Riding the Wave of Change


I was reading through some old conference notes and I saw a quote that re-inspired me. One of the speakers was talking about change in the field of philanthropy said "when you see a wave coming, stand up on your board and ride it, instead of sitting still and waiting to get crushed. You'll look like a genius because you rode what was already happening instead of fighting it." I think there are a lot of waves coming that foundations are comfortable ignoring including:

How can we, as next generation leaders, ride these waves?

A new source of big ideas


There is a great new website that is being called the YouTube for ideas. I always get excited when I see new forums for people sharing ideas and finding solutions to problems. Spend some time on Big Think's philanthropy section and add your own ideas to the mix. Check out the New York Times article below to see how it all got started.

Ex-Harvard President Meets a Former Student, and Intellectual Sparks Fly
Published: January 7, 2008

In June 2006, Peter Hopkins, a civic-minded and idealistic 2004 Harvard graduate, trekked up to his alma mater from New York for a meeting with Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Treasury secretary. Mr. Hopkins, who finagled the appointment through his friendship with Mr. Summers’s assistant, had a business idea: a Web site that could do for intellectuals what YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, did for bulldogs on skateboards.

The pitch — “a YouTube for ideas” — appealed to Mr. Summers. “Larry, to his credit, is open to new ideas,” Mr. Hopkins recalled recently. “He grilled me for two hours.” In the age of user-generated content, Mr. Summers did have one worry: “Let’s say someone puts up a porn video next to my macroeconomic speech?”

Big Think (www.bigthink.com) mixes interviews with public intellectuals from a variety of fields, from politics, to law to business, and allows users to engage in debates on issues like global warming and the two-party system. It plans to add new features as it goes along, including a Facebook-like application for social networking, and Mr. Hopkins said he would like the site to become a popular place for college students looking for original sources.

“I’ve had the general view that there is a hunger for people my age looking for more intellectual content,” said Mr. Summers, who resigned as Harvard president in 2006 after making controversial comments about the lack of women in science and engineering. “I saw it as president of Harvard when I saw C.E.O.’s come up to my wife and want to discuss Hawthorne.” (His wife, Elisa New, is a professor of English at Harvard). See the rest of the article here.

Gen X and Y in the Nonprofit Sector

Rosetta from Perspectives from the Pipeline has another great post about Gen X and Y leadership in the nonprofit sector. From Rosetta:

The Only Constant is Change: Give Younger Generations the Chance to Create a Better Future for the Nonprofit Sector

"...What will ultimately happen is that new generations will simply create their own institutions to replace the old ways of doing business."
- comment by Michele Martin on this blog post

I have been thinking about Michele’s inspiring words a lot lately. Just think, younger leaders of Generations X and Y absolutely have the opportunity to change the face of the nonprofit sector and find new ways of fulfilling our missions smarter, faster, cheaper, and with more innovation to better our communities. Now I’m all for ditching the old models of working that are not working in our organizations, but for young nonprofit professionals, it’s just not that easy to envision. The question we are all asking ourselves is, how? We know there has to be a better way to serve more kids and battle hunger more effectively and fight poverty, etc. but we just don't know how it will work when our ideas for change aren't always welcomed in our current organizations. We feel the challenges every day concerning long hours and low pay, the lack of infrastructure, inefficient technology, and outdated modes of implementing programs that hinder us from doing our jobs well. So we know there are more effective ways of implementing social change, and we bring the energy and idealism to back it up. But how can things change if younger generations aren't a part of the solution in current organizations? How will our ideas help shape the invisible future of the nonprofit sector? Read the rest here.

Executive Coaching isn’t just for executives

For the past year I have been participating in the ABFE Connecting Leaders Fellowship program. This has been a great opportunity to connect with other young leaders in the field and to receive amazing mentorship and support from experienced leaders in the field but the greatest benefit has been the professional coaching that we have received. Career coaches help you identify areas for improvement (like delegating, communicating with co-workers, and developing a good relationship with you supervisor). They also help you develop goals for improving your professional development and hold you accountable for reaching those goals. Our coaches were from VIPCG consulting and they coached us by phone twice per month for 10 months. If you are looking for a way to jump start your career or if you need advice about a specific issue that is slowing your career progression, consider coaching.

Question-Improving the field of philanthropy

If you could change one thing about how foundations operate, what would it be and why?