Giving & Gathering

Welcome!

Welcome to Giving & Gathering, a space to engage in story-filled conversations, misadventures and uncertainties, unexpected connections, moments of generosity, sudden revelation and painful mistakes. Please feel free to come along for the ride -- share any thoughts that arise or just read along and see where you end up.

Holiday Advice for Weary Nonprofit Professionals

Every year, as fall approaches, I find that my professional self grows excited for Thanksgiving. Undoubtedly part of the excitement is much needed time off. I always take a five-day break from work, from Wednesday to Sunday. And of course the turkey and time with family are both savory treats. But still, there is something more to the excitement.

What especially excites me about Thanksgiving is that the holiday opens to door to a period of liminality – an uncanny period of unpredictability and change that runs through Christmas, Hanukah, Winter Break and New Year. As of today (the Sunday after Thanksgiving), there are four weeks of work before Christmas weekend and winter vacation. Then there’s another week to New Years, and several more days until everyone is back to work and school.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about liminality:
Liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.

So if we are in a period in which we are establishing a new way to structure our professional identity, time or community, what should we do? Well, I’m glad you asked. Here’s my advice: Pursue vision, restoration and appreciation.

Vision
There is undoubtedly a rush that occurs throughout this holiday period. You may need to coordinate holiday events for your agency, finish reports prior to the close of the calendar year, or buy gifts for friends and family. Despite the flurry and chaos – or really perhaps right in the midst of it – let yourself take time to return to the magic of what you and your colleagues do. Revisit the passions that inspired you to enter this work. With that in mind, what if the coming year might provide some new super-powers to achieve the impossible? Where might you have your work take you? I would encourage nonprofit professionals to let the holidays inspire a new set of possibilities for the coming year. Especially imagine those next steps that may actually be attainable. What were your hopes for the past year or two that have not been achieved but you are ready to revisit? What might be a few small, sweet work fantasies for 2018?

Restoration
If I were to make a bold prediction, I would guess that you are tired. Maybe you know it, or maybe you are so deep in the hustle that you don’t even feel it. Or maybe you are actually deeply fed and energized by your work and this time of year. Either way, I invite you to create space for meaningful rest and rejuvenation to foster resilience. Take time for an assortment of things that keep your spark lit. The most generous thing you could do for your 2018 professional self would be to reenter the work fully restored. There is a superhero somewhere inside of you…what does that part of you thirst for? Whatever it might be, take time to feed your inner superhero. If you are generous with yourself, you will be in much better shape to be generous with others. Provide yourself the space to catch your breath and replant your feet firmly on the ground.

Appreciation
As we enter the holidays, invite yourself to deepen your daily practice of gratitude. Just listen to the often-fleeting internal messages inviting you to acknowledge people. Try to take note of people who have made a difference to your work life in small but important ways. Who has done something to put a smile on your face? Who do you count on for small things that are easily taken for granted? Who has taught you something important? Take the chance to write those people a note, send an email, buy them coffee or give them a hug. This practice of appreciation allows us to build a network of belonging.

If any of this works for you, I’d love to know. Drop me a note or post a comment. The New Year is waiting for each of us to be the change we wish to see in the world.

An Ecosystem Perspective

I am not a particularly late sleeper, so I was glad to make it to 6:50 am. I woke up this morning in a Huntington Beach hotel room. I’ve got a meeting to facilitate this afternoon. I arrived last night when it was dark.

On meeting days, I often wake up nervous. I suppose it’s something in the realm of performance anxiety. It’s probably an appropriate feeling, but not terribly enjoyable. On good days the wise part of myself counsels me to turn into that fear.

I walk over to the curtains, eager to get my first glimpse of sunny Southern California. Instead, I am greeted with thick and dreary coastal fog. I get dressed and head out for a walk. I have little idea what I’ll see, but I hope to find my groove along the way.

As I reach the boardwalk I feel a mix of excitement and irritation. The excitement comes in response to the first surfer who I see dropping into a wave. The irritation is a reaction to the intensity of tourist-focused amenities – mostly big surf shops with photos of bikini clad women and ocean-themed restaurant chains.

As I continue walking I begin noticing all sorts of local details. I pass a building that is the home of the Junior Lifeguard program . Moments later I find a bigger building with more glass and a bunch of trucks – home of the Huntington Beach grown up lifeguards. It dawns on me that life guarding here is not just a bunch of strong swimmers with binoculars stationed along the coast. In Huntington Beach, for those who pursue it, lifeguarding is a way of life.

As I make my way onto the pier, more of the elements of the local ecosystem begin to fill in. There’s the guy in a hoodie dutifully taking photos of the surfers. There’s the detailed rules about fishing (where you can and cannot clean your fish). There’s dozens of folks with their gear – rods, buckets, tackle boxes – and as I watch them I notice that it seems that they know one another. They are the regulars stationed at the end of the pier. Some Latino, some Asian, some White, all catching the same fish and trading advice.

As I begin the return trip down the pier there are clusters of fast paced women in morning walking groups. They are each equipped with a rubber exercise resistance band. Intermittently the group leader stops at a designated spot along the metal railing and everyone loops their band and takes part in the stretch.

Turning off the pier at Duke’s, I begin to realize that I am in a human ecosystem. Or really an ecosystem that is a concert between the natural world – waves, fish, fog – and the human response that is constantly evolving.

Arriving back at my hotel room I go back to the window. From 100 feet up, I get a more wide angle view of the environment below. The coast, of course, is still there. But what else? Right below me is a fancy hotel pool, waiting for the afternoon rush, when drinks with umbrellas will be served. And tourists – including me – are part of the ecosystem here. But there’s more.

Just a couple blocks off the coast are homes, but not the fancy seaside villas I might imagine. Instead, I notice that these are mobile homes, located behind the glitz of Pacific Coast Highway. I imagine that these structures are home for some of the surfers, power-walkers, fishermen along with retail and restaurant employees who collectively inhabit this ecosystem.

Circling back to thoughts of my meeting this afternoon, I wonder how the idea of an ecosystem might apply. I’m so quick to notice isolated parts – the fog, or the surfer, or the chain restaurant. But what happens when I take time to listen for the elements that make up an organization’s ecosystem? What are the influences that may be invisible or unnoticed at first? What are the natural forces at play? How might staff, board, partners, clients and other stakeholders shape reality through their repeated interactions?

With my morning walk complete, I wonder whether my initial nervousness has begun to shift. The internal space that had been filled with irritation now seems more fluid. I let myself become excited by the quickly approaching meeting and curious with the idea of a social or organizational ecosystem. Perhaps my coastal fog has begun to lift.

Brave Space, Safe Space

Last week I sat in a room with two-dozen UC Davis leaders who work to promote equity, diversity and inclusion. We were only a few minutes into the meeting when I heard a suggestion that stopped me in my tracks. “Let’s not focus too much on creating a safe space – we really cannot fully ensure one another’s safety. Instead, let’s commit to support one another in maintaining a brave space.”

To put the moment in context, my colleague, Charlene Green, and I were launching a new Health Careers Pipeline Community of Practice. This community of practice is an initiative of the Center for a Diverse Healthcare Workforce at the UC Davis School of Medicine. For 12 months, our collective task is to strengthen the pipeline that supports individuals from disadvantaged or under-represented communities in entering health careers.

Charlene and I have spent months preparing. We have surveyed potential participants; identified key questions; determined milestones to achieve; and designated teams to design and implement projects. As the meeting began, we knew that everyone was eager to jump in. But as I heard those two words – brave space – I knew that it was time to just slow down.

Charlene asked the room what brave space might imply for our group. One person suggested, “provide support for each other.” Another added, “model courage and vulnerability.” Nobody flinched at these suggestions.

Despite my years as a facilitator, I had never heard the term brave space. But I knew immediately that brave space was central to what Charlene and I were seeking. I also knew that all too often, the absence of brave space is what prevents the most pressing conversations from taking place…or from taking place safely.

Establishing a brave space is an act of shaping organizational culture. Leaders – sometimes many, sometimes just one – call upon everyone’s bravery by demonstrating a commitment to hold the space for real conversation. There are numerous variations to how this can be done, and different circumstances call for distinct strategies.

In one recent example, leaders at Oxford High School in Michigan designed a project called “13 Reasons Why Not” (as a counter to the similarly-named TV show). To confront teen suicide, thirteen students recorded stories of desperation and personal hardship, including an acknowledgement of those who helped them. On thirteen mornings, stories were played across the school PA system into every Period 1 class. This was an act to promote schoolwide brave space. Oxford High School followed the same pattern that was suggested in our meeting: “provide support for each other” and “model courage and vulnerability.”

As nonprofits and public agencies, we have to be able to speak to the issues and dangers that cause many people to remain unsafe. Depression, racism, homophobia, sexual assault, hunger, lack of access to health care, homelessness, drug addiction and human trafficking. To dive into these matters we need to be careful and wise.

We might prudently conclude that we lack the organizational wherewithal to safely dive in. But at the same time, we might recognize that with adequate leadership, time and facilitation we can find the key to enter a brave space. And when we enter that space we may discover that many of us – our colleagues, partners and stakeholders – have been eager to bravely arrive.

On Fog and Fire

May we discover
Beneath our fear
Embers of anger
To kindle justice.

May courage
Cause our lives to flame,
In the name of the Fire,
And the flame
And the Light.

~John O’Donohue, “In Praise of Fire” (excerpt)

I strained my back in the gym last week. I am not quite sure of the culprit. It could have been a result of extremely stiff quads from hiking the weekend before. It could have been that I was attempting to lift a dumbbell in a new way (I’ve only begun working out in recent months). It could have been that I was increasing my weights. All in all, I think I was eager to move out of the uncertainty of fog and into the fiery excitement of new possibilities.

~~~

My friend Jonathan took this photo just the other day. Those are my dogs, Asher and Zoe, wondering impatiently why we have stopped walking. I find this image to be very moving – filled with a poignant beauty and a cold sadness. Every time my eyes meet the photo my attention is called to the tree, as though it offers some crucial reminder that I inevitably and repeatedly forget. And that green morning road calls me deeper into the mysteries of the winter haze.

Heading out to Sea

For too many days now I have not written of the sea,
nor the rivers, nor the shifting currents
we find between the islands.

For too many nights now I have not imagined the salmon
threading the dark streams of reflected stars,
nor have I dreamt of his longing,
nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn.

            ~Excerpt from "Song for the Salmon" by David Whyte
              (full text follows the post)

Standing on the precipice of 2014, looking toward the new year this poem has been speaking to me. In particular, the metaphor of the two distinct worlds in which the salmon lives. One, a river with its linear path and familiar pools (also rapids, waterfalls and the perils of drought); the other, the vast ocean filled with uncertainty, endless territory and limitless possibility.

Every time I read the opening line – For too many days now I have not written of the sea – I feel a quickening in my heart. It is a feeling of exhilaration composed of equal parts excitement and fear. It is an awareness that I have grown comfortable with all that is familiar to me, even while I am free to remain in that territory. But there is nervous spark whispering “perhaps now.” The sea is calling to me. I feel waves of apprehension, but I know that 2015 is about heading out to sea.