PF Whiteboard

We shut down our web form last month. This was the page on our website where anyone could go to briefly tell us about their people, idea and impact. When we set it up it seemed like a great idea, where we felt like we could be entirely approachable, not ask for detailed proposals, and able to learn about new organisations that we would be a good funding fit for.

During the past year we’ve had about 100 organisations go to the page to tell us about their work. We’ve learned about many interesting and important models. However, we found we weren’t a good fit for any of them. We were spending lots of short periods of time figuring that out and then responding to people. They added up to a significant amount of time each week. And, even though we didn’t ask for much information from each org, each org still invested time in telling us their stories -with no significant results for them or us. It didn’t work.

As we talked about this we realised this time would be better spent going out and finding orgs that we do fit with, through channels that we *know* yield results. This method feels better too. We love technology and the way it connects people, but having conversations with real people, along with all the depth and dimension that comes with that, works better for us as we are very trust/relationship based in our approach. We know that our best matches come through referrals. Referrals from those who know us well and know an org well -enough to see a strong potential and mutual fit.

So, we’ve taken down our web form. And the time we were spending on fielding, researching and responding to web leads we are now spending on deliberately building relationships with those around us who can make recommendations to us (a lot of the time this is other funders). We’re not trying to be unapproachable or close our doors to new ideas and organisations. We just know that our ratio of time spent to fits found will improve by focusing our efforts on things that we know work. We’re going back to more of our ‘beating the pavement’ approach.

I’d love to hear from practitioners and funders on this. Practitioners, what’s your take on this? Have you seen other effective ways of funders remaining open to new conversations? Funders how have you navigated this issue? Did you come to different conclusions?

A group of BYU student leaders involved in building social innovation on campus have come up with a fabulously simple tool: Changemaker Maps.

They realised that every new student who came through the Ballard Centre’s doors (centre for social innovation on BYU’s campus), had to sit down and have the same conversation with a student leader or a staff member to get them oriented. They were essentially communicating the same information to many students again and again as new students tried to figure out where they could do to be involved, what social innovation classes they could take that would fit with their major, and what the possibilities were for them at the intersection of their field of learning and social innovation. So the student leaders created Changemaker Maps, which now sit in hard copy form at the entrance of the Ballard Centre, as well as online.

Each map is designed for students from a different discipline or college on campus (business, engineering, sociology, etc), includes a field overview, model in the field, listings of on-campus clubs and orgs to get involved with, as well as internships, resources and classes to explore.

Simple in design and content. Effective in helping orient many new students to come.

It’s not necessarily the most novel or groundbreaking idea, but absolutely useful in this and probably many other situations. We all know that the information most people need for any given task is already out there, but it’s breaking down the barrier to access, or creating more intuitive organisation of that information that makes all the difference to people actually getting that information they need.

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.

In Summer of 2008 I was one of Ashoka U’s first interns. At that time Ashoka U was basically a bunch of half formed concepts and ideas on Post It notes on an Ashoka office wall in Rosslyn. Over the last 4 years I’ve had the privilege of seeing Ashoka U develop in to a thriving network of university campuses, each actively and strategically building social entrepreneurship on their campus. Collectively the network is pushing the current limitations of SE experiential learning, curriculum and research development, and they come together once a year to share all the insights and lessons they learn in doing so. The annual Ashoka U ‘Exchange’ was last weekend. Representatives from 100 campuses (inc. Stanford, Marquette, USD, Harvard, Thunderbird, BYU, Brown, NYU, to name just a few) met at ASU in Tempe, AZ for two days of deep discussion on the very niche subject of social entrepreneurship and higher education.

Despite being at least loosely connected to Ashoka U since its inception, I’m still surprised by the order of magnitude that the gathering grows by each year. This time around representation from several of the attending campuses included university presidents, provosts and deans. And in addition to faculty, admin, students and social entrepreneurs, there was representation from the US Dept of Education, Innosight, and IDEO. The community is flourishing. People are paying attention to what’s being shared at the Ashoka U Exchange and want to be part of the dialogue.

Coming from the even more niche position of working for a foundation funding and building a SE program, I liked what I began to see in terms of practical information sharing. There were other individuals there in very similar positions to me, as well as those who hold similar perspectives on how SE education should and could work in the future -normally finding those people would be akin to a needle in a haystack situation. I’d love to see the Exchange facilitate truly efficient knowledge sharing. This is a problem most conference models find challenging.

One of the most marvelous moments of the weekend went unnoticed by almost everyone. I saw a young student coyly approach one of the social entrepreneurs who had presented at the TEDx the evening before. She had noticed a quiet moment when he wasn’t engaged in discussion and looked approachable. I overheard pieces of the conversation as she complimented his TEDx talk, expressed admiration for his work, asked a couple of questions and asked to share information to get in contact later on. The beauty of this interchange was that it was incredibly real and important to her at that moment. It was clear she had just chosen herself a new, and carefully selected, role model. Her new role model was excited enough about her education and potential as a social innovator to respond warmly and genuinely. I have no doubt that that moment is one that will shape her future, because I’ve had one or two just like it that shaped mine.

In all honestly, in past years the Ashoka U Exchange has been something that was a ‘nice to attend’ rather than a ‘must attend’. After this year it’s going to be one of the very few conferences I will put on my 2013 calendar as soon as they announce the Exchange dates. I’m going back next year for the practical knowledge sharing and genuine relationship building it is beginning to effectively provide for those involved in this niche but growing arena. However, a core reason I will be attending again is I know wonderfully important inflection points of all sizes will be created; points which strengthen our collective belief and ability to create and support social innovators of the future.