We were pleased to have an artist create this visual representation of our Strategic Plan. It helps to remember that our Community Objectives — Education, Basic Human Needs, and Economic Opportunity — are peaks we will take years to scale. Let us know what you think!
One of the “Building Blocks” in our strategic plan is called Learning Community. This is The Denver Foundation’s commitment to foster a community in which staff, trustees, volunteers, and our partners share our lessons learned, and use that learning to assess impact and develop future strategies.
As you know if you’ve visited denverfoundation.org/listening, we make it our business to listen to the community. As we go through the process of building our Learning Community, we would love to hear your ideas about what has worked best for you on this front. Has your organization found a great way to incorporate feedback from your constituents? Do you use circle practice, appreciative inquiry, or any other method to examine your work?
The questions we’re asking ourselves: how will we know we are making a difference? As we do our work, are we conducting our grantmaking, our partnerships, and our donor relationships in ways that build toward the kind of community we seek to create? And how can we use the answers to these questions to improve continually as we move forward?
by Adrienne Mansanares and LaDawn Sullivan
Over the years of operation of The Denver Foundation’s Strengthening Neighborhoods Program (SN) and the Inclusiveness Project (IP), we have gained the trust and respect of our peers – locally and nationally. As importantly, we have gained the trust and respect of the residents, nonprofits, and community members with whom we work. To help build a stronger Metro Denver community, the structures of both programs seek to bring the traditional philanthropic sector and grassroots communities together to reduce racial and economic disparities.
As we work to implement The Denver Foundation’s new Strategic Plan, both programs have collaborated to develop the list of shared values that will serve, along with the Foundation’s core values of inclusiveness, equity, accountability, and leadership, to drive every aspect of overall Foundation’s current and future work.
Shared values:
• Relationships/Partnerships: Our focus is on community and connecting folks with the Foundation, and us with them. IP believes that these relationships will shift the balance of inequity in our community.
• Culture of learning: We ask residents and nonprofits where they are and what they believe will strengthen community. We then use this value in how we determine whether we’ve had an impact on the community. We ask people to evaluate from the inside out, share successes and challenges, and learn from each other.
• Flexibility: IP and SN are not deadline-oriented, and they work with a prototyping method which allows us to take actions and harvest lessons learned.
• Support ideas beyond dollars and norms of traditional philanthropy: We allow people to come to us mid-stream and adjust. This creates space for leadership to develop.
• Continuum of success: We expect organizations to start where they are and have smaller successes that may be hard to quantify. We find different ways to benchmark, and we’re patient as programs evolve.
• Build on what’s working: We see the glass as half full and we’re automatically asking what’s already working, rather than focusing on the deficits in a program.
To ensure SN and IP’s philosophies and practices are imbedded into the heart of the Foundation’s future work, these values have been shared with the Foundation’s four grantmaking advisory committees, SN and IP committees, and staff implementation committee. We look forward to future opportunities to share these values with internal and external partners. Please share your ideas and comments of how we can best share these values and/or ensure that these values are woven into the Foundations work in perpetuity.
by Oz Spies, Program Officer, Community Grants Program
In early December, The Denver Foundation’s staff began reaching out to nonprofit organizations and local leaders to discuss The Denver Foundation’s Strategic Plan and invite their thoughts and feedback as we move forward with plan implementation. These conversations will continue through the end of the first quarter of 2012, and we anticipate reaching over 100 nonprofits, leaders, and community members through these discussions. We also plan to connect with neighborhood residents, in partnership with Strengthening Neighborhoods, community leaders, and donors.
During the forty discussions and small group conversations we’ve had to date, several themes have emerged:
1) Multiple interviewees noted the crossover between The Denver Foundation’s three Community Objectives, and emphasized the various ways they interact with/affect one another. Recommendations included strong suggestions to be mindful of these overlaps and create strategies that treat people holistically. For example, children can’t learn from their teachers as well if they’re hungry or need eyeglasses.
2) Another common theme includes opportunities offered through deep collaboration, and the challenges of such work. Several folks have noted that The Denver Foundation could play a role in convening, and advancing deep, cross-sector collaboration that address the community objectives.
3) Many interviewees believed that working at a variety of levels, from resident engagement to nonprofit support and advocacy work, will align strategies that can most effectively advance our community objectives. We were encouraged not to work at cross-purposes.
4) Many have also touched on the opportunity for the Foundation to take risks and tolerate possible failure of some projects to test out new solutions; others emphasized the importance of patience on the part of the Foundation by sticking with projects over time. Past partners urged The Denver Foundation to have
defined, explicit criteria with clarity about the outcomes we’re seeking; maintain flexibility and adaptability; provide general operating support and boost nonprofit organization’s capacity; and to continue the commitment to building relationships, listening to the community, and inclusiveness.
5) Core issues have been raised, from school readiness and literacy to the value of the arts as a vehicle to bridge cultural divides, though themes are less clear at this level.
If you’re interested in participating in providing feedback, we’d love to hear from you! Please leave your comments below. What do you see as the most pressing issues and opportunities that overlap with The Denver Foundation’s three community objectives? What recommendations would you make to The Denver Foundation as we move forward implementing our Strategic Plan?
by Pamela Kenney Basey, Member, Board of Trustees and Chair of the Strategic Plan Implementation Task Force
As you’ve read here, the staff of The Denver Foundation has already begun implementing the work of our 2012 – 2021 Strategic Plan. Last week, we held the first meeting of the Board of Trustees Implementation Task Force.
The Task Force is a dedicated group of trustees who will oversee the staff’s implementation work. We’ll meet about once a month to provide insight into strategic questions that arise during the year, and to track progress toward the plan’s objectives.
While the plan does extend for a decade, this first year is critically important. We’ll be determining how the Foundation’s activities will align with those of other groups that are working toward our key community objectives in the areas of basic human needs, economic development, and education. With limited resources, it’s important to understand exactly how we can make a difference.
In our first meeting of the Task Force, we looked at our operating agreements and goals for the year. Members heard about initial responses to the strategic plan and about the staff’s “community conversations” that are taking place with 80 – 100 key partners and organizations.
An important initial reflection about the role of the Task Force emerged: how can we help ensure that the activities we’re conducting to meet the various objectives of the plan are interrelated and build upon one another? For instance, if we learn something important about our potential role in education, how will that relate to our work in economic development?
I look forward to reporting here about our future work and keeping the community connected to the implementation of The Denver Foundation’s Strategic Plan. Please post comments and questions you might have for the Task Force, and we’ll be glad to respond.
Ever since The Denver Foundation’s Strategic Plan was approved in November, the staff has been hard at work figuring out how we will put the plan “on the ground” through our grantmaking, programs, and other activities.
Of course, we’re also continuing to operate our existing programs as promised through 2012 – and the Community Grants Program had an October 1 deadline and we’re in the process of reviewing numerous potential grantees for grant decisions in January. So in mid-November, the staff made a critical decision – we will augment our usual site visits to potential grantees with a series of key conversations with nonprofit partners throughout the community.
To make the most of our time together, we put together a series of questions that investigate when our partnerships with grantees are at their best and when we have places for improvement. We also ask about how the work of various nonprofits lines up with our community objectives in the areas of basic human needs, education, and economic opportunity. Thank you to so many of our wonderful nonprofit partners who have already participated in these conversations…and if you have feedback you can always share it with us via listening@denverfoundation.org.
First implementation committee meeting
This week, we had our first official staff ‘Strategic Plan Implementation Committee’ meeting – during which we set our agreements for working together and addressed the complexity of the task ahead.
The staff committee will meet twice a month. Members of that committee include sponsors for each of our three community objectives, our three partner objectives, and our five internal building blocks. A board task force will meet once a month to oversee the work of this staff committee. Larry Dressler from Blue Wing Consulting, who helped create the strategic plan, will help facilitate these meetings.
Among the questions we raised at our first meeting: How will we communicate our progress internally and externally? How will we incorporate the work of Strengthening Neighborhoods and the Inclusiveness Project moving forward? How will we seek and incorporate community feedback into our work?
If you have ideas for how to help us moving forward, let us know – and share any feedback by emailing listening@denverfoundation.org. Watch this blog for future posts throughout 2012 by various staff members working in all of our areas of interest. In the meantime, happy holidays to all!
Welcome to The Denver Foundation’s website for reporting on progress related to implementing our 2012 – 2021 Strategic Plan. Be sure to subscribe to this site to receive regular updates.
Visit this site to read about our information gathering related to our three future areas of focus for funding from our Community Endowment:
Two important things to remember:
