There are beautiful coffee table books with photographs of sweeping Bay Area landscapes. The photos are of green hills, gorgeous mountains, and vistas of the bay. They are stunning, inspiring books.
I have an idea for making a beautiful coffee table book about the diverse people who use, enjoy and benefit from Bay Area parks. The Muslim men who kneel on mats to pray during a picnic at Redwood Regional Park. The Spanish speaking family with kids ranging in age from 6 months to 15 years playing at the beach at Point Pinole. The Indian teenagers who race to the top of Mission Peak. They have beautiful stories to tell in these beautiful places.
Let's see if this idea has any legs...
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
A year in review
I'm not very good at remembering what happened when. Except for maybe my son's birthdays, most of life's events and milestones blur together into "a few years ago." In an attempt to remember what I did in 2014, here's an abbreviated description of some of the highlights. My hope is that it will help me remember it all.
Our January Gathering focused on the future of California State Parks. I loved the Gathering for a few reasons. One was the very cute baby who helped us all maintain some perspective, and remember who we're working for. Another was the significant turnout of Executive Directors, General Managers and other leaders in the region. It was a who's-who of land conservation. We ended the program by singing Happy Birthday to State Parks to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding. I loved that we had some fun along with some heavy discussion of a complex subject.
January marked the start of the strategic planning for what is currently called the Your Bay Area initiative. We formed a Working Group of Open Space Council members which met twice for 4 hours each time. Working with Lightbox Collaborative, we conducted research on other campaigns and we interviewed key stakeholders. We conducted strategy sessions with 25 member organizations and collected a lot of input and ideas. All of this led to the development of a vision and theory of change.
I went out on a ledge for our March Gathering. We called it Stewardship Palooza and invited 10 projects to set up interactive booths around the Tamalpais room at the Brower Center. For the first hour we walked around and interacted with a miniature watershed, made tea bags from local and native plants, observed muscles eating algae, and so much more. It was a lot of fun. Then for the second hour we sat down and tried to have a conversation. I learned a good lesson about how people are seated and its impact on conversation. Everyone was seated theater style which is not conducive to discussion. Next time we do a Palooza, we'll change how we're seated, or change our expectations of a large group discussion.
Attending the Native American Land Trust Alliance summit at Costanoa in May was amazing. I was one of 25 people sitting in circle talking about how Natives and non-Natives (the labels we decided upon together, fully recognizing that they're not perfect) can work together on common goals. It was a humbling and profoundly eye-opening experience. I was honored to be in the room. And I'm very much looking forward to continuing the conversation.
The 2014 Open Space Conference was big. So big we had people in every corner and every crevice. It became very clear that we need a different space that can accommodate the increased interest. One of my favorite things about this year's conference was how interactive it was. Attendees spent more time in conversation than sitting and listening. We had different activities throughout the day and lots of ways of engaging, interacting and connecting. I also loved that Rue Mapp showed this video:
In 2014 I worked with two great people: Matt Jones and Crystal Simons. Unfortunately both left the Open Space Council for bigger and better things. I learned a lot from both of them and think of them constantly as I think back on what we did this year.
In September we released the Progress Report of the Conservation Lands Network. Crystal led the charge and I'm so proud of the results. It's an impressive body of work with an important message: we have made progress towards some big goals!
I took another risk at the September 25 Gathering at the Moore Foundation. We set up the room with 120 chairs in concentric circles. The speakers sat in the middle and had a conversation about ecosystem services. Each speaker had a mic and we all listened into their conversation. It was fascinating and in my opinion really worked. The speakers didn't do a show 'n tell about their projects. They engaged in conversation. It was a lot of fun to watch unfold.
Trevor Rice joined our team in September and I almost can't remember a time without him. He served as our first Communications Intern. He sat next to me at the September Gathering to live-blog and it felt like it was the 10th time we had live-blogged instead of the first. Trevor led our member-thanking campaign with Quiz Show Fridays. Every Friday he ran a quiz show on Twitter that highlighted and promoted our members as they renewed their membership. He was masterful at the planning and execution. And we have very interesting analytics that show a big increase in our reach because of it.
I had a lot of fun writing two pieces for the Olive Grove blog. This one about incorporation as a 501c3 reflects on years of work internally to become our own separate nonprofit. And this one is about the role we play in the conservation community as a backbone organization. I also started this blog as a way to capture ideas, reflect on my work, and do stuff like write down the highlights of 2014.
October brought two new staff: Yoko Narter as Operations Coordinator and Zach Bolick as Development Coordinator. Both have been such grounding forces for me and for the organization. Thanks to Zach we are building the back-office of a real Development Department. Because of him I can focus on things like donor meetings instead of the form that a member needs us to fill out in order to process their membership dues payment. He has made a huge difference for me, and for the organization.
The Gathering held on November 20 was a more typical format of short presentations and a Q&A session. We focused on innovative ways to connect more people to nature. For a year I'd been talking with Kirk Anne Taylor at ChangeScale about partnering, and this Gathering was the first time that we put those words into action. It was a lot of fun to create the Gathering with her. About a month before the Gathering I received one of those phone calls that are really, really fun to get. The Environmental Education Funders Collaborative wanted to sponsor the Gathering. Yes! The event turned out to be standing-room-only with new funders in the room, high energy, and great partnerships being born. I could say this about many Gatherings, but this was one of my favorites.
November 20 was a really long day. After the Gathering I went upstairs to a 3 hour meeting with the Your Bay Area Strategy Team. This group of people included members of the Working Group we convened in the spring, along with new folks from organizations and companies who we want to involve in the project. Lightbox Collaborative facilitated the meeting in order to get input on the brand platform for the initiative. "Your Bay Area" was always a placeholder name that I made up. With a vision and theory of change in hand, it was time to give this thing a proper name, tagline, visual identity, and messaging. This kick off meeting on November 20 was the start of that process.
I was thoroughly exhausted at 6pm on November 20.
December meant the 24th anniversary campaign. The Open Space Council was founded in 1990 which means that 2015 is our 25th anniversary. So why not prime the pump with a 24th anniversary celebration?! Doesn't everyone celebrate their 24th anniversary? We went nuts with the number 24: the goal was to raise $24,000 and we counted down the last 24 days of the year with 24 reasons to give. The results aren't final yet, but I think we'll get there and achieve our other campaign goals too.
There you go... some highlights of 2014 for me professionally. I'm really looking forward to 2015 when I want to:
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2015.
Our January Gathering focused on the future of California State Parks. I loved the Gathering for a few reasons. One was the very cute baby who helped us all maintain some perspective, and remember who we're working for. Another was the significant turnout of Executive Directors, General Managers and other leaders in the region. It was a who's-who of land conservation. We ended the program by singing Happy Birthday to State Parks to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding. I loved that we had some fun along with some heavy discussion of a complex subject.
January marked the start of the strategic planning for what is currently called the Your Bay Area initiative. We formed a Working Group of Open Space Council members which met twice for 4 hours each time. Working with Lightbox Collaborative, we conducted research on other campaigns and we interviewed key stakeholders. We conducted strategy sessions with 25 member organizations and collected a lot of input and ideas. All of this led to the development of a vision and theory of change.
I went out on a ledge for our March Gathering. We called it Stewardship Palooza and invited 10 projects to set up interactive booths around the Tamalpais room at the Brower Center. For the first hour we walked around and interacted with a miniature watershed, made tea bags from local and native plants, observed muscles eating algae, and so much more. It was a lot of fun. Then for the second hour we sat down and tried to have a conversation. I learned a good lesson about how people are seated and its impact on conversation. Everyone was seated theater style which is not conducive to discussion. Next time we do a Palooza, we'll change how we're seated, or change our expectations of a large group discussion.
Attending the Native American Land Trust Alliance summit at Costanoa in May was amazing. I was one of 25 people sitting in circle talking about how Natives and non-Natives (the labels we decided upon together, fully recognizing that they're not perfect) can work together on common goals. It was a humbling and profoundly eye-opening experience. I was honored to be in the room. And I'm very much looking forward to continuing the conversation.
The 2014 Open Space Conference was big. So big we had people in every corner and every crevice. It became very clear that we need a different space that can accommodate the increased interest. One of my favorite things about this year's conference was how interactive it was. Attendees spent more time in conversation than sitting and listening. We had different activities throughout the day and lots of ways of engaging, interacting and connecting. I also loved that Rue Mapp showed this video:
In 2014 I worked with two great people: Matt Jones and Crystal Simons. Unfortunately both left the Open Space Council for bigger and better things. I learned a lot from both of them and think of them constantly as I think back on what we did this year.
In September we released the Progress Report of the Conservation Lands Network. Crystal led the charge and I'm so proud of the results. It's an impressive body of work with an important message: we have made progress towards some big goals!
I took another risk at the September 25 Gathering at the Moore Foundation. We set up the room with 120 chairs in concentric circles. The speakers sat in the middle and had a conversation about ecosystem services. Each speaker had a mic and we all listened into their conversation. It was fascinating and in my opinion really worked. The speakers didn't do a show 'n tell about their projects. They engaged in conversation. It was a lot of fun to watch unfold.
Trevor Rice joined our team in September and I almost can't remember a time without him. He served as our first Communications Intern. He sat next to me at the September Gathering to live-blog and it felt like it was the 10th time we had live-blogged instead of the first. Trevor led our member-thanking campaign with Quiz Show Fridays. Every Friday he ran a quiz show on Twitter that highlighted and promoted our members as they renewed their membership. He was masterful at the planning and execution. And we have very interesting analytics that show a big increase in our reach because of it.
I had a lot of fun writing two pieces for the Olive Grove blog. This one about incorporation as a 501c3 reflects on years of work internally to become our own separate nonprofit. And this one is about the role we play in the conservation community as a backbone organization. I also started this blog as a way to capture ideas, reflect on my work, and do stuff like write down the highlights of 2014.
October brought two new staff: Yoko Narter as Operations Coordinator and Zach Bolick as Development Coordinator. Both have been such grounding forces for me and for the organization. Thanks to Zach we are building the back-office of a real Development Department. Because of him I can focus on things like donor meetings instead of the form that a member needs us to fill out in order to process their membership dues payment. He has made a huge difference for me, and for the organization.
The Gathering held on November 20 was a more typical format of short presentations and a Q&A session. We focused on innovative ways to connect more people to nature. For a year I'd been talking with Kirk Anne Taylor at ChangeScale about partnering, and this Gathering was the first time that we put those words into action. It was a lot of fun to create the Gathering with her. About a month before the Gathering I received one of those phone calls that are really, really fun to get. The Environmental Education Funders Collaborative wanted to sponsor the Gathering. Yes! The event turned out to be standing-room-only with new funders in the room, high energy, and great partnerships being born. I could say this about many Gatherings, but this was one of my favorites.
November 20 was a really long day. After the Gathering I went upstairs to a 3 hour meeting with the Your Bay Area Strategy Team. This group of people included members of the Working Group we convened in the spring, along with new folks from organizations and companies who we want to involve in the project. Lightbox Collaborative facilitated the meeting in order to get input on the brand platform for the initiative. "Your Bay Area" was always a placeholder name that I made up. With a vision and theory of change in hand, it was time to give this thing a proper name, tagline, visual identity, and messaging. This kick off meeting on November 20 was the start of that process.
I was thoroughly exhausted at 6pm on November 20.
December meant the 24th anniversary campaign. The Open Space Council was founded in 1990 which means that 2015 is our 25th anniversary. So why not prime the pump with a 24th anniversary celebration?! Doesn't everyone celebrate their 24th anniversary? We went nuts with the number 24: the goal was to raise $24,000 and we counted down the last 24 days of the year with 24 reasons to give. The results aren't final yet, but I think we'll get there and achieve our other campaign goals too.
- Write and speak about about the work I do and things I see in the field of conservation. With all of the events I curate, I see themes and gaps and stories that need to be told.
- Build the development program at the Open Space Council now that we have the fundamentals in place. Raise some money, especially from new foundations, corporations and major donors.
- Launch the "Your Bay Area" initiative. Get it off the ground.
- Gel as a team of Open Space Council staff. There will be a big transition on staff and I want to make it to the other side as a team.
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2015.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Culture of collaboration
I'm fascinated by the idea of using influence to make change (rather than authority or money, for example). How do you make someone do something by creating the right conditions for them to decide to do it on their own? How can an environment or culture help create those right conditions? And what are the details that go into that? Does how you serve lunch at a meeting actually make any difference?
I just scratched the surface with this presentation I did earlier this year. I look forward to exploring this idea more in writing, presentations and conversations in the future.
I just scratched the surface with this presentation I did earlier this year. I look forward to exploring this idea more in writing, presentations and conversations in the future.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
The Forests, Trees and Open Spaces of 501(c)(3) Incorporation
I wrote the following post for Olive Grove Consulting's blog. Here it is for kicks and giggles.
It started when the State of California couldn’t pay its bills. It was 2008 and the bond freeze impacted many state agencies’ ability to disperse funds, including the Coastal Conservancy. The Coastal Conservancy was the largest funder of the Bay Area Open Space Council and we were in trouble.
The organization needed to change. Our funding sources needed to be diversified. We needed to broaden our programs to serve more people in order to attract new funders. And incorporation as a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit became a topic of serious consideration at our Executive Committee meetings. Since our founding in 1990, the Open Space Council had been fiscally sponsored, first by Greenbelt Alliance then by the San Francisco Parks Alliance. There are great benefits of fiscal sponsorship, the biggest being that back office functions like HR, accounting, and legal are handled by the fiscal sponsor. That’s significant for our small staff of three.
But there are also challenges. A donation to the Open Space Council is really a donation to our fiscal sponsor, and same goes for the donor who made that donation. It’s like being on a date with a third person in the car and at the movie theater with you. Explaining the fiscal sponsor relationship is another sentence or two that you need to say, another sentence that can slow down or stop a donation from happening. And you’re reliant on another organization for your accounting system and reporting. Generally that means less visibility into and less control of the resources.
So we started down the road to incorporate as a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Starting in 2011 we started working with Olive Grove Consulting to design and implement a new governance structure. We also started the application process at the local, state and federal levels to be a nonprofit corporation and to have tax-exempt status. We set up accounting systems and other internal systems, policies and procedures. We held our first Board meeting in November 2013 and received tax-exempt determination in June 2014.
It took three years. And in those three years we learned some lessons, including:
- It takes a long time to incorporate an existing organization. The process wouldn’t be nearly as long if we decided to launch a new nonprofit from scratch. Sometimes I dream about how easy that must be. The slate would be blank. But we had history. You could call it baggage, or you could call it invested stakeholders who wanted to maintain the soul of the organization through this big change. We needed to have thoughtful conversations at almost every step of the way and we needed everyone to be on board. That takes time. Then there’s waiting for the IRS, but that’s a topic for another time.
- This is not a one-person job. During our years in fiscal sponsorship we had an Executive Committee that served as a pseudo Board of Directors. They didn’t have fiscal responsibility for the organization (our fiscal sponsor’s Board had that), but they met regularly to set strategy, provide input on our workplan, and review finances. A workgroup consisting of one Executive Committee member, one staff member, our contract accountant, and Emily Hall fromOlive Grove met regularly to keep the incorporation process moving forward. This was important because it meant that the process was owned by more than one person. It also meant that different perspectives were included. With staff transitions and multiple interests at stake, this cross-functional workgroup ensured that the original intentions were maintained. Multiple people with different spheres of influence, content knowledge, and perspectives had ownership of the process and the outcomes.
- Look for the forest amongst the trees. The process was messy at times. It was sometimes confusing and overwhelming. It was critical that we had an objective voice of reason to guide us. Olive Grove served in that critical role. With their facilitation we built a governance structure that makes sense for history, stakeholders, and goals. They facilitated meetings on complicated topics and they kept the ball moving forward. Together we outlined the steps we needed to take. When we found ourselves on a tangent, they brought us back to center. Olive Grove helped us see the forest for the trees.
We’re still learning lessons from incorporation. Receiving tax-exempt determination is a false ending for the incorporation process. The end of one process is really the start of another. We are continuing to build a new Board of Directors. We are near the end of the transition of our HR, accounting and legal functions to the Open Space Council from our fiscal sponsor. It’s not over yet. But we are happy that we can easily and freely say this:
Would you like to donate to the Bay Area Open Space Council? You can directly, without confusion or distraction, byclicking here.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Just try it
I have a habit that I actually really like, even if it gets me into trouble sometimes. It's the habit of saying yes before a detailed plan has been formed. The energy of a good idea (or what I think is a good idea) plus the thrill of anticipation is sometimes more than I can resist. I love ideas and I really love anticipation. One of my favorite days of the year is day before the March Madness tournament starts. Every pick of yours is right, and it's all lying ahead waiting to happen. Just thinking about it now makes me feel energized and happy.
All of this makes working at a small organization pretty fun. There aren't a lot of obstacles between an idea and implementation. No legal department, no human resources department, no unnecessary forms, and a minimal amount of policies. Okay, yes, sometimes these things are a good thing and sometimes my "good" idea isn't so "good." But overall, a culture and organizational structure that allows for ideas to flow and implementation to happen is a culture and organization for me.
Here are some things we've tried:
Stewardship Palooza. I still can't say those words without smiling. I asked 9 organizations/projects to bring interactive exhibits to the Brower Center and encouraged them to think creatively. For an hour 80 people talked, engaged, learned, made connections and got outside of the usual Powerpoint lecture format of an event. I loved it. A big lesson for me at that Gathering was the importance of how you arrange the chairs in the room. After an hour of free play, we asked people to sit down for a facilitated conversation about what was in the room and what it means in the big picture of land stewardship. There were 80 chairs set in rows all facing forward. The energy level plummeted. Sitting like that kills enthusiasm and dialogue. Or at least it did that day.
Meetups. One of my favorite things about the Open Space Conference is that it isn't a normal conference. We don't see the attendees as empty vessels that we need to fill up with information. We don't cram technical information down their throats. Instead, it's big picture and inspirational. And for many years it was a large group of attendees sitting in rows facing forward listening to one speaker after the other talking, talking, talking. Inspirational talking, yes, but still talking at/to the audience. In May 2014 we tried something new. The speakers only had 15-20 minutes each which meant less rambling. After every three speakers, there was a break. And in the afternoon we dedicated 60 minutes to meetups. Attendees could join smaller groups to discuss a particular topic. We didn't structure them very much and we let each moderator take the lead on what each group should discuss. The feedback was mixed and there will be things we'll do differently next year. But I saw interaction and conversations and that was the goal.
Thanking our members online. The fancy word for it is social proofing, but I like to think of it as making our gratitude very publicly known. Every fall for the past 4 years we've thanked our members using some online tool. First was simple pictures on Flickr. Then it was Fotobabble. Last year we had maps that we posted on Flickr and Instagram. This year we're running #OSCQuizFridays on Twitter. With the help of a talented intern, we're profiling 5-6 members each Fridays with quiz questions to our 1,660 followers. We're tracking the analytics and we're learning a lot about how to do this as we go. It's a lot of fun.
All of this makes working at a small organization pretty fun. There aren't a lot of obstacles between an idea and implementation. No legal department, no human resources department, no unnecessary forms, and a minimal amount of policies. Okay, yes, sometimes these things are a good thing and sometimes my "good" idea isn't so "good." But overall, a culture and organizational structure that allows for ideas to flow and implementation to happen is a culture and organization for me.
Here are some things we've tried:
Stewardship Palooza. I still can't say those words without smiling. I asked 9 organizations/projects to bring interactive exhibits to the Brower Center and encouraged them to think creatively. For an hour 80 people talked, engaged, learned, made connections and got outside of the usual Powerpoint lecture format of an event. I loved it. A big lesson for me at that Gathering was the importance of how you arrange the chairs in the room. After an hour of free play, we asked people to sit down for a facilitated conversation about what was in the room and what it means in the big picture of land stewardship. There were 80 chairs set in rows all facing forward. The energy level plummeted. Sitting like that kills enthusiasm and dialogue. Or at least it did that day.
Meetups. One of my favorite things about the Open Space Conference is that it isn't a normal conference. We don't see the attendees as empty vessels that we need to fill up with information. We don't cram technical information down their throats. Instead, it's big picture and inspirational. And for many years it was a large group of attendees sitting in rows facing forward listening to one speaker after the other talking, talking, talking. Inspirational talking, yes, but still talking at/to the audience. In May 2014 we tried something new. The speakers only had 15-20 minutes each which meant less rambling. After every three speakers, there was a break. And in the afternoon we dedicated 60 minutes to meetups. Attendees could join smaller groups to discuss a particular topic. We didn't structure them very much and we let each moderator take the lead on what each group should discuss. The feedback was mixed and there will be things we'll do differently next year. But I saw interaction and conversations and that was the goal.
Thanking our members online. The fancy word for it is social proofing, but I like to think of it as making our gratitude very publicly known. Every fall for the past 4 years we've thanked our members using some online tool. First was simple pictures on Flickr. Then it was Fotobabble. Last year we had maps that we posted on Flickr and Instagram. This year we're running #OSCQuizFridays on Twitter. With the help of a talented intern, we're profiling 5-6 members each Fridays with quiz questions to our 1,660 followers. We're tracking the analytics and we're learning a lot about how to do this as we go. It's a lot of fun.
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