Creating the Future's
Integrity Meeting:
Monday, September 13th, from 10am - 12pm Pacific time
Topic:
Applying the Integrity lens to resourcing our work (Part 2)
Watch the meeting LIVE at this post. Just scroll to the very bottom of the page.
Details about how to participate are below.
Applying the Integrity Lens to Resourcing:
This month, our Integrity Body (known in most organizations as the board) will continue applying Catalytic Thinking to one of the most important issues in the whole social change arena: Resourcing our work.
Since its inception, Creating the Future has stood firm in our belief that current funding systems are in large part responsible for preventing organizations from accomplishing their potential. The idea that people with money ultimately make decisions about what will get funded - and therefore get done - means that the people closest to the problem are often forced to mold themselves to the wishes of people who are far removed from those issues, all in the name of getting funded.
Creating the Future has, since the beginning, refused to step into that arena.
The result was the decision to self-fund - relying on teams of committed volunteers making only stipend wages (Hildy and Dimitri currently take home $500 apiece per month. Yes, you read that right. And our faculty have generously worked their tails off for not much more than that.).
The resources necessary for accomplishing our mission to date were all self-generated from classes, demonstration projects, and public speaking, along with a handful of generous individuals who provide ongoing support. All this, while we continued to consider what it would take to align funding with our values.
As Creating the Future begins taking grander steps to facilitate and support systems change in the world, that piecemeal approach to resourcing will not be adequate to accomplish those outcomes. It is therefore time to reimagine what resourcing might look like, with Catalytic Thinking as our guide. Importantly, it is time for us to put that reimagining into action - to test our hypotheses in a real world experiment.
At our last meeting, we began this conversation where Catalytic Thinking always begins - considering all the people who will be affected by whatever actions we take. That list was long, as the resourcing of social change has the potential to influence how we think about money period, especially in this neo-liberal, capitalist society. (You can read a summary of that meeting here.)
Once we had listed everyone, we began to consider what it might take to involve them in this conversation, noting that in part, the work will be for US to join in THEIR conversations - conversations that are already happening, all around us.
That leads us to our September meeting, where we will take up the next question in Catalytic Thinking: What would "good" look like for all those individuals and groups?
So many of our community members, including our board members, have been in so many of the roles we listed in that first question, that we can at least begin to note what high potential outcomes we might be reaching for. As we have more conversations with people who will be affected by this effort, we will add the results of our own discussions to the wisdom they share, to get as complete a picture as possible for the work ahead.
That is therefore where we will pick up the conversation in September. And as always, you are invited to have your voice be part of this conversation, in whatever way you feel comfortable (see the various ways you can participate below).
How to Prepare
First, let us know if you plan to attend by sending a note at this link. Per the "How to participate" section below, please let us know which of the 3 ways you would like to participate.
Second, please review the summary of our prior discussion on this topic, so that you feel confident to jump into this discussion.
And third, if you are not familiar with Catalytic Thinking or the Integrity functions of our board, the following will be helpful:
For those who think visually, this PDF graphic of the Catalytic Thinking Framework will give you an understanding of the flow of the conversation. For those who work best with text, you can follow along with the questions that guide Catalytic Thinking at this link. We recommend having these pieces available during the meeting, to spark your thinking during the discussion.
To get a sense of the context of our Integrity Board, this post introduces our thinking about that.
3 Ways to participate
If you have never been part of Creating the Future's work, all our strategy and board meetings are open and participatory, for anyone who wants to be part of the discussion. You can see more about that at this link.
Where we meet:
The board meeting will take place right here at this post. If the video does not appear precisely on time, please be patient – we are probably just running a few minutes late.
There are 3 ways you can participate in our meetings.
- If you are already familiar with and committed to Creating the Future’s work, and you would like to be actively involved in the meeting discussion side-by-side at our online “meeting table,” let us know, and we will send you an invitation to join us online. Read more here about what it means to participate in that way.
- If you want to participate but are unable to be in the meeting itself (perhaps you’re at work, or maybe at home with kids running around, etc.), watch the live-stream in real time and tweet your questions and ideas to us via the hashtag #CreatingTheFuture. We read those tweets aloud during the meeting, just as if you were there. This is a great first step for those who are not as familiar with our work, but want to get more involved.
(Please note: We will only see your tweets if you use the #CreatingTheFuture hashtag. In addition, during the meeting, we will not look at blog comments here at this post. While we will check those comments later, during the meeting we will only be following the #CreatingTheFuture hashtag in the Twitter stream.)
- Lastly, if you want to simply watch, or you want to think about what you’re hearing and respond later – or if you will be watching the recording after the meeting happens – please add your thoughts into the comments here at this post. We will include that thinking into the mix of things.
We look forward to your being part of our discussion on Monday, September 13th!
* All Creating the Future's board meetings are open for anyone to participate, or to watch afterwards. To learn more about the thinking behind this openness - and our experiences with being open - click here.
Logistics: The meeting will happen right here at this post. Details are below.
Watch the meeting HERE on Monday
Note: if the meeting does not start on time please be patient as we may be running a few minutes late.
or, After the meeting - 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)