Claire Reinelt's blog

I met Kenny Bailey through a Network TA Providers group that was convened in Boston by the Barr Foundation. A group of 20+ providers were given the opportunity to work in teams  on a joint project to strengthen the network leadership capacity of a community-based networks.  Kenny and I worked on supporting a youth service network in one of Boston’s neighborhoods. We became familiar with each other’s work and interests through this action learning project. The project ended after several months, but we knew each other enough to that I turned to Kenny when we were called upon to design an innovation lab for a client.

Kenny and his partner, Lori Lobenstine became our partners for the Boston Innovation Lab. I was excited to work with Kenny and Lori to co-design a process for coming up with innovative approaches to find ways to support and catalyze 1000s of leaders to transform their communities so that children everywhere grow up healthy and whole.  Their ability to create spaces to play with new ideas, and encourage experimentation and learning was marvelous and refreshing.  Here’s how one person described the experience.

What we experienced today shifted the conversation about leadership, and it shifted the entry point. Not how do we as individuals develop, but instead it was how do we come together to solve these real social issues, and what space and what process can we create to engage 1000s of people in solving these problems. That is a very different approach to leadership development. It’s not about “I want to be a better leader”, but I want to be a part of this creative process; that becomes the new standard for leadership. We’ve known that shared leadership is important, but we don’t really know how to do it. Today’s examples felt like they were moving in that direction. read more »

Job security is a thing of the past; to survive and thrive in today’s world we need to learn how to become entrepreneurs of our own lives. I’m acutely aware of this as I watch my young adult daughters and their friends navigate the start of their careers.  In a recent book, The Start Up of You, Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha provide insightful and valuable advice about building personal and professional networks, and why they are so important to our survival and success now and in the future.  We know that personal and professional networks are the best way to find a job, but how do we get value from our networks on a day-to-day basis?  How do we cultivate our networks so that we can easily tap the intelligence that is there to get insights about people we interact with, learn how to navigate power dynamics and cultural norms, or get emotional support and strength to keep us going?  On a personal level, I found their advice very affirming and empowering, and I vowed to give my daughters this book to read. read more »

Rebecca Aced-Molina has been a trusted evaluation consulting partner with LLC since 2006.  She was an early proponent of the EvaluLEAD evaluation framework, and helped to pioneer its implementation through her work at the Public Health Institute.  Rebecca worked with us on a TCE supported project to build the capacity of eight boundary-crossing leadership programs to develop results maps to guide their evaluation work.  She also partnered with us on a portfolio assessment for the Global Fund for Women to understand the impact of their funding on reproductive health and reproductive rights work around the world.  Rebecca has a keen mind, a warm spirit, and abiding commitment to social justice and social change.

In January 2012, Rebecca was certified by Leadership that Works, a coach training institution accredited by the International Coaching Federation.  She participated in a special program that targeted leaders in the non-profit sector committed to social justice and people of color to explore the intersection of social justice theories of change and coaching principles.  She has now begun coaching emerging leaders dedicated to social change.  Rebecca describes her coaching work as follows:

Coaching provides me with a unique set of tools and personal awareness that supports leaders to be the most powerful, creative, compassionate and courageous leaders possible.  Coaching is also applicable to groups and offers new approaches for visioning, nurturing collaboration, accessing creative solutions, inviting fuller participation movement building, and a sense of hope.   

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In our last newsletter we reported on how we applied social network analysis (SNA) to identify influencers in online public health communications networks.  This month we report on another application of SNA in our project with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to understand influence in state and local public health Action Networks.  Action Networks are clusters of organizations that have committed to work together to take action towards a shared vision.  For instance, Eat Smart Move More North Carolina is an “action network” with over 60 agencies, associations, and other partner organizations committed to increasing opportunities for healthy eating and physical activity, wherever people live, learn, earn, play, and pray in the State of North Carolina.  The success of Eat Smart Move More depends on hundreds of people, organizations, and communities doing their part to create the conditions for people to eat smarter and move more.    read more »

I was honored to host a webinar with my wonderful colleagues Kim Ammann Howard and Melanie Moore on The Promise and Perils of Supporting and Evaluating Network Formation and Development.  We got some great questions during the webinar.  Here are some follow-up reflections on three topics.

Trust in Networks
Trust is one of the foundations of collaboration. Leaders need to trust one another to take risks together to try something new. Leaders must be able to surmount differences, cross sectors to work together, and avoid serious conflicts.  Here is some of what we think trust looks like in the Barr Fellows Network:  (thanks to Gibran Rivera and Kim Haskins for their input.)

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Peggy Holman shared some insightful reflections as a catalyst at OccupyCafe, a virtual world cafe space envisioning the future of the Occupy movement (check out her powerpoint slides on the vital conversations page).  She talked about the pattern of how change happens and she reflected on what leadership looks like in a movement for change.

All change starts with the disruption of a social system -- a disruption from coherence -- where things worked the way we thought they should, according to assumptions, principles and rules we all knew and understood.    read more »

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I spent four hours with people from many walks of life at the Occupy Boston Summit in the heart of Chinatown about 15 minutes from Dewey Square, the site of Occupy Boston.  Over three hundred people were in a school cafeteria, an overflow room, and on livestreaming to have a conversation for four hours about where the “occupy” movement in Boston goes from here.  

Every two years, experienced, values-driven nonprofit executive directors leading organizations in Boston, focused on education, the environment, the arts, housing, human services and youth, are nominated and selected as Barr Fellows. The fellowship is a prize that comes with a three month sabbatical, two retreats per year and an opportunity to engage in activities with the Barr Fellows Network. It is a prize for people who have devoted their lives to social change, and who are skillful organizational leaders filled with passion and purpose. Since 2005, 48 nonprofit leaders have received the Fellowship award; over 60% are leaders of color.

The overarching vision for the Barr Fellows Program is a thriving nonprofit sector with diverse, strong, and connected leadership that is having a positive impact on the quality of civic life in Boston. One goal is to nurture strong connections among a diverse group of leaders who work in different neighborhoods and on different issues so that they can create authentic, honest, and accountable relationships with one another. read more »

The nonprofit sector has been hard hit by the economic recession. Fewer resources are available to meet more and more pressing needs. Some states and communities are coming together to find ways to more efficiently and effectively use the available resources for community benefit. One example is the Nonprofit Sector Viability Collaboration in Maine. The Collaboration is composed of funders, capacity-building organizations and consultants who have come together to find more efficient and effective ways to strengthen the viability of the nonprofit sector in Maine.

Several factors have contributed to the Collaboration’s success. read more »

In a recent LLC Funders and Evaluation Circle meeting on Evidence-Based Practice and Leadership Development, we explored whether forming and testing hypotheses about leadership and leadership development might lead to stronger evidence about what works.  We wondered whether we could be more strategic about where we invest in leadership by testing our assumptions, and using more  rigorous and relevant measurement techniques and evaluation tools to support our learning. read more »