Chasing boredom and catching wonder during my Sabbatical
Way-Ting Chen December 11, 2024
After more than two decades of co-leading Blue Garnet, Way-Ting embraced a well-earned sabbatical to recharge, reflect, and reimagine.
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Insights from the social impact sphere
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- “Zeroing in on Impact” offers an excellent introduction to the fundamental concepts of social impact [Colby, Stone, Carttar, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2004]
- In “Impact Thinking: The Mindset Exceptional Organizations Share” we explain how to get ‘unstuck’ from the status quo mindset, and include practical steps to take, benefits you can expect, and share leading examples in the social sector [Shen & Nicholson, Blue Garnet, 2014]
- Learn “How to be an Impact Do-Er” and translate impact thinking into action [Chen, Timmerman, and Chamberlin, Blue Garnet, 2017]
- “The Strategic Plan is Dead. Long Live Strategy” successfully addresses a topic that is integral to our firm [O’Donovan & Flower, Stanford Social Innovation Review]
- “The ED’s Role and Attitude in Strategic Planning” [Bell, Blue Avocado]
- “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” a TED Talk by Simon Sinek
- With Awake to Woke to Work, build a race equity culture at your workplace [Equity in the Center]
- Racial Equity Institute (REI) workshops help participants understand racism in its institutional and structural forms. Read their paper, The Groundwater Approach, to build your practical understanding of structural racism [Bayard Love & Deena Hayes-Greene of the Racial Equity Institute]
- Equitable Grantmaking Continuum is a simple tool for funders to assess how equitable their funding practices are (PDF download) [NonprofitAF and RVCSeattle]
- Equitable Evaluation Framework shifts the traditional evaluation paradigm [Equitable Evaluation Initiative]
- Eager to have meaningful conversations with your team about race? Here are some Guidelines for Authentic Conversations about Race [The Annie E. Casey Foundation]
- “Beyond the Board Statement” a two-part webinar, illustrates how nonprofit boards can join the movement for racial Justice. Watch Part One and Part Two [Nonprofit Quarterly, June 2020, Vernetta Walker & Robin Stacia]
- Strategy + Evaluation: the Yin and Yang of Social Impact
Strategy and evaluation are often considered separate and siloed conversations. Way-Ting Chen, Blue Garnet Co-founder and Senior Partner, makes the case for bringing the two together in this workshop with students at University of California Los Angeles Anderson School of Management. When organizations align their strategy and evaluation, they can create aligning strategy and evaluation to create greater, and more measurable, impact. - As part of the HALO Award Stories project, Way-Ting Chen shares her reflections as technical assistance provider and learning partner to the Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation. HALO Award Stories was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the sense of community created through the HALO Award Peer Learning Sessions and Spotlight Case conversations.
- Moneyball for Government encourages government to use data, evidence and evaluation to drive policy and funding decisions
- Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis
- Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity , 2012 runner-up of the Terry McAdam’s Book Award Committee
- StrengthsFinder 2.0, a book and personalized assessment of individual strengths, which we believe is critical to the practice of shared leadership
For many, embracing impact thinking is a challenging mindset shift. To get started on your path, check out these helpful resources: