PF Whiteboard

From the Draper Richards Kaplan retreat, last week:

- Fire faster: Personnel problems tend to age more like milk than wine.
- Exercise: This is non-negotiable if you are in this for the long run.
- Decisions don’t have to take a long time if you’ve got the right people making them.
- People do not describe themselves as ‘in poverty’.
- Appreciate your critics: Grit makes polish.
- The key to confidence is humility.
- Reject all excuses: Trying really hard does not equal results. Do not confine your staff to mediocrity.
- Your standard is exactly what you want to say but do nothing about.
- Only the schizophrenic survive: The militantly optimistic, and constantly petrified.
- You can’t do it alone: Isolation is one of your biggest dangers.

I think about empathy quite a lot, both in the context of my own ability to feel empathy for others, and the context of philanthropy at the PF, where we see high or low levels empathy have dramatic effects on society and its problems. Increasingly it seems clear that a lack of empathy is the root of most inequality, mis-treatment, or injustice in our world. So is it possible to have too much empathy?

A while ago I was taught a technique meant to be used to alleviate intimidation or nerves from public speaking. It involved a mental projection of white wings on to the backs of everyone in the audience, and thinking of everyone as an angel. Each angel trying to learn, grow, get through the day, deal with problems and figure out life. It’s basically an equalising visual. One day I was practicing this projection technique while I went for a run. Every person I passed on the pavement or pulling out of their drive way I pictured with their angel wings and tried to imagine why they looked happy, sad, bored, tired, excited, etc. A couple of blocks from my house I came across a young boy who had fallen badly off his bike. He was injured and crying. People had gathered, the police arrived and an ambulance had been called. I wasn’t needed as a problem solver in that situation, so just watched for a few moments as people exhibited care, concern and did what they could to help him. Behind the scene, I noticed two women with small children walking towards the boy. They were happy and laughing, obviously oblivious to what was going on. As they approached the scene the injured boy cried out in pain. One woman’s countenance immediately and entirely changed. All thought of her conversation with her friend disappeared and she ran to the boy screaming his name. It was clear the injured boy was her son.

I left the scene, got home and recounted the story to a friend. I burst in to tears as I told them about the woman. It was strange. There was no blood or tragedy. The boy would surely be fine. But for the moment I was focused on the mother, I had felt what she had felt. And it was emotionally overwhelming. I haven’t tried that mental projection technique since then.

Empathy is exhausting. We couldn’t feel what other people feel all day, every day and be productive. We would be constantly emotionally drained, and never get anything done. We suppress our ability to empathise for a reason.

However, on regular occasions it also seems clear that my and others’ levels of empathy are too low. I read about injustices and terrible wrongs being done to real people, and then go and eat my lunch. We all watched with disbelief the Youtube video of the toddler who was run over and then ignored by passers by. I truly believe I and society would be healthier if we all cultivated higher levels of empathy. It seems that most problems and issues are caused by or significantly escalated by a lack of empathy.

Empathy is what drives us to care and act on behalf of others. It makes for healthy and loving relationships, it stimulates good deeds, and often moves strangers to acts of heroism. It is the motivating force behind social entrepreneurs and philanthropy. It is a force for good.

So what is a healthy level of empathy? I’m not sure there’s a way to articulate or quantify that, but we need more of it.

For your interest, a small grab bag of numbers from the PF over the last two months:

Grants 29 (programmatic and family giving)
Board meetings 1
Calls 82
Meetings/site visits/events 53
PF team house points earned 16

I’ll probably do another grab bag of #‘s soon, and perhaps delve in to a little of what the numbers reflect/where they come from. I was reading about/looking at Nicholas Feltron’s annual reports and getting inspired. The discipline and beauty his reports reflect is inspiring. Something to aspire to.

We decided to try out Pinterest.

There’s so much ‘stuff’ that comes across our desks and inboxes that could be useful to someone, so we’ve been looking for a good way to share cool things we find and see. Enter Pinterest.

Most people use Pinterest to share food, interior design ideas, or clothing and styling they like. It’s a great way for a person to build a comprehensive picture of their personality, taste, and their own individual brand… Perhaps also for an organisation like the PF.

So what are we sharing? Well, we love insightful commentary and articles on SE and philanthropy, genius products for society, and great short films. So that’s what we’re pinning. As well as social innovation job postings, volunteer opportunities and a bunch of other stuff.

Like our dabbling with Twitter and other social media, there’s no big strategic plan here. It seems like a good, useful thing to do, so we’ll give it a try for a while and see if you like it and find it useful. And hopefully it’ll also be a good way for people to get to know us at the PF.

See you on Pinterest!

We’ve been using Salesforce for a while now. Some days it fills me with hope for a future filled with cool useful stuff our organised data will help us discover. Others it makes me want to throw my computer out the window. More often than not it’s been the latter.

Today was one of those rare hopeful days with Salesforce (Sf). Lanee and I just got off the phone with our new Sf consultant who is about to do a second round of Sf configuration for us. And after talking with him I am hopeful about reversing the Sf love-hate ratio.

We will know more in the new year.

We’ve been talking about launching this blog for some time, but it’s time to quit talking and just get it going!  I’ve feared the prospect of suddenly having extra homework - but have also found the exercise of recording thoughts and learnings from our work to be incredibly useful for us. 

Last year we conducted an experiment.  As we were undergoing a strategic-planning process, we decided to open up our discussion to include other minds in the field who were on Twitter.  Truth is, I had no idea how to use Twitter, but Jessamyn showed me a few things and we decided to see how we could use it during our discussions about the direction of the Foundation.  We’re a small shop - there are just two of us running the day-to-day, so being able to include other ideas was extremely helpful - and fun!  We just began by sending out tweets that summarized what we were discussing, what questions we had, and inviting people to chime in using the hashtag #pfwhiteboard - thus creating a virtual whiteboard of ideas to aid in our planning.  We netted a number of new connections, relationships, and some fresh thinking.  We hope to do the same here, on the PF Whiteboard. 

We think of the Peery Foundation as a learning foundation.  After we all, we are a family foundation without a highly professionalized staff, but we’re thoughtful about the work we do and aim to improve every day.  Blogging on the PF Whiteboard, I believe, will probably be of greater value to us than anyone else as we’re able to put our thoughts and experiences to paper and learn from the rest of you.  We hope you’ll comment and share your opinions.  Ultimately, we really hope the content here can serve the field of philanthropy in some way. 

Aside from my ramblings, you’ll find posts from Jessamyn Lau, our Program Leader and first non-family staff member.  We’re not going to focus on specific issue areas or grantees,  but will talk more about experiences we’re having as grantmakers, insights from the field, and the problems we see and are working through.  Some of our posts may not appeal to the most sophisticated foundation professionals out there, be we do aim to add real value to most of us in the field.  We welcome any topics you’d like to see a foundation blog about.  We don’t take ourselves too seriously, so anything is on the table. 

Dave just informed me we are launching our blog. There’s a slight twinge of panic, as I think about the expectation to verbalise something different or new or interesting about what we or I do each week. But mostly I’m excited.

One of the reasons I moved to CA to work with the Peery Foundation is that I knew every day would be different. Now you’ll get to hear a little of that. From the scintillating details of how we’re customising and adopting our Salesforce platform, to the unforgettable moments when I realise I’m working with my heroes on a day to day basis.

We’ll try to always be frank and straight forward. Let us know how we do on that, and do tell us if there’s anything in particular you’d like to hear about from the perspective of a young, and still very much learning, foundation. There’s no agenda here, except to tell our story in the hope that it’s either useful, amusing or inspiring for you. Enjoy!