The path in our lives will twist and turn, but the future does not have to look like the past. We can create the future we want. It just takes asking two simple questions…  

As you head into staff meetings or board meetings, community meetings or partner meetings – or as you simply plan out what you want to accomplish this week – ask those two simple questions. Start walking the path to create the future you want.

And then please let us know what happens!

The question that arose early in our time together was this: “How can we support each other’s work in as integrated a fashion as possible?”

The wording of the question itself is important. Much of what both our groups are working on is about blurring the lines that divide us all – divide people from each other in survival fears, divide businesses from each other in competitive win/lose fears, divide the community benefit world from the business world from the government world from communities themselves…

Pollyanna Principles #3 notes that “Everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not.”  As we strive to put all 6 of the Pollyanna Principles into action in everything we do, the wording of the question we colleagues have been asking has even more meaning.

What does integrated, whole, connected support look like among and between individual organizations, people, communities, nations?

As I sat with that question this morning, Peter Block’s book The Answer to How is Yes jumped to mind as I asked this question aloud to the dog:

What if the most affirming, forward-moving answer to “How will we do X?” is, “What would our values look like in action regarding X?”

How can we end poverty? How can we create equitable healthcare in the US? How can our organization collaborate more meaningful with others? How can we balance our organization’s budget with funding cuts again this year?

Could it be that it is that simple – that the path will become clear if we simply ask, “What would our values look like in action regarding poverty, healthcare, collaboration, budget decisions?”

I’m not asking this rhetorically – I would really like to experiment with this, to see what we might all learn together and from each other’s experiments.

So will you give it a try and report back what you find?  If there’s a problem you’ve been wrestling with, will you see what happens if you ask that question?  And then please note in the comments here the results, good or bad.  I promise to do the same.

Photo Info: The Truth Is Closer Than It May Appear (shot by Hildy in Southern Illinois)

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/05/25/what-will-our-values-look-like-in-action/feed/ 4 http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/05/17/conversations-that-matter/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/05/17/conversations-that-matter/#comments Tue, 17 May 2011 23:12:14 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=4582 Several weeks ago, we spent a delightful few days in retreat with some associates. One of the participants had offered his mom’s vacation home for this time away. In offering the house, Joe told us it was tucked into a hillside in California’s Sonoma Valley, that it had plenty of room for all of us, and that it would provide the perfect ambiance for the deep thinking we needed to do together.

Then he shared that there was “just one thing…”

“My cousin attends the Community College nearby, and so he is living at the house as sort of a caretaker. He’s 23 years old and very shy. Friends of mine stayed at the house last month, and for the entire time they were there, Charlie came and went through a side entrance – they never even saw him once.”

Our first night at the house, the magical scents of Dimitri’s cooking greeted Charlie when he got home. We made our introductions, and Dimitri invited him to join us – that there was plenty of food. Counter to our expectations from Joe’s “uber-shy” description, Charlie happily broke bread with us.

Over the next few days, Charlie hung around when he came home from work, joining us for almost every meal including breakfast. He listened to our conversations, chimed in, asked questions. He expanded on those group conversations in more intimate, quiet conversations with his cousin. If asked for words to describe Charlie, the word “shy” would not be anywhere near my top ten.

After several days of amazing discussion and idyllic surroundings – not to mention amazing meals prepared by Chef Dimitri – our retreat time was over, and we all went our separate ways.

A week later, when we caught up via skype for follow-up, Joe shared this story:

“I got an email from Charlie’s mom yesterday. She said she can’t remember when she has seen him this energized and hopeful. She thanked us for involving him in our conversations – she cannot believe the impact those conversations had on him.

Charlie told me he has been so discouraged about the state of the world, that he believed the only solution would be true revolution. After our conversations, though, he shared that he has hope that things can be different, and that we can make that happen.”

I am sharing this story because it is becoming clear that there is an almost desperate need in our world – a need to change the dominant conversation from what is wrong to what is possible. A need to change that conversation from what is considered “practical” to what is both practical and meaningful.

And more than anything, as a pre-requisite to that changed conversation, there is a desperate need to create space for simply having conversation, period.

Which brings me to this month’s edition of Making Change – the 1 year anniversary of the podcast program I host for the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

This anniversary podcast is a bit different from the rest. Instead of one guest, there were 4 of us – Robert Egger (DC Central Kitchen), Kathleen Enright (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations), Margaret Martin (Harmony Project) and myself.

It is also different because the conversation just moves where it wants to go. It touches on some of the most interesting and deeply considered topics. And it points out a glaring disparity:

While some of us may be lucky enough to have these kinds of conversations with friends, virtually none of us have these thoughtful conversations with people who can make things happen – the people who can make a difference. Virtually none of us have these sorts of meaningful conversations with board members and community members and networking group members.

So here’s an assignment that can make an immediate difference for your work.

1) Download this podcast from iTunes - or listen to it streaming online here.
2) And then vow to add a “conversation” item to even just one of your meetings this week.

Whether it is a staff meeting or board meeting or community meeting or networking meeting, add a 10 minute discussion about what is possible for your community (NOT your organization, your community – the reason your org exists).  And make that item the first item on the agenda – not an item for “If we have time…” but Item #1, proclaiming “We will ensure we make time.”

The following are some starter questions. If you think of others, please share them with us!

• How are we defining success for our mission?  What would our community look like if our mission were 100% successful?
• What indicators might we measure, to see if conditions in our community are actually improving?
• What can we accomplish for our community if we work together with our “competition,” that we could not accomplish on our own?

These are the kinds of conversations that made a difference in the life of a 23 year old who had given up. Please let us know what difference they make for the groups you are working with!

Many thanks to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and specifically to the generous and gracious Peter Panapento, for hosting the Making Change podcast this past year. We look forward to a tremendous Year 2, filled with even more exciting conversation!

Photo Info: Group conversation in the Waikato, Hamilton NZ (credit to Dimitri). Sonoma shots c/o me.

This weekend, we finished entirely revising our Community Engagement Action Kit. And so this whole subject is on my brain a lot.

When we use Community Engagement as just one more tool in the toolbox, yes, it is a powerful tool. But when engaging the community becomes your group’s way of being in all its work – well look out!

First, our definition of Community Engagement:

Community Engagement is the process of building relationships with community members who will work side-by-side with you as an ongoing partner, to make the community a better place to live. Considered from the perspective of that two-way relationship, Community Engagement is the organizational equivalent of friendship.

As we know from our real lives, friendship isn’t something we “do.” It’s something we “be.” So how can you infuse that way of being into everything your organization does?

These 3 steps will get you started.

Step 1: What Do We Need to Accomplish, and How Can Engaging the Community Further Those Goals?
The very first step is to consider all your organization’s goals for the year. The goals of your Community Impact Plan. The goals of your Organizational Wellness Plan. The goals of your Program Development Plans. And the goals of all your other plans.

How could all those goals be enhanced by engaging your community more deeply in your work?

Try this: For each of the following sample goals, name at least 3 ways that goal could be enhanced by engaging people in your community. And think about what kinds of people that might be.

• Goal: Create a new program to address an unmet need you have uncovered.
• Goal: Create a succession plan for your Executive Director
• Goal: Expand the reach of an existing program into a new neighborhood.
• Goal: Choose a goal from one of your own plans.

Step 2: Who to Engage?
For each of the opportunities you uncovered in Step 1, list the types of people you could engage to enhance that effort.

Whose lives are touched by the issue at the heart of that goal? Perhaps it is parents of young children – or the young children themselves. Perhaps it is elected officials. Or neighborhood residents. School principals. Public Safety employees.

For example, if your goal is to create a succession plan, your list might include:
• Other executive directors
• HR specialists
• Corporate leaders / local corporate boards who may have recently gone through an executive transition

From there, list names of people. For now, it doesn’t matter so much if you know those people – you can always be introduced by a mutual acquaintance. But the bottom line is that we can’t engage categories of people – we can only engage with real humans. So create a list of names.

Try this: For each of the opportunities you listed in Step 1, list at least 3 types of people or groups whose lives have been touched by that issue. Then for each of those types, list at least 3 people to engage.

Step 3: How to Engage?
The ways to engage are as many as the stars in the sky – or the people in your community! One-on-one meetings over coffee, small group meetings, events, presentations – the list is as long as your imagination, and will rely entirely on what you are trying to accomplish by engaging in the first place!

What you will quickly find in these activities is that Community Engagement is fun. That’s because it is tapping on the passion you have for making a difference in your community.

Because of that, Community Engagement is a great way to engage your board. Unlike fundraising, with Community Engagement, board members don’t have to ask for anything but someone’s wisdom, ideas and passion. And that is always fun!

Try this: For each of the types of people noted in Step 2, list at least 2 ways you might engage those groups or individuals.

Once you begin engaging the community in the work your organization is doing, you will see that the benefits move beyond the ideas you had in Step 1. And that is because the real goal of Community Engagement is building an engaged community – a huge part of what creates the healthy, vibrant places we all want to live.

Half Price – only $13.99
We are selling out the 1st edition of the Community Engagement Action Kit, clearing the shelves to make room for the revised and expanded 2nd Edition.  At $13.99 / book, click here now to get your copy (or get copies for all your board!).

Photo: Found this picture hanging on the wall at a McDonald’s – art is everywhere!

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).

Those few words encompass the most insidious assumption at the heart of competitive grant-making and competitive fundraising. The “reality” created by that assumption is the source of all the fear and the overwhelming sense of scarcity that undergird this work, everywhere around the world.

For years at this blog, I have shared evidence that this assumption is just that – an assumption. (Check posts here and here.)  And in The Pollyanna Principles, the case studies not only show the step-by-step of how funders can indeed fund everyone – they show how funding everyone dramatically improves the results of those funded projects, in the short term AND the long term!

A New Case Study
These days, Creating the Future finds itself in the middle of another case study, as we have been honored to be included in the launch of a new funding mechanism that is fully intended to fund everyone.

The effort is called Start Some Good.

Start Some Good is built on the assumption that resources are absolutely abundant. The effort’s founders – Tom Dawkins and Alex Budak – prove that each and every one of us (yes, that includes you) has two resources:

1) A powerful desire for the world to be healthy, peaceful, joyful for all of us.

2) A smidge of money to give (whether that smidge is $1 or $100 – smidge is in the eye of the beholder).

With those two assumptions at its core, Start Some Good is a “Crowdfunding Platform” – a central location where social change initiatives can post their information, and where people who want to “start some good” can find and invest in those initiatives.

Donors are encouraged to give to more than one effort – to spread their gifts around. Even if you only have $5, you might give it all to one effort, or you could give $1 apiece to five efforts. Those dollars add up (hence the term “Crowdfunding”) and voila – everyone can win.

Tapping into the assumptions of abundant resources and abundant passion, Tom and Alex began this initiative with their own blood, sweat and tears, just the way so many of us started our own efforts. And we have been honored that they included one of our projects in their launch.

Next week I’ll share a bit about the project we started there. For now, though, as a way of showing our immense gratitude to Tom and Alex for offering this site to the world, we are hoping you will pitch in to make Start Some Good be the best it can be – just as you have done with so many of the projects we have done here at Creating the Future.

Please take a moment and do the following:

1) Use this link to head to Start Some Good

2) Look around the site, to see the projects people have posted, and to get a sense of the site.

3) Please give a small amount to everything that is appealing to you, even if all you can afford is $1 or $2. And see how those small amounts are honored at the site, underscoring the spirit of abundance that says, “We all have gifts to share, and those gifts are all honored.”

4) Please then answer the following questions:
• What do you find interesting / exciting about Start Some Good?
• What has been your experience with similar programs?
• If you have a project you’d like to post at Start Some Good, what questions would you want answered before you would consider doing so?
• As a donor, what would you want to know before you would consider giving at this site?
• On the mechanical side, the site is still in the Beta version. As you move about the site and as you donate, are there things that could make the site more usable?

And lastly, if you have a project you would like Tom and Alex to consider, please submit it at the site. We very much want them to succeed, to prove that there are so many ways to build cooperation rather than competition.

We wish them both tremendous luck. Please help them by helping others to Start Some Good!

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!

An organization Dimitri and I love is about to die.

Everyone says it is a casualty of the economy. We know that is not true.

Even when times were good, the ABC Group was struggling. And so five years ago, when we were teaching an earlier version of our “Building Engaged Support for Your Mission” workshop – the one we did in Phoenix just last week – the ABC Group sent three people – a board member, the ED, and their Development Director – to see if perhaps this was an approach that could sustain them.

The premise of that workshop hasn’t changed in all the years since the ABC Group attended.

Money is not the most effective aspect of building strength. The most effective aspects are those that simultaneously build community strength while building organizational strength.

At the workshop five years ago, the ABC Group’s ED and board member were both enthusiastic about seeing the entire spectrum of “building support” through a different lens. However both were deferring to the development director – a woman with years of experience and a great fundraising reputation.

And sadly the development director found the whole day useless.

Not that she said that. But she sat apart throughout the whole day, sporting a bored “I don’t need this – I already know my job” look. At one point she shared with us that this was all well and good, but that their organization was different.

Several times in the years between that workshop and today, the ED called us in desperation. Each time we offered to assist for free, to help the group move away from traditional fundraising, and to implement what we had taught at the workshop. Each time those offers languished as the group chose to keep doing what they already knew.

Last month I received a mass email from the group. It said they needed $50,000 to keep their doors open just for that month. Their funding was gone. Most of their staff was gone.

This is one of our favorite organizations in the world, with a unique mission we love. And it is about to die.

******

Last year, we were doing a workshop on governance, when a woman from the XYZ Organization approached us. “I never properly thanked you,” she said.

“I was at a workshop you did in Phoenix 5 years ago. We had just opened our doors, and I knew I had a lot to learn.

I came home and followed every single thing you suggested. Today our budget is $2 million and we are growing strong, even in this economy.”

Yes, you guessed it; the woman from XYZ was at the same workshop the ABC Group attended and ignored.

******

Last week, I taught that same workshop in Phoenix. While we have certainly added rich layers to the workshop over the years, our core philosophical premise has not changed.

This time, though, I had the image of those two groups in my mind. And so I asked the group the following question:

What will it take for you to do something different
than the way you’ve always done it?

And will you?

Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki is often quoted as saying, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”

The minute we think, “I already know that,” learning and possibility stop.

So how can we find the kind of Beginner’s Mind that led the XYZ Organization to its long-term success? One of the easiest routes to Beginner’s Mind is to leave behind your search for answers, and to begin asking new questions.

For years, organizations have been asking the same question:

“How can we raise the money we need?”

Asking that same question over and over, it is no surprise the answer changes only to the extent that it patches a new trick or tool onto the same old assumptions.

So then what might different questions look like, as we seek Beginner’s Mind in our quest for building engaged support for the work we are doing? Let’s start with these (and then let’s add to this list!):

• What brings strength to any endeavor? Which endeavors endure for dozens and hundreds of years vs. those that fall by the wayside? What is it those successful endeavors have in common?

• How can we ensure our programs will build a strong community?

• Do we see community members as individuals who can gather together to create their own support systems, or do we see them as clients we must help, who cannot otherwise help themselves (and certainly cannot help “us”)?

• What would it look like if our programs were built by and sustained by the community that will benefit from those programs?

• What if there were no such thing as programs? Is there a different way to get the end results we want to see in our communities?

Yes, these are the kinds of questions that shake up everything. That is what Beginner’s Mind is all about! By starting back at the beginning-before-the-beginning, we may just catch a glimpse of a more effective path.

So what questions can YOU think of? What questions shake up your thinking? What questions seek to find what builds strength, period?

As you will see in the video, if we seek what builds strength in one place, we may be surprised the extent to which the very same things build strength into everything we do.

So please, share your questions. Let’s open our minds and create possibility for building support for our work in all new ways. Let’s find our Beginner’s Mind.

To learn more about different ways to think about “traditional fundraising” vs. building engaged strength, this article provides a good comparison.

To those viewing this post in an email reader, the video that follows can be found at this link. Or just click through to the blog and watch it there!

Nowhere is this more evident than in the board rooms of Community Benefit Organizations.

Last week alone I was coaching two different board chairs who were concerned that their boards did not want to discuss “vision.”  In both cases, their board members had told them outright that they thought the discussions of vision would be a waste of time; instead, they wanted to focus on DOING something.

In both those cases, the chairs chose the road less taken. They both stepped back from “doing” to facilitate the question, “If we were 100% successful, what would our community look like? What would be different? For whom?”

In both cases, the meetings were more energized and engaged than either of the groups could remember being.

And in both cases, the groups said afterwards, “We needed this. It provides context. It is a different way of thinking, but that is precisely where we need to be.”

This goes directly counter to what “experts” tell boards they are supposed to be focusing their precious time on. Boards (and many governance gurus) see such discussion as a luxury they wish they had more time for but “our board members are so busy and we have so little time together that we have to focus on what’s important…”

It may be fine to consider such exploratory, open-ended conversations at the beginning of an annual retreat, but boards insist they cannot afford to spend time every month on this “touchy feely” stuff.

And you know, I would be ok with that if the current means-and-doing-focused board work were actually creating results. But we all know that is not the case.

(If you are viewing this in email, here is the video link.)

So where can a board even start? What first steps can a board take, to begin to change the “means and doing” focus to a focus on the difference they want to make in their community?

The simplest step is to start your meetings with a meaningful question. Spend even just the first 10 minutes discussing that question. Not a report, not a speaker – real discussion. Time to think. Time to focus.

Start with energy about the difference you want to make. And let that guide the rest of the board’s conversations.

Some of the most interesting consideration of Boards as Learning Communities happens at Debra Beck’s blog. I recommend it as a great source of inspiration for boards who want to spend more time thinking.