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In this issue Michael Jones invites us to embrace a new metaphor of the leader as artist. We are invited to be among the first to share the findings of the latest evaluation of Vibrant Communities which examines the role of national supports in the initiative’s achievements. Liz Weaver shares highlights from a report profiling the critical importance of aligned and cohesive networks to address complex problems. The recommendations of forty-four ordinary Torontonians who explored the multiple facets impacting household incomes are also profiled. We learn how Bruce Springsteen inspired Coach4Food: an innovative partnership between food banks and minor hockey that teaches powerful lessons in community engagement and heed a call for greater partnership between grant-makers and social entrepreneurs. It’s a veritable feast for the heart and mind.
Enjoy!
~ Paul Born
In this Issue...
Featured Articles
Michael Jones is a Juno Award Nominee pianist and composer and leadership educator. His mastery is evident in the way he weaves together concepts of creativity and authentic leadership to inspire individuals and communities. Michael is a long-time friend to Tamarack and we are thrilled to welcome him as one of the key thought-leaders joining our learning community at Innovating Together: Tamarack's 2012 Communities Collaborating Institute.
Michael believes that the primary leadership challenges of our time are not technical but rather transformational. To effectively engage these challenges, he suggests leaders must shift their mindset from being heroes to being artists. This involves "cultivating new disciplines for accessing the subtle power of the imagination. It involves understanding that while strategy and tactics may help leaders be effective technicians, in order to be good artists they need to also listen deeply and get a feeling for things - in other words to be attuned to the unheard melody that is emerging in the space between the notes."
This new leadership paradigm requires leaders to move beyond doing things differently or doing different things and instead be willing to create the future based upon what we collectively imagine and want to create together. To reach this paradigm, Michael suggests "leaders need to be present enough with themselves to allow the future to come in. That is, to not only do things differently but to see differently. To be the kind of leader who can proceed boldly into the future sensing what is needed in the moment without relying upon a clearly defined long term strategy, plan or goal."
The metaphor of the leader as hero is now evolving towards a new metaphor of the leader as artist. Embracing this new metaphor involves a transformation in awareness from performance to presence, from the visible to the invisible, from answers to questions, from lines to circles, from uniformity to uniqueness, from abstraction to beauty, from efficiency to improvisation and from a focus on language that is instrumental for achieving certain goals and outcomes to the expressive power of stories and the authenticity of one‘s own personal voice.
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What we found out about the "architecture" of supports provided to local communities tackling poverty.
Tamarack has provided regular and comprehensive coverage to the Vibrant Communities initiative since it began in 2002. Why not? It was a grand experiment (2002-2011) by a group of urban collaboratives from across Canada and three national sponsors to significantly reduce poverty through comprehensive and multi-sectoral efforts that yielded significant results and lessons.
The results include concrete reductions in poverty. Over a dozen local poverty reduction roundtables contributed to 256 initiatives that have generated 439,435 benefits to 202, 931 low income households. The same groups were involved in scores of systemic and policy changes and improved the local awareness and commitment to reduce poverty over the longer term.
The lessons included how to work in new ways: working across sector boundaries, engaging low income and business leaders, working comprehensively on poverty's root causes and embracing a learning-by-doing approach that encourages risk and innovation. These insights - and many more - are captured and shared in a variety of reports, books and podcasts that are available on the Vibrant Communities Canada website.
The learning continues. The work of local Trail Builders - and the mining and distilling of their results and learning - was made possible thanks to a large and diverse array of national supports. This included generous multi-year grants; hands-on coaching from seasoned experts; an ambitious research and policy agenda; a pool of tools and techniques; a larger number of tele-learning calls exploring new practices and change stories; regular peer calls between communities; a variety of face-to-face learning events; a comprehensive website; and a constant series of electronic newsletters. Local communities and national sponsors invested a great deal of time, money and energy in developing and using a sophisticated "architecture" of supports rarely seen in other national efforts.
What difference - if any - did it all make? What are the lessons for supporting other local efforts to tackle complex issues? These are the questions that Jamie Gamble of Imprint Consulting Inc. explores in the soon-to-be released second (and last) installment of the Vibrant Communities evaluation: Inspired Learning: An Evaluation of Vibrant Communities National Supports.
Throughout 2011-2012, Jamie and his team reviewed program files and interviewed the local "users" of these supports to understand how they worked and how - if at all - they influenced the activities and outcomes of local groups. Their findings are captured in a fifty page report that covers the following:
- A description of each of the Vibrant Communities supports and how they worked
- A summary of the ever-evolving "architecture" of how these supports worked together
- Four case examples of how Trail Builder communities used different supports
- A general assessment of the use and value of each support
- An exploration of what supports worked for whom and when
Based on these findings, Gamble draws an important conclusion: it may not be necessary to provide such a robust, elaborate and expensive constellation of supports to all local efforts tackling complex issues (e.g. poverty, homelessness, high school graduate rates), however, it was critical in the case of the Vibrant Communities initiative which operated with the concurrent objectives of: (a) providing support to local groups so that they were able to generate concrete reductions in poverty; (b) mining and distilling their results and findings to share with others and (c) encouraging other communities and the policy makers and funders that support them, to adopt this approach to tackling poverty.
Gamble's recommendations to national intermediaries, funders and communities are useful to communities and organizations involved in the next iteration of the Vibrant Communities - Cities Reducing Poverty - and for anyone else who dreams of "moving the needles" on the most complex issues of our time.
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Ideas We're Following...
Over three Saturdays in November and December 2011, forty-four randomly selected members of The Toronto Residents Reference Panel on Household Income met to "learn about the city's growing income gap, understand the challenges, and consider the choices we will need to make to ensure that Toronto remains a competitive, liveable, and inclusive city."
Designed by MASS LBP, a firm that designs innovative citizen engagement strategies, The Toronto Reference Panel on Household Income began its work by undertaking a learning phase that offered panellists an opportunity to become better informed about the implications of economic trends in Toronto. Ten experts including Conference Board president Anne Golden, former PC leader John Tory, and Jeff Evenson of the Canadian Urban Institute, made presentations covering different policy areas and perspectives. Professor David Hulchanski shared his leading research from the Three Cities within Toronto report. Panellists also drew on their own lived experiences and compared the changes they saw happening in their neighbourhoods.
This combination of information and insight allowed panellists to develop a list of the issues they felt were most pressing and organize them into themes. In smaller groups, the panellists brainstormed and debated solutions to address each one. They also decided on a list of eight values to describe the city to which they aspired. A final deliberation phase required the panellists to weigh the feasibility and possible consequences of their ideas before refining them into broad recommendations that were agreeable to all the members. The final report contains ninety-seven recommendations covering seven major themes:
- Economy, taxation and employment
- Community development and services
- Housing
- Immigration, diversity and culture
- Education and equity
- Health
- Transit and the environment
As a whole, the Panel's recommendations speak to the growing sense of social and economic anxiety felt by many Torontonians who worry about their ability to provide for their families and maintain a moderate standard of living. They also demonstrate the admirable ability and willingness of Toronto residents to play a more substantial role in addressing the city's most pressing social and economic challenges.
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There is a growing body of evidence about the critical importance of aligned and cohesive networks to address complex problems and political systems. Transformer: How to Build a Network and Change a System, a case study about the RE-AMP Energy Network, located across six Mid-West States contributes to this thinking and approach.
The RE-AMP Energy Network has the audacious goal of reducing global warming emissions by 80% by 2050 across the six States. A network of 125 non-profits and funders, their track record over a very short period is very impressive including stopping the building of 28 new coal plants in four years and reducing overall coal usage by 5.8%. The Network has also been successful in key state legislative changes, building the capacity of the network and leveraging increased investment.
The case study uncovers six ‘next practices' that networks focusing on collaboration and systems change should embed into their efforts:
- Understand the system you are trying to change
- Involve funders and non-profits as equals from the start
- Design for a network not an organization and invest in collective infrastructure
- Activate leadership at many levels
- Create multiple opportunities to connect and communicate
- Remain adaptive and emergent and committed to the long term view
Additionally, those involved in the RE-AMP Energy Network discuss the importance of diligently tracking progress, building regional capacity, obtaining new funding and sharing policy success. The case study also details some of the bumps along the network road. It took a year to develop the systems map and many became impatient with this process, but the map uncovered four levers for change which have become foundational to the design.
For communities and collaborative planning tables dealing with complex and interconnected problems, this case study is a useful and important read.
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What do Bruce Springsteen, food banks and minor hockey have in common? All three are part of the inspiration behind Tom Hedican's award-winning Coach4Food Program which began in North Bay Ontario in 2005. In 2010, the North Bay Coach4Food program successfully raised 108,000 pounds of food for area food banks and expansions in Guelph, Niagara Falls, St Catharines and Parry Sound raised a combined 20,000 pounds more.
In recognition for these efforts, Tom is one of 11 people and seven organizations recently awarded the June Callwood Outstanding Achievement Award for Voluntarism in Ontario in 2012. Mike Griffin, President of the Ontario Hockey League's Brampton Battalion says, "Tommy isn't the type of guy to pat himself on the back, but people involved in our project should know he's among a unique group of people in the province being recognized for his efforts."
Tom credits his idol, rock icon Bruce Springsteen, as the person who lit the fire in him to start Coach4Food. He has attended dozens of Springsteen's concerts in North American and Europe and at each concert the Boss urges fans to support the work of their local food bank. Taking this message to heart, Tom who is a goaltending consultant working in the professional leagues in Europe, offered to run practices for any North Bay minor hockey team featuring technical skill-drills used in Europe and the NHL in exchange for them collecting and donating food to North Bay's food bank. Each Coach4Food practice would wrap up with a pep talk from Tom to the players telling them how important their food-raising effort was for their community and reminding them of the positive impact they were having.
In its third year, Bruce Springsteen learned about Coach4Food and invited Tom and his wife to a concert in New Jersey and met with them back stage. That same year, the New Jersey Devils of the NHL invited Hedican to introduce Coach4Food in Newark, N.J. where the Devils' ownership donated their arena for three nights, making the N.J. Coach4Food event the biggest sports-related fund-raiser in their local food bank's history.
With support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, plans are now underway to expand Coach4Food into Caledon, Dufferin and one other Ontario community in 2012-13. Sue Snider, Executive Director of
Safe Communities of the Hill Country is thrilled to be partnering with
Headwaters Communities in Action and Coach4Food in Dufferin County. When asked about her involvement, Sue says, "At Safe Communities we have 2 favourite 5 letter words:
teach and
learn. "What better way to bring awareness to the need of our local food banks and
teach about our communities' challenges than through an experience like this and then
learn from the kids how we might grow this great program into the future." In a similar way, Monty Laskin Executive Director of
Caledon Community Services commended the Caledon Coach4Food initiative that is now getting underway saying, "Beyond the food and other resources, Coach4Food has hard working hockey players and their families (and other hockey lovers) talking about how hockey is stepping up for kids and families, in support of their health and proper nutrition. This is fantastic, and exactly what we need to talk about in the community right now."
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How Communities Heal is a book developed by The New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship, a peer learning community of outstanding New Zealand change-makers. It "tells the unique stories of a group of New Zealand social entrepreneurs, and their work to create systemic and sustainable solutions to New Zealand's social challenges." The book's hope is to foster social innovation in New Zealand by profiling the work of various leaders whose work "brings insight, entrepreneurship and practical hope into our communities."
The book's latest chapter, A Generous Difference by Vivian Hutchinson, shares the story of one social entrepreneur's challenge to secure funding for "real innovation" from mainstream organizations. In it she highlights that "most social innovators tend to personally live a fairly precarious financial existence." Reflecting on the funding she's received for her own innovations, Hutchinson has said the start-up funds for such ventures have most often come from "creative" public servants or friends and, as a result, are quite different. This is because these funds reflect a "whole different sense of trust" and an acknowledgement of "an implicit relationship that says, "I share your intentions here. None of us are too sure about whether it will succeed or fail, but I'll share that risk…go for it." Hutchinson believes that as an innovator, this sort of support is "the most valuable, because "within this space of trust it is more possible to reach beyond the cynicism, self-interests and factional bargaining of popular culture - and listen for the voice and strategies of a common good."
The article includes insights from a number of well-respected New Zealand philanthropists to help make the case that the role of philanthropy must transform beyond the funding social services, to also provide "the venture capital that can support projects which focus on the issues that the government and the private sector are either unwilling or unable to address."
However, transforming the culture of grant-making and philanthropy to support real innovation and sustainable social change will require that social entrepreneurs and their funders get a whole lot wiser about creating more effective partnerships with one another - based upon a greater understanding of the process of social innovation, and its longer-term requirements.
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Highlights From
Tamarack's Learning Communities
www.vibrantcanada.ca ♦ www.tamarackcci.ca ♦ www.seekingcommunity.ca
ideas
- Moonflowers and Morning Glories - Joyce Hollyday More >>
- Collaborating with Business for Social Transformation - Garry Loewen More >>
- Brain Based Engagement. Really? - Raising the Village More >>
Resources
- Community Information Toolkit More >>
- Most Significant Change: An Evaluation Technique More >>
- Neighbourhood Planning More >>
Podcasts
- Artful Leadership - Michael Jones More >>
- Communities, Chaos and Collaboration - Thomas Homer-Dixon More >>
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