A vivid memory from my first program officer job: I found myself feeling like a fraud.
I had the technical knowledge to do the work. I had the right intellectual training and had developed “chops” working in the trenches of an innovative public-private housing venture. Nonetheless, I was...
You can do one of these exercises or all of them. Either way, each time ask yourself “What am I aware of now that I was not aware of before?” Write that down. “What might I do differently next time I’m in that situation?” Write that down.
1. Pay attention not only to what happened but...
Are you curious about how to create a routine that allows you or your team to reflect on your philanthropic practice? Dara Weinerman Steinberg, Executive Director of Lippman Kanfer Family Foundation, shares her experience wrangling time to reflect and how it has reinvigorated her belief in the value of informal learning from strategy.
reflective-practicesCross-posted from Philanthropy's Reflective Practices. Our first interview about reflective practices in group work is with Brenda Solorzano, who is the CEO of the new Headwaters Foundation in Western Montana. So many of our readers have asked how do you reflect when your staff is small and multi-tasking all the time or when the board is just past start-up stage and anxious to move from planning to action or a new CEO has just arrived and feels the need to hit the ground running? Brenda and Headwaters offers us a chance to answer all these questions at once.
In this guide, you will find their stories about using four methods of reflective practice that can help you build what you bring to advancing change inside your foundation, with your grantees and other partners.
What keeps you up at night? Our hunch, based on interviews with dozens of skilled philanthropy practitioners, is that it’s not the “what” of your work. You care deeply about a place, a field or an issue. You work hard to stay on top of content knowledge. You network to learn from others. It...
As a Senior Advisor and Vice President at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Dr. Gail C. Christopher led many initiatives that were not without controversy and difficult conversations. She launched the Foundation’s breastfeeding program as a health equity strategy for women and children...
