I attended a panel discussion at the Brookings Institution this afternoon about the release of the new book, Catalyzing Development:  A New Vision for Aid.  You can read my tweet blurbs here.

At the end, an audience member posed the question, “how do you [the panelists] measure success?”

That’s a great question.  I think the answer is “it depends on who you ask.”

Aid has a diverse customer base.  If you ask the U.S. or UK government, aid is successful when it keeps our nation safe and helps us meet our foreign policy goals.  If you ask the aid beneficiaries, it is successful when they have something to eat tomorrow or a tent to sleep in after an earthquake.  If you ask the governments of the countries receiving the aid, it is successful when they can use it for their goals, which may or may not be successful for the beneficiaries or the entity giving the aid.

The reason aid reform is so slow, difficult, and game-changing is because we have so many different customers, who have different expectations, goals, and success measures.

The NGO community must hold the torch for the beneficiary customer because the rest have enough power on their own.  I hope this will happen with enough representation from beneficiaries at the upcoming 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness coming up in Busan.

[This is a cross-post from Peacebuilder Magazine Online]

Regina Holliday dedicates the 73 cents Mural in Washington, DC; photo by tedeytan under CC license

Regina Holliday was at work teaching art when she got a call from her husband, Fred. The doctor had just told him he had growths and tumors in his kidneys. She rushed to the hospital to process the news with him and understand the diagnosis. Before she got there, Fred’s oncologist had left for a 4-day medical conference. Fred had kidney cancer and would die within months, but neither he nor Regina knew that because Fred was transferred to another medical facility and was not given a proper diagnosis nor his medical records for the next doctor to use. When Regina went to claim Fred’s records, she found they would cost 73 cents a page to print (they were several hundred pages), with a 21-day wait. When they did get copies, the records were inaccurate and incomplete. Frustrated by a lack of information from medical providers and the U.S. health care system, Regina reached out to her friend who suggested she talk to a patient advocate on Twitter, @ePatientDave, a stage-four kidney cancer survivor. Through Dave and other friends, Regina got answers and connected to the health advocacy community online. An artist, Regina painted a mural in DC about her ordeal, called 73 cents, which she promoted on Twitter, Facebook, and her blog. Soon CNN, BBC, CBS, and other traditional national news media picked up her story and she became part of the national health care debate in May 2009.

Regina did not know what Twitter was when she received the phone call from Fred in the hospital. However, she took a chance and with one tweet made connections to health advocacy groups she would never have found otherwise.

Twitter, Facebook, and blogs are tools that can amplify the message and build the network of any peacebuilder. Many of these tools even let you send messages from email or your mobile phone, so you do not always need a fast internet connection to use them. Your stories and ideas can spread to the right people further and faster than ever before. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Create a Twitter account: You can follow interesting people and talk to them using special characters in your messages. You can even send messages called tweets using your mobile phone texting service.
2. Create a Facebook account: Either for yourself personally or your organization (to create an organization account, you will need to first create a personal account). You can add friends you already know, post pictures, videos, and stories to share with other people.
3. Start a blog: There are many free services, and I suggest Blogger, WordPress, or Posterous. You do not need to spend a lot of time or know much about technology. Just write a few articles about what you are passionate about and tell your friends and colleagues about it.

The world needs to hear your stories. In July 2010, a year after Fred passed away, Regina got a standing ovation for her speech at the Health Information Technology conference, on a stage with the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. How far can your story go if you use these social media tools?

You can learn more about Regina Holliday’s story in The Big Book of Social Media Case Studies, Stories, Perspectives by Robert Fine. Her mural, “73 cents,” is located at 5001 Connecticut Ave, Washington, DC 20008.

What patterns and processes are developing in your organization (aka system) that could be blocking, frustrating, and leading to misunderstanding and unproductive conflict?

How do you even go about uncovering those issues without divulging into arguments or jumping immediately to solve only the surface problem?

Barry Oshry, a noted organizational anthropologist, has many answers in his book, Seeing Systems.  He recommends we become anthropologists and analyze our organizations from a detached, scientific, objective perspective.

This is difficult when you are in the weeds of day to day work.

You need a mechanism for people to 1) tell the truth about issues without being blamed or arguing about the cause and 2) listen to other people without interruption.

A really great activity is to have a sacred cow BBQ.  No, you are not cooking beef together.  You host a company BBQ where people can eat lunch or dinner together to make it a space outside of regular business meetings.  Then you ask people to write a sacred cow on a piece of paper.  A sacred cow is something in your organization that never gets discussed and people have felt uncomfortable asking about.  Usually they are policies, rules, formal, or informal, that someone doesn’t understand or something that is inhibiting their productivity.  After everyone has written a sacred cow on a sticky note, stick it up on the wall and have a discussion about each one.  As an organization leader, you can then see certain places where your system is stuck and ask either at the BBQ or later for advice on how to remove that barrier or take the opportunity to explain the sacred cow to your staff so they will at least understand the history and context behind it.

We had a great discussion tonight at the Voices of the Sector community dialogue with young black nonprofit professionals, hosted by YNPNdc.

Two huge themes emerged – 1)  The need for mentors and 2)  Resources

Mentors

We need people who believe in our talents and can promote our unique skills within our organizations.  Professional development still has a lot to do with who you know and entree into leadership roles.

Resources

In order to get jobs in certain sectors, like international development, students and young professionals start out with unpaid internships.  Unfortunately, many people cannot afford to go without an income for that long, blocking us out of certain jobs.  This was actually one of the hugest issues of the night – how can we build our careers in nonprofit jobs that do not pay anything at first?  Where are resources for scholarships?

The discussion brought up some great issues, and the extremely intelligent members of YNPNdc challenged us on the leadership team to continue now with solutions.  We heard you!  In January we will have a large cross-community event that will bring us all together to discuss what we’ve learned and how to move forward.

What a great event!

You may have heard about the Billionaires Pledge, a call to the world’s wealthiest individuals to give away a majority of their wealth to philanthropy.  I think that’s a great idea.  I’m not a billionaire, though, so is there a club for the rest of us?  Well, some friends and I thought there should be, and we recently launched Givr, a movement about giving.  You can pledge to give more than you gave last year – more time, service, money, advice, writing, or anything generous.

Working in the nonprofit sector, I used to feel that my daytime vocation is sufficient for giving back.  But then I read Seth Godin’s post about how insurance salesmen should buy their own insurance to 1) show they believe in their product, and 2) understand what it feels like to buy their product.

I believe in the nonprofit sector’s ethic to give without expecting anything in return for personal benefit but for social benefit and since I’ve been finding excuses to give more often.  Over the summer I gave what I could to the Haiti and Pakistani relief efforts, as well as $25 for a friend’s charity bike ride and a day of service for 9/11 with the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of DC (YNPNdc).  I now understand the experience of being a funder, or philanthropist, more directly.  This helps me out professionally and personally.

We young professionals working in nonprofits may not be able to give billions, but we can give collectively adds up.  You can take the pledge and join other young professionals in a greater commitment to giving here:  http://givr.razoo.com/ and fan us on Facebook.

I hope you check out this month’s Monday Developments, a magazine published by InterAction, which is a large coalition of U.S.-based international NGOs.  I have an article in this issue called, “How Young NGO Professionals Can Develop a Career Strategy:  Practical Steps for Making a Plan That Works for You.”

The article walks you through how developing your career is like strategic planning for organizations.  It also is a great way to find out about what’s going on in the Young Professionals Forum at InsideNGO, where I work.  The article is in the May 2010 issue, which was just published and should be mailed out very soon if you are a subscriber.  Otherwise, you might consider subscribing.

If you really took a look at your organization’s mission, you would probably find that enough urgent but not important tasks keep slipping into your days, then weeks, that you start to wonder what you actually have accomplished that month.

Is this because you are doing too much?

You will become overwhelmed and burned out if you continue at that pace.

We like to help and be super heroes but we can’t be effective if we spread ourselves too thin.

Carve out time to do the important – that which will move your organization’s mission forward.  Carve out time to eat a healthy lunch, go for coffee with a colleague.  You need to stay human while you do your human services work.

The Young Professionals Forum I run at my organization (InsideNGO) hosted a great workshop on Friday about Career Building for Young Professionals.

The trainer, Maureen MacCarthy, Principal Consultant at MGS Consulting, led us through the high-energy, participatory event with tons of networking opportunities.  It reminded me that while the advances in technologies that bring us webinars and other virtual events save travel time and costs, in-person events are critical for building your network and connecting with people.

Our YP Forum is different from other similar groups because everyone at our events works in the international NGO sector and shares similar experiences, challenges, and your organizations have probably partnered on projects together.

But the majority of the tips Maureen gave us apply to everyone.  I want to share 4 of the most useful ones.

The first is Be What You Want to Become.  Let’s say you’re a Program Assistant and want to become a Program Manager.  Start acting like a Program Manager.  Tell trusted colleagues/mentors that you want to be a Program Manager and to coach you on what that looks like at your organization.  Practice with a friend introducing yourself as a Program Manager.  Be who you want to become.

The second:  Get to know your organization’s culture and what people talk about when they’re not talking about work, especially the leaders.  Understand others on a more personal level so you can more easily be understood when you may present a new idea or try to get buy-in for your project.  Maybe people like to chat about movies, what’s in the news, or their children.  Get to know others to understand them better and use that knowledge to become fluent in your organization’s culture so you can know how to talk about your idea in a language they can understand.

Third, get to know your field.  For example, organizations in the international NGO sector are funded by similar donors and government agencies.  We as young professionals know we must remain adaptable and build transferrable skills because the donors might decide to fund reproductive health projects instead of HIV/AIDS projects.  PEPFAR is changing phases and you have to know how to do the work.  In general, the world is moving faster, there’s the economic downturn, and pressures and changes in budgets.  Be aware of the trends in your field because the complexity of what your organization’s leaders are dealing with is something you should be aware of so you can adapt.

And fourth, one of the best tactics for growing your career is networking:  meeting new people and passing out your business card.  You might be on Facebook but be sure to also create a profile for yourself on LinkedIn because businesses and recruiters do use LinkedIn to find outstanding employees that fit their culture, know their industry, and can do the work.

I am a nerd and read just about every leadership, self help, and professional development book out there.

I had to put down Drive and The Happiness Project to read Seth Godin’s pre-release copy of Linchpin:  Are You Indispensable?

Seth’s writing changes a lot of people from all generations but Linchpin should be on all college graduate and young professional reading lists.

I feel scared to write this post and review, quite frankly, because his book gives away secrets and keys to the kingdom that will shake and shatter organizations and industries if you put his advice into practice.

I did not feel this scared with Tribes nor Purple Cow or any of his other books.

This is a human book, not a business book.

Your Sunday School class could read it.

We Gen Y people are at the beginning of our careers and lives as adults.  Now is the time to experiment, try new things, and determine what we want to commit our energy and passion to.  We are artists, not just workers.

On Friday I went to his talk in NYC about Linchpin.  The opening music was live bluegrass by the band the Ebony Hillbillies.  Then he talked.  There were an intimate but respectful 500 people in the auditorium.  It felt like the 1920s when people attended subversive truth-telling talks.

I was a history major and again I’m a nerd and during his talk I felt like I was living in the early 1900s when there were speakeasies and jazz and people doing what they want despite systems and factories.  People weren’t completely indoctrinated in consumer culture yet.  It was the time when American art – jazz – was established.

Seth writes a lot about being an artist in this book.  Not a painter but an artist.  Not a cook but a chef.  Not an assistant but a linchpin.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

Art, at least as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person.

It’s easy to buy a cookbook but really hard to find a chef book.

History is now being written by the artists…the future belongs to chefs, not cooks.

The future of your organization depends on motivated human beings selflessly contributing unasked-for gifts of emotional labor.

The linchpin is able to invent a future, fall in love with it, live in it, and then abandon it on a moment’s notice.

I hope you will invest the $17 in yourself by buying this book to be inspired to create art.  We really need you.

The pictures are my fan girl self meeting Seth on Friday and how he signed my book.

I caught two movies this weekend that reminded me why it’s so hard to play to your strengths.

A Reformed Arrogant Drummer

Drumline was on reruns on MTV, and it’s actually a really good movie so I watched it again.  This time I had a new lens to watch it through thanks to Dave Rendall’s Freak Factor blog.

Nick Cannon plays Devon, a cocky, superstar drummer in one of those great college bands who gets a scholarship to A&T in Atlanta.  He wows the crowd with his amazing drum solos and entertainment power.  It turns out that he can’t read sheet music so his arch rival calls him out and gets him kicked out of the band.

It also doesn’t help that he’s arrogant and doesn’t want to be a team player.  He is better than the whole drumline.

After a fight with Sean, his rival band member, Sean admits Devon is the best but gets him to focus on being more of a team player:

Sean:  “You’re the best, Devon! But when we’re on the field, nobody hears you! They hear the band.”

Devon becomes convinced he needs to change.  He teaches himself sheet music and focuses on becoming a team member of the drumline.  This proves to the band director that he has developed his character and he lets him back into the band, (spoiler alert) just in time to win the final band championships.

The band director and school system certainly socialized Devon into working with a team, but what will happen to his confidence in his ability to come up with new sounds independently?  No longer a freak, how will he be able to stand out again?

A Reformed Womanizer

The other movie I watched was Nine (2009) about an Italian film director named Guido who couldn’t come up with a new script for his film because of his personal problems with all of the women in his life.  It turned out his other movies were successful because they were about all of the personal problems he faced in his life.

(Spoiler alert):  Without giving too much away, Nine resolved by Guido making a movie about apologizing to all of the women in his life for how he’s treated them.

The movie implies Guido was a good storyteller and film director because of the practiced he had in telling good lies to all of the women in his life.  Now that Guido is morally better after he stops womanizing, what will happen to his storytelling?  Can you change for the better as a person without losing your unique talents?  I think so, but thought it was an interesting question.   When should you allow yourself to be socialized and when should you not change?

Hollywood Makes it Hard

Enjoyable Hollywood movies make it hard to stand out because so many plots focus on the drama of society morally reforming a confident outsider.  What’s interesting to me is that there would be no movie without this outside, or freak, character.  Think of all of those nerd makeover movies.  That’s who the movie is about.  No freak, no movie.  But it’s up to you to decide if you will become more like them or more like yourself.

Courtesy Photo