The Inspire to Change team is busy this November! Below we highlight Wendy C. Morris, Director of Strategy and Foresight, in our "Where in the World" mini-series.

This month Wnedy is at the American Evaluation Association conference. In addition to contributing to the Creative Evaluation pre-conference session with Inspire-to-Change, Wendy will co-lead a demonstration session on Future Scenarios and the Implications for Evaluation with colleagues from the Human Systems Dynamics network 

Wendy then heads to Los Angeles for the launch of National Arts Strategies Leadership Coaching cohort, a year-long program in collaboration with Neighborworks America that prepares experienced arts and culture leaders to strengthen and diversify the arts and culture ecosystem nationally and globally through coaching practice. This pilot is funded by Barr Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Kresge Foundation. 

In December, Wendy will be in London...

As an infant company, we're in the process of developing our structure, roles, and position descriptions. Sandy Agustin led our team through an "I am" poetry writing exercise, creating the time and space for us to imagine our ideal positions. It was touching and inspiring to hear each other's poems, to understand the gifts each of us brings to the table, and the change we want to be a part of in the world.

There will be time to write traditional position descriptions. I have no doubt that they will be more creative, robust, and inspiring because we started from the heart. Because we started with a creative process.

Below is my "I am" poem, my vision as president co-owner of the company.

xo

nora

I am. By Nora Murphy Johnson

I am

opening spaces and opportunities

holding a vision that has energy

I am shining my light and helping others shine their light.

I am inspiring and inspired.

I am connected and build connections.

I am fierce.

I am bringing...

This harvest poem from the Inspire to Change gathering on Aug. 2, 2019, captures the essence of our pre-launch planning with our trusted friends and colleagues. 

Again and again

Regenerating, again

Retiring…a whole new set of all-weather radials

Reversing into flow

Respecting what was and still is of value

Remembering what’s been pulled apart

Restoring to bring old wisdom into new contexts

Reorienting sheer will toward shared ways

Reminding to let the soul drive our days

Releasing into gentleness

Reorganizing for creative freedom

Relating – body, soul, and mind

Rewriting with two-eyed seeing

Reclaiming words through their living

Regifting what’s been given

Reconditioning to stop on each terrace, noticing life

Reflecting on the questions that call us back

Retreating in one another, always

Refreshing colors dulled by weight

Rehearsing in emergence to recreate experience

Recircling around fire

Reacknowledging the land

Reviving through...

Stolen Childhoods is one of the best radio documentaries you'll hear this year. Take an hour and listen to this amazing work by our friend Melissa Olson.

"America's attempt to separate Native children from their families didn't end with boarding schools. In the decades after World War II, the U.S. government created the Indian Adoption Project, an effort designed to place Native kids with white parents. In this one-hour documentary, producer Melissa Olson explores the personal and historical impact of this policy."

We chose this quote for #Be&Become Tuesday because it's both hopeful and active, and calls on both the individual and the collective. Together we can become make audacious dreams happen. But let's give each ourselves and each other grace and rest along the way.

xo

nora

See the original post on the AEA365 blog: https://aea365.org/blog/contribution-leadership-and-renewal-perspective-from-a-path-less-traveled-by-a-rafael-johnson/

My name is A. Rafael Johnson, Director of Creative Evaluation and Engagement, an initiative of Inspire to Change. I’m a novelist, and I’d like to tell you a story of how I came to be an evaluator without training as an evaluator.

In 2010 I taught yoga to a blind orphan in Liberia. I’d arrived as a USAID subcontractor. My NGO was charged with helping rebuild the education system after the end of their long civil war. I reduced the national student:textbook ratio from 5 students per textbook to 4, taught classes of former refugees and combatants, and created a service-learning program. All of this went into the quarterly M&E reports. But in my off-hours, I also worked to get homeless former child soldiers to attend a literacy program, helped college staff learn to...

Nora Murphy Johnson is a founding member of Inspire to Change and TerraLuna Collaborative, as well as co-founder of the Developmental Evaluation Institute. Nora and host Melissa Olson spoke for the better part of the hour about how evaluation is a critical resource for organizations who are ready to make lasting social change. Tune in to Sanctuary, Arts & Activism heard only KFAI 90.3 Fresh Air Radio on Mondays at 1pm.

Thank you, Melissa Olson, of KAFI Fresh Air Radio. She interviewed A. Rafael Johnson on her show Sanctuary, Arts and Activism.

Did you love it? Want to hear more of Melissa's fabulous show? Tune in to Sanctuary at 1 pm, Mondays on KFAI Fresh Air Radio. Sanctuary can also be streamed on KFAI.org. Thanks for listening!