The vision of the Community Driven Institute is a healthy, vibrant, resilient, peaceful, humane world. To make that vision a reality for all of us, the mission of the Institute is to encourage and support the Community Benefit sector to leverage its considerable resources to do so. In developing our plans for the next 12-24 … Read more
I’ve been sharing a lot about Pollyanna Principled Consulting and our Immersion Courses these days, mostly because I am as immersed in them as the students are! So I thought intead of hearing how excited I have been about these courses, I would share a note I received from one of the students in our … Read more
This week we have been immersed in another Pollyanna Principled Consulting Immersion Course with consultants from around the U.S. and Canada. As always in these groups, I learn as much as I teach. Here are just 3 things that have been reinforced for me by this terrific group this week. 1) The value of taking … Read more
“Are you comfortable?” Reno Police Officer Patrick O’Bryan uttered those words to a silent room of 100 community leaders last summer. “Because if you’re comfortable, then nothing will change. To change our community, we need to step outside our comfort zone. So are we willing to be uncomfortable?” That story came to mind often last … Read more
It is the end of Day 3 of our Pollyanna Principled Immersion Course for consultants. Our expectations have already been surpassed so many times, we are now simply reveling in what continues to evolve. The combined experience of this group of 7 practitioners easily approaches or even surpasses 100 years. They have certainly been around … Read more
This post is the 3rd & final installment in a series. To begin at Part 1 head here. The Evidence We’ve established that Problem-Solving solves neither complex organizational problems nor complex social problems. And we’ve posited that the only thing that CAN solve such problems is to look beyond the problem – beyond “zero” – … Read more
This is Part 2 of this post. If you have not read Part 1, you will find that here. Reverse Engineering the Future We DO Want There is something that DOES work to solve the large, systemic problems our organizations and our communities face today. And that is to aim our efforts out beyond “zero” … Read more
Several weeks ago I blogged about a conversation with my almost-85-year-old mom about Twitter. Explaining Twitter to Grandma Rose has become one of the most popular posts I’ve ever written, still being passed around the web (and please, keep sharing it!). This morning I offer you Part 2 of that story. I called Rose last … Read more
As part of the launch this week of The Pollyanna Principles, we hosted a 90 minute teleclass, Introduction to Community-Driven Consulting. The class touched on a range of questions, including these: • What is Community-Driven Consulting and how is it different from the consulting I’m doing now? • Will I have to learn all new … Read more