individual might find him/herself on their own journey?

And THAT is when the whole world opened up.

Those of you who followed my limited blogging / tweeting during my 6 weeks of contemplation and exploration this past summer kept hearing me say that my head was exploding. (IrkaFirka even immortalized my saying that in one of their wonderful sketches!) Lightning bolt after lightning bolt shook my living room as I wrote and thought and read and then wrote and thought and read some more.

Others began providing their own thoughts, as well as other readings. The more Dimitri and I shared our thinking, the more we found evidence of a spectrum approach in all effective efforts to influence behavior. Some of the more high profile thought systems included:

• Moves Management (fundraising)
• Lead Scoring (and other effective business sales methods)
• Stages of Change (psychology)
• Belief Repatterning (personal development)
• Spiral Dynamics (human development)

Imagine the power of applying this vast array of wisdom to the work of a sector that is poised to create a healthy, vibrant future for our world!

Developing Programs
From all this planning and thinking, our path has become clear, and the work has already begun. We are simply applying the same thinking that has worked to create change in individual behaviors – from getting someone to quit smoking to getting someone to donate to a cause – to the work of social change.

Over the next 24 months, we will be developing a spectrum of programs for boards, for consultants, for funders, for academic instructors, for executive directors, for social entrepreneurs… and so on, for every field within this vast Community Benefit Sector.

Each of those programs will meet individuals where they are in their own being – their current assumptions, expectations, beliefs, and especially their current programmatic and organizational needs.

Each of those programs will then extend a hand to encourage those individuals to take the next step towards their potential to create a more vibrant, healthy world.

We are confident that if we have a staff committed to developing this breadth of programs, we will have a full spectrum of programs up and running in the next 24 months. For now, our next step is clear – find funding, hire that staff, and get to work!

We’re excited to see what’s next, and we are honored that you are part of this adventure – sharing your wisdom, your ideas, your experience, your passion, and most of all putting new ways of being and doing into place in your own work.

We know that creating the world we want is both practical and doable.

We also know that once our assumptions and expectations align behind what is possible, things happen faster than we’ve been conditioned to think is possible.

How much more exciting can it possibly get!?