Be Your Brand

As you probably know, I am pretty passionate about young professionals taking charge of their professional brand. It is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure a long and successful career, especially during a tough job market. Rosetta Thurman is my favorite example of someone who lives their brand online and offline. She have leveraged her blog into a full time consulting career, speaking engagements around the country, and is now teaching young professionals how to leverage their own brand to jumpstart their nonprofit career. A description of the program is below:

Join Rosetta for the Personal Branding Bootcamp, a crash course in today's most effective career tool for young professionals, personal branding! Starting May 22, you'll start a weeklong, intensive training program with other go-getters just like you. The entire program is virtual and you can participate from anywhere in the world.

There are two registration options:

1. Webinar Only: This registration level includes one ticket to the May 22 Personal Branding 101 Webinar, as well as access to the recording (audio & slides) after the live event. Webinar only registrants will not be able to participate in the intensive portion of the Personal Branding Boot Camp held from May 24-31 nor any of the associated forums. This option is good for those who just want to get their feet wet in learning more about personal branding and some quick, practical tips they can apply as part of their career planning.
2. All Access: This registration level includes full-access to the Personal Branding Boot Camp learning experience through May 31 as well as one ticket to the May 22 Personal Branding 101 Webinar and access to the recording (audio & slides) after the live event. This "deep dive" option is for those who are ready to go whole hog and set aside the time to implement social media tools or improve the ones they have in order to advance their careers.

Sign up for this Branding Boot Camp here!

You Can't Take it With You

 Today we have a guest post from Keneta Anderson, a consultant with the Quixote Foundation. I have been so impressed with the foundation's decision to spend down its assets in its efforts to create real and lasting social change. From Keneta: Early this month, Quixote Foundation announced its intent to spend everything, using the entire endowment between now and 2017.  Quite a few people have asked why this small family foundation would decide “not to go on in perpetuity.”  The answer?  Quixote Foundation is working in perpetuity—but that’s different than staying in business forever.

The folks at Quixote Foundation see the next few years as a landmark chance to make the most of their particular foundation’s assets.  They’re convinced their greatest impact will come from spending everything over a short term.  In their view, infusing all the money now will be more catalytic than doling it out in smaller amounts over an indefinite period of time.

This strategy means giving up the exacting control foundations often want to have over programs and results. It also means releasing a certain amount of social power, and the prestige associated with having a foundation.  But it doesn’t mean giving up anything at all in terms of legacy.

For Quixote Foundation, the point is to be an effective change agent, even if that means not being a foundation anymore in the institutional sense. They call their choice “spending up” instead of spending out or down, because who they are as a foundation will be fulfilled, not diminished, by putting more money into action.

Quixote Foundation was started by “Stuart” Hanisch in 1997.  Stuart’s son Erik says his Dad “Set up the foundation so when he passed away I had complete freedom to do what I wanted with it.”  Despite the founder’s strong affinity for specific grantees, he trusted his son to move the foundation’s goals forward without bylaws constraining that work to a particular form.  This wasn’t by any means a lassez faire decision, it was a thoughtful choice made at a strategic time to place Erik in charge of generating results.

In turn, Erik sees spending up now—investing everything in pinnacle opportunities and trusted leaders—as a way to create “Something that’s going to have a life of its own beyond our directives; continuing the spirit of the people who have come before and are with us now, and who carry it into the future in a way we can’t even see or envision.”

Quixote is a “family” foundation after all. Unless parents want to land in the tabloids, they can’t dictate a child’s actions forever.  At some point they have to relinquish authority and trust the children to carry on in their stead.  For some foundations, that letting go might be as simple as funding leadership networks or general operating support.  In Quixote Foundation’s case, it means spending all the way up into progressive causes.

There is quiet power in foundations willing to know their goals, choose their opportunities, spend everything, and trust others to carry the work forward more dynamically and effectively than if they’d tried to remain in control.  Asked what his Dad would think about the decision, Erik mused, “He’d say ‘Wow.’ He’d be amazed. He would have had no idea we’d ever end up with the results we’ve had so far, and in this particular place…and he’d be proud.” That, for Quixote Foundation, is continuing in perpetuity.

Keneta Anderson is a strategic, brand and communications consultant who works with Quixote Foundation and other progressive corporate and foundation clients.  Hear more from Quixote Foundation by following QuixoteTilts on Twitter.

For the love of philanthropy

I tweeted from the EPIP pre-conference that Robby Rodriguez mentioned love in his remarks and I was pretty sure that that was the last time that I would hear that word at this conference. The universe has a wonderful way of proving me wrong.

Speakers on the racial justice panel taking about putting love into your work to achieve real results, Crystal Hayling at the ABFE lecture said "you only have one choice, love or fear", and the dessert and the lunch plenary had a heart design on the plate.

I get it universe, you can't have philanthropy without love. This is the last time I make broad generalizations about philanthropy (for today).

Why Crystal Hayling is my new Fairy Godmentor

Crystal Hayling, the former president of the Blue Shield of California Foundation was the 2010 Association of Black Foundation Executives James Joseph Lecturer this year and is subsequently my newest Fairy Godmentor. Crystal started her remarks with the idea that foundation staff need to take risks. Not the little risks like letting a grantee turn in a report two weeks late and suddenly feeling like some sort of maverick grantmaker but real risks that are personal and dangerous. If you aren't sometimes ticking off your friends and allies because you have decided to work on an unpopular issue or you have taken a job that people think is too risky you aren't trying hard enough. She said "the policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all."

She is also on my fairy godmentor list because she had the nerve to quote Chris Rock's mom at a philanthropy gathering. In regards to people who are asking you to play it safe, Chris Rock's mom said "if they aren't paying your bills and they can't kick your ass, why do you care what they think?"

In philanthropy we are often too afraid to accept the risks that come with not playing it safe, but that is where the best in all of us comes out.

My Feet are Tired, but My Soul is Rested

Conferences have a way of wearing you out and this Council on Foundations' conference is no exception. Despite my pained feet and elevation-induced headache, I am overjoyed at the passion and commitment that I have seen from my peers to use philanthropy as a tool to strengthen communities. EPIP hosted a star-studded panel on racial justice equity in the field (we can have stars in philanthropy). One of the panelists said " we need to lift up racial justice, diversity is no longer sufficient." I think that was a telling refrain because we have moved beyond the point were diversity is enough. True justice in our community isn't about counting the heads around the table, it's about making sure that members of our communities are getting equal results.