March 2016 Board / Community Meeting: Restructuring this Org

Creating the Future’s “Restructuring” Meeting will take place right here on Monday, March 14 from 1pm-3pm ET (US).

Scroll to the bottom of this post for details on how to watch and participate.

The agenda for the meeting is at this link here.
As part of that agenda, you’ll find a summary snapshot of where we are in the discussions of this topic. The yellow highlight is our topic for discussion for this March meeting.

For more detailed background, the following two links provide summaries to flesh out the bullet points in that chart:

• Summary of all our 2015 discussions – from the time the idea first arose through the end of December 2015.

• Summary of the discussion in January 2016 that led to our committing to move forward with that restructuring.

* * * * *

Something incredible happened at our January meeting: After months of discussion and exploration, we committed to reinvent Creating the Future from the ground up. The goal of that restructuring is simple: to accomplish our mission. Not to “do” our mission; to accomplish it.

The amazing thing that happened in January is that we made the commitment. After months of discussion, at our upcoming March meeting, we will begin to restructure this organization so that that very structure will accomplish our mission.

For organizations whose mission is far greater than themselves – social change orgs of all kinds – this is a big deal. This is not about “doing the work the best we can, so we can ensure our organization will always be here.”

This is the exact opposite of that. This is about setting a goal of the visible difference we want to see in the world; committing to accomplish that goal, whatever it takes; and then structuring our organization’s decision-making and activities to be a support to accomplishing that mission.

When we’re done, we will certainly meet the legal requirement for a board of directors. But in Arizona where we are incorporated, the legal number of board members is one. Yes, one.

So then, as we build this structure, we will not be confined by what norms have grown up in the corporate world and nonprofit world over time. We will be bound only by one question: Will it further our mission?  By this time next year, the very structure that supports our work will be a highly visible example of our mission in action – an organizational structure that brings out the best in every person, in any situation. This is seriously exciting stuff!

At our March meeting (we skipped February, if you’re searching around for it), we will begin the work of figuring out what that structure will look like in action. That meeting will take place right here on Monday, March 14th at 1pm Eastern time. (If the video doesn’t appear immediately, we are probably just getting our act together. Hang tight, we’ll be there soon!)

If you want to be part of this meeting, there are two ways to participate in real time (and many more after the fact – like watching the video and commenting after the meeting).

1. Be part of the meeting itself, inside the video screen. If you have been following this issue and want to be part of the conversation live and in person, please click here and let us know – we will email you access info for the powerful Zoom platform we’ve been using for our meetings.
2. Watch the video live in real time here in this post, and participate via the Twitter hashtag #CTFuture.

Either way, you can be part of creating a new kind of organization, with no ties to “the way it’s always been done.” We hope you’ll come explore with us!

LISTEN TO THE MEETING HERE

or Download the MP3
(To download to your hard drive, right-click {or click and hold on a Mac} on the link above and select “Save Target As”.. or “Save Link as”… depending on your browser)

Twitter stream from the January 2016 Board Meeting

(Please scroll to the bottom to begin)