Archive for March, 2011

Mar/31/11//Curtis Ogden//Your Experiences

Funder as Convenor: Part 1

The more I do our collaborative consulting work here at IISC, the more interested I become in the role of the convenor in complex multi-stakeholder change efforts.  This role, typically held in our work by a funder or someone else with convening power (local/state government, school district, a well-connected community-based agency) has much to say about the success and nature of a social change effort, and yet from my perspective remains under-appreciated and/or poorly misunderstood.  Over the next few months I’ll spend some time in this space reflecting on what we and others are learning about this critical role and soliciting your thoughts, reactions, and experiences.

But first, what does it mean to convene?  In our practice, convening is one of a few central leadership functions in collaborative and networked approaches to change.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Mar/30/11//Curtis Ogden//Race, Class, Power

Kellogg Breaks It Down

My colleague Melinda and I are just coming off a powerful conversation with a process design team this morning about the importance of bringing structural analysis to the existing opportunities, or lack thereof, for children as these play out along the lines of race.  Low and behold, we receive the following job announcement from the Kellogg Foundation, for a Program Officer for Racial Equity.  Part of the description reads as follows, and stands powerfully on its own:

In recent years the foundation has sharpened its focus on improving conditions for vulnerable children, concentrating on three key factors of success and their intersections: education and learning; food, health and well-being; and family economic security. Given that a disproportionate number of vulnerable children in our society are children of color, as a consequence of both the legacy of this nation’s history of racial oppression and the structural racism that continues to permeate systems and institutions, both racial healing work and the dismantling of structural racism are key ingredients in any effort to, as the foundation’s mission statement reads, “propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.”  Thus, the foundation has made a commitment to being an effective anti-racist organization and to working to achieve racial equity.

We’re standing.  We’re applauding. 


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Mar/30/11//Gibrán Rivera//Featured, Race, Class, Power

Black and Brown: Break it Down!


Last Wednesday, March 23, my colleague Melinda and I had the privilege of hosting a beautiful dialogue among a select group of Boston’s Black and Latino leaders.    Following is the invitation that we sent:

We have all heard the news – the United States will be a “majority minority country” before the turn of the century.  The historical significance of this demographic shift cannot be overstated – Americans are already contending with this emergent reality.  Black and Latino people have been living side by side for a long time, there are many ways in which ours is shared experience, our histories are profoundly intertwined.  We recognize strong alliances and cultural intersections and we also recognize old and new tensions. Read the rest of this entry »


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Mar/29/11//IISC//Collaboration, Sustainability

Dance Lightly

Photo by: Munana

The following is a letter by Akaya Windwood, President of the Rockwood Leadership Institute and member of the IISC Board of Directors…

Tsunamis. Unemployment. Volcanoes. Cote d’Ivoire. Homelessness. The Middle East. The Midwest. Pirates. Earthquakes. Drug and human trafficking. Union busting. Collapsing economies. Dropout rates. Nuclear fallout. Foreclosures. Floods.

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Mar/25/11//Curtis Ogden//Collaboration

Design Teams for Success

Just wrapped up a public Pathway to Change workshop this week in Boston, during which I spent some of our time talking with participants about the importance of process design teams in collaborative change work. These “little engines that can” become the backbone of our complex multi-stakeholder work as they hold the stake for creating an environment and a pathway that brings out the best in the many people attempting to realize a new reality around a given issue or issues. To this end, a spirit of risk-taking, thinking outside of the box, engaging in iterative work, and maintaining a willingness to prototype as “social architects” can be vital to long-term success.  I thank Tom Wujec for helping me to make the marshmallow tower-inspired point and ask what his message means for your teamwork.

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