|
Dear
Friends:
Years ago, a consulting colleague shared a question she
asked all her clients:
“If it winds
up the thing that has to change is YOU,
are you willing to
change?”
That question came back to us and made us laugh
as we started writing this letter. Because the thing that changed - the thing
that eventually became the Community-Driven Institute - was indeed us!
As many of you know, we had an epiphany of sorts
in our 6th year as consultants (way back in the late 1990's). Even though we
wanted our consulting work to be changing the world, and even though our
clients loved our work, nothing was changing in our clients’ communities.
Was that really the best we could do?
That simple question led to all that has become
the Community-Driven Institute. It is also the question that is leading to the
changes you are about to see in 2010 - changes that will help aim your
work at your highest potential to change the world.
- What would your community look like if your mission were 100%
successful?
- What is stopping your work from achieving that?
- What would need to
be different about your work to accomplish all that is
possible?
The more we focused on answering questions like
these, the more everything changed about the way we did our work. And the more
our work with clients changed, the more we saw over-the-top results from
everyday ordinary people - the stories that have kept us motivated to do more
and more and more.
And that’s the most exciting
part. It is not the biggest or strongest or most powerful groups that
are creating the most change. The groups who are kicking butt in their
communities are simply the ones who answered that critical question with a
resounding “Yes!”
If what needed to change
was them, they were not only willing but excited to do whatever it took to
reach for what was possible.
It Doesn’t Take a
Lot
That’s the first thing we found. Yes, it takes
seeing things differently, being different in our work, thinking in a different
way. But it doesn’t take a ton more work than groups are already
doing. In fact, often it is easier.
Our own plans for the Institute are a case in
point.
In 2007, we created our first Global Impact Plan
for our Institute-to-be. First we aimed at the future we wanted for the world.
Then we determined our first steps by reverse engineering the cause-and-effect
conditions that would lead to that vision.
|
The future
we wanted to create:
A healthy, humane, peaceful,
resilient, vibrant world.
The conditions that would
lead to that:
We listed dozens of cause-and-effect
pre-requisites to creating that world. Here are some of the most salient:
- There would need to be huge numbers
of people dedicated to making that vision reality. (Fortunately, that
condition already exists ready made - the millions of people already working
and volunteering in the “nonprofit” / Community Benefit sector!)
- Those people would need to believe
that the world can indeed be a humane, vibrant, healthy, peaceful place to
live.
- To believe it, they would need to
see that dramatic social change happens all the time - that it is not a
fairy tale, but a practical reality. Dramatic social change would need to be
highlighted everywhere it happens, so we see that it is not the rare occurrence
we have been led to believe it is.
- People doing work in vision-based ways
would need to find support with others doing that work - a place where
they can both take refuge from those who say it’s impossible, and can find
help in creating the kind of change they are aiming for.
- People who want to learn ways to have
their work have more dramatic impact would need to have an easy way to get
on that learning path. Once they are on that path, the work would need to
be easy to replicate and maintain, or people simply would not do
it.
|
Our Very First
Goals
Looking back over the past two years, we have
accomplished everything we set out to accomplish in our first plan. Wow!
Here were our goals and plans, and the
conditions we hoped they would impact:
- To provide
evidence that it is indeed possible to create practical paths to dramatic
global change:
- Publish The Pollyanna
Principles, to share stories that celebrate what is possible.
- Engage dialogue across the
sector, through blogging and social media and public speaking. Tell
stories in as many places as we can, to show that visionary community
change is not just possible - it is practical and doable!
- To provide
a learning path, as well as support for those on that path:
- Begin teaching new ways of
thinking and being in our work, to begin building a movement for aiming this
sector’s work at creating more visionary community improvement. Start with
those who can spread the word the farthest and fastest -
consultants who teach and consult to dozens of organizations
every year.
- Provide an ongoing community of
practice for those who are in those classes to support each
other’s work.
We did all of it. We published the book, and
added a full-length video presentation to go with it. We engaged dialogue
online and through public speaking. And we embarked on a 16-city-tour covering
9,000 miles across the U.S. and Canada, sharing the message: Creating
visionary community change is practical and doable!
Four classes of consultants (five if you count
our brave beta-testers!) have completed the Institute’s 5-day immersion
course. They are now all part of a thriving community of practice where they
provide ongoing support and encouragement for each others’ work.
We Never Thought Results Would
Happen This Fast
We have to confess the immediate results of
this work have surprised us. They shouldn’t - in our own work over the
past 10 years, when people have changed the way they see things, things have
changed instantly and dramatically.
Yet when the students
in our classes share what they’ve accomplished and how quickly that
change has occurred, each time we are amazed all over again.
|
Gayle Valeriote at the
Volunteer Centre in Guelph, Ontario, has changed everything about the way she
is doing her work. Groups who had been asking her to help strengthen their
organizations are now aiming at strengthening their whole community. They are
learning that strength comes from engaging others, including those they
formerly considered “competition.” |
|
Nancy Iannone (Lake
Havasu, Arizona) and Jane Garthson (Toronto, Ontario) were able
to encourage a very large online community to change course instantly - a
change for which others had been advocating for years to no avail. Once Nancy
and Jane combined forces, the change happened within 24 hours - and happened
joyfully, in the best way possible. |
And by now, you have probably heard about the
amazing success Rick Carter created with Nebraskans Against
the Death Penalty.
|
When Nebraskans Against the Death
Penalty approached Rick to help create their strategic plan, they had little
hope of ever overturning the death penalty in their state. Yet within a year of
creating that plan, they had not only come within one vote of doing so in the
legislature - they had successfully overturned Nebraska’s capital
punishment statute in the courts.* |
So if you have been one of those people asking
us, “What have you been up to?” and been stymied that we can’t
answer in a sound byte, that’s why. It’s been that kind of
year!
Which Brings This All Back to
You
We know you, too, want your community to be a safe,
healthy, resilient, humane, vibrant place to live. We know you want the same
thing for our whole world.
That’s why we want you to be part of
our plans for 2010.
Those plans include more classes and more
engagement through social media and in public appearances. They include
traveling wherever folks want us to speak (this year’s Community-Driven
tour is across New Zealand and Australia!). The plans also include building the
infrastructure that will create the Community-Driven Institute as its own
being.
But there is a big difference between goals
(what we hope to accomplish) and plans (what we will do).
Our goal is to continue changing the conditions we noted
originally - engaging more and more people to change the way this sector does
its work, so we create the healthy, humane, vibrant world we all want to
see.
To accomplish all that, we know the Institute
cannot work in a vacuum. The Community-Driven Institute must instead
belong to you. That is the only way we can be sure we are all aiming at
the highest potential for this sector’s work.
We have already begun asking for thoughts and
advice wherever we happen to be. At the blog and via social media, in
face-to-face meetings and on phone conversations around the world, we have been
asking the most critical questions. How can we build the Community-Driven
Institute to be as effective as possible?
Yes, we are walking the talk of “asking for
advice” rather than assuming we know it all.
So whether it is
via...
Facebook or
LinkedIn or Twitter
Our blog or
our website (which will soon become far more interactive)
Our
classes
Offering your private support (sending
us an email or calling us with your thoughts!)
...we want to know what you’re
thinking. We want your help - your wisdom, your ideas, your experience.
We want you to be part of this, because the only way we can create the kinds of
sweeping change we all sense is possible is if we all build it together.
It’s Just
Us
Now for another surprise.
We have indeed had wonderful input from great
minds as we have worked through the details of the past two years’
efforts. But the actual work of making all this happen has been done by
just three of us - Hildy, Dimitri and Nick. (For those who ask if we
ever sleep, does that begin to answer the question?)
In addition, our
consulting company has been covering both the Institute’s ongoing expenses
and its start-up costs. (We confess that has been an interesting task, given
what little time is left over after developing and teaching classes, writing
articles for the blog and the website, and all the rest of the work that goes
into running this new kind of teaching and learning organization.)
More than anything, it has been an honor to be able to
provide this gift to all the organizations and consultants and funders and
teachers who have benefitted from the work of the Community-Driven Institute so
far, because we know the real beneficiaries are your
communities.
As we head into 2010 and the official birth of
the Institute as its own tax exempt being, our plans include locating key funds
to hire staff, to help with the multiple projects we three are currently
juggling on our own.
We have been blessed by offers of
assistance in that area - individuals with years of fundraising
expertise who have offered to help us raise funds as soon as the
Institute’s tax exempt status is secured. (Please let us know if we can
add you to that important list.)
This will become even more critical as our
newsletter stops selling books and mugs and things in 2010.
We know all this means we are about to take a
leap...
A Leap of
Certainty
This is not a leap of faith, but a leap of
certainty. Our certainty comes from the knowledge that unless something
is physically impossible, it is possible.
It is possible for this sector to create a world
that is healthy, humane, peaceful, resilient and vibrant in every way.
Rick and his work with Nebraskans against the
Death Penalty proved that, as do all the other successes the Institute's
colleagues have experienced so far. All that, and we’ve barely gotten
started!
The Community-Driven Institute’s job will
therefore be simple: To ensure the sector has everything it needs to
create that world.
It has been an amazing year as we have prepared
for this birth. We are grateful beyond anything we can express in words that
you have been on this journey with us.
And we hope you will join us as we continue to
help you kick butt in your own community.
With the very warmest regards and excitement for
what is coming next,
Dimitri Petropolis
Hildy
Gottlieb
Community-Driven Institute
|
|
|
Help
Kick-Start the
Community-Driven Institute!
|
|
* If you have not heard the whole story of
Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty,
listen to Rick Carter tell that story in this
video. |
