A Month of Learning in Community
November filled my bucket. I spent most of it in community with nonprofit leaders from across the country and I want to share with you what these experiences reminded me of about our work.
It started in New York at the American Express Leadership Academy. I joined 80 social impact leaders from across the Americas for a week of training on storytelling, authentic leadership, and navigating change. There was deep gratitude in the room—not only for what we learned, but for the rare opportunity to step away from the day-to-day and reflect.
I returned to Los Angeles and the following day attended Live from LA at Radford Studios, a live hip-hop theatre performance featuring youth from five organizations in the Arts for Healing and Justice Network. Together, we celebrated the magic that happens when organizations come together for a larger purpose.
The following week, I joined an alumni panel for Cause Communication’s Communicating for Results program, sponsored by the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund. PLUS ME participated in the program back in 2021. At this year’s convening, we had a candid conversation about the fears and challenges facing our sector. One participant’s words stuck with me: we need to find ways to work together more often than in the silos we often operate in.
Later in the month, I flew to Chicago to facilitate a storytelling training with the Allstate Foundation’s Executive Leadership Program at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. I had participated in the cohort last year and was honored to return and lead 30 nonprofit leaders from across the country through PLUS ME’s storytelling framework. We reflected on how their personal stories impact their leadership journeys and provided space for them to share parts of their stories with each other. Many expressed how they had never reflected on some of the questions I posed and were grateful for the opportunity to connect the dots of their stories.
Across all these spaces, I kept hearing the same things: people are tired, the challenges are real, and none of us can (or should) do this work alone. These are the lessons I took away:
We must take care of ourselves first.
There is power in collaboration—we need to do more of it.
It is important to pause, reflect, and slow down.
These are the same lessons we aim to leave with students in every PLUS ME workshop: slow down, reflect on your story, and realize you are not alone.