It has been nearly one year since our intrepid group set out to answer the question: Can we generate resources in a way that brings greater autonomy, agency and sustainability to social justice leaders and organizations? Each member of our group has a different story about what brought us to this endeavor. For me, it started from a sense that…
As I kick off 2016 and reflect on 2015, I am reminded of the fond memories working on Future Forward. There were “Aha!” moments after weeks of feeling stuck and “D’oh!” moments when we received only one response to our e-survey. Looking to the future, I’m excited about the next steps and being part of the inaugural Stepping Into Power…
Ten months into our Future Forward process and nearly six weeks since our last experiment update, we’re coming around for the home stretch. It took some doing to schedule the remaining engagements for our process, but we were finally able to align everyone’s calendars. Here’s a recap of recent and upcoming meetings: 10/16, Stepping Into Power rescoping call 10/20, Funders’…
Leslie Griep is the Director of Finance and Operations at Forward Together. Among the ‘outside’ perspectives we wanted to include in the innovation challenge were administrative and operational points-of-view, folks who aren’t always invited into such conversations. Leslie shared some of her thoughts about the workshop and subsequent experimentation process with me recently. AW: How would you describe yourself in…
Earlier this month, I corresponded with Robin Katcher to get her reflections on the Innovation Challenge workshop and impressions of the ensuing experiment process. Robin is a senior program advisor at Management Assistance Group. She brings profound love and humor to her work strengthening organizations, leaders, and networks in the social justice field. AW: How would you describe yourself in…
With the autumnal equinox rapidly approaching, I wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect on our progress over here at Future Forward through a busy summer! Believe it or not, we’ve already made it about two thirds of the way through our experiment phase of this work, and have almost completed two cycles on two different innovation ideas.…
For the Future Forward Innovation Challenge, we were thrilled to bring together a stellar group of innovative folks from diverse backgrounds, including Steve Ma of Accelerate Change. I caught up with Steve earlier this month to talk about his experience at the workshop. AW: You’ve been a changemaker for two-plus decades—founded Live Green, a social enterprise focused on building a…
On July 10, we met to close out our first experiment for the Turning the Tables idea, Inside Out Calendars. This certainly wasn’t the end, but it marked the completion of our very first rapid experimentation cycle during this experimentation phase. So we wanted to pause, celebrate, and share this milestone here with you all! We’re tracking all our lessons learned…
As our Future Forward participants continue to delve deeply into this current experiment phase, I wanted to summarize what happened in the four months of preparation leading up to these experiments. As I wrote earlier this year, from February through May 2015, I led our participants through a program called Collaboration Muscles & Mindsets. From February through May 2015, our…
With the fourth of July holidays approaching, summer is here, and we’re diving head first into the experimentation phase of Future Forward. This experimentation phase builds off the stimulating conversations and the plethora of ideas developed during our May 15th Innovation Challenge kick-off, where our Future Forward team and guests drew on the previous three month’s exploration into muscles and mindsets…