The Closeted Optimist's Guide to Change

The Closeted Optimist’s Guide to ChangeFoundations as Changemakers

GEO National ConferenceMarch 13, 2012, Seattle, WA

Eugene Eric Kim <eekim@groupaya.net>@eekim on Twitter

We are all trying to change the world for the better.

How do we do this?

We all want to facilitate change, but in order to do that, we must change ourselves.

Change starts with the individual.

How many of you have made a memorable, lasting change in your life in the past three months?

Change is hard.

“Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.”

—Thomas KuhnStructure of Scientific

Revolutions

People don’t change. The old guard dies...

... and the new guard’s mindset takes over.

Meyerowitz's (Suggested) Hypothesis

Meyerowitz's (Suggested) Hypothesis

Applied Today

Change seems to happen in generational

increments.

What if there’s no new guard?

Will this be fast enough?

What does this all mean for institutional philanthropy?

How does change happen?

1.You need to want it.2.You need to practice

it.3.You need structures

that support it.

The Mont Fleur Scenarios (1992)

Helped guide the peaceful, economically successful ANC leadership transition in post-apartheid South Africa

What would happen if foundations aligned around a common vision for how to change themselves and the world?

What would happen if, in addition to planning, foundations played, in addition to analyzing, foundations experimented?

What would happen if there were structures in place that supported these experiments in changing how foundations work?

“It is far too late and things are far too bad for pessimism. At such times, it is no failure to fall short of realizing all that we might dream; the failure is to fall short of dreaming all that we might realize.”

—Dee Hock

Acknowledgements

Photo on slide 3 by nattu (CC BY 2.0).Photo on slide 6 by Raymond Larose (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).Photo on slide 7 from HiLoBrow.Photos on slide 8 by aussiegal (CC BY 2.0) and Eugene Eric Kim (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).Photos on slide 9 by Paul Townsend (CC BY-NC 2.0) and from NASA and the National Archives.

Photos on slide 10 by David Shankbone (CC BY 2.0) and from Al Jazeera English (CC BY-SA 2.0) and Wikimedia Commons.Image on slide 11 by José-manuel Benitos (GNU FDL 1.2).Photo on slide 12 by Trey Ratcliff (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).Photo on slide 13 by Adam Baker (CC BY 2.0).Photo on slide 14 by World Cup 2010 – Shine 2010 (CC BY 2.0)

Thanks to Kristin Cobble for her thought partnership, to Amy Wu Wong for her delightful drawings, and to H. Jessica Kim for her helpful feedback.

eekim@groupaya.net / @eekim on Twitter

http://groupaya.net/@groupaya on Twitter