Category: The Transition Narrative

Coming Soon…

Thank you to everyone who has been following GWI’s blog series on our journey of transitioning to a Worker Self-Directed Nonprofit. The response has been incredibly positive and thought-provoking.  We will be taking a brief hiatus from posting as we wrap up 2019 and prepare to put our 2020 plans in action. We’ve been having … Continued

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Notes from the Field

By Terri Hall A few springs ago, one of my friend’s daughters spent the night alone in the woods as part of a Wild Earth youth program aimed at building character, confidence, and self-reliance. Heather had been well-prepared by Wild Earth over the months prior to this wilderness-based rite of passage, learning practical skills like … Continued

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Notes from the Field

by Micah Last February, I was on a panel discussing the Race To Lead Survey at Non-Profit Talks here in Kingston. The survey detailed what many of us know, that within the well-intentioned world of nonprofits, leadership is disproportionately white. Only a couple of months prior, I suddenly had realized that in all my years … Continued

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The Learning Circle: Humbly Traveling Alongside

by Terri Hall, with Susan Grove The path we travel toward Just Transition is not well-worn. GWI is invested in playing our role to co-create this path with those whose efforts are making Just Transition possible. In humble recognition of the fact that we travel not ahead, but alongside the people, projects and organizations in … Continued

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Notes from the Field

by Hélène Lesterlin I started at Good Work Institute seven weeks ago. It still feels unfamiliar, fresh, there’s still so much to learn and absorb and integrate into my own thinking. But I realize I can’t keep saying, “I just started!” because eventually I won’t be the neophyte anymore. So, as the first Worker Trustee … Continued

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Transition + Expansion: Welcoming a New Worker into the Fold

by Caitlin Dourmashkin, with Susan Grove On May 1st of this year, GWI began the long and involved transition to becoming a Worker Self-Directed Nonprofit. On May 2nd, we posted the listing for a Development Director position. From the very start, we have designed this system knowing that someone new would be joining our team … Continued

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Notes from the Field

by Caitlin Dourmashkin It’s not the shared leadership that is hard, it is the not-shared leadership. When we started, one of the first big ideas about this work was the non-hierarchical approach, i.e. distributed leadership where there wasn’t a single person responsible for “executive” decision making. That makes sense, right? We are becoming a WORKER … Continued

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How It All Works: Introducing the GWI Circles

by Caitlin Dourmashkin, with Terri Hall and Susan Grove Now that we’ve told you about our circle policy and practice, it is time to introduce our actual circles. We went through a few iterations of this framework, starting way back in early June with a mapping project tying our existing work to our new Worker … Continued

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Notes from the Field

by Susan Grove As a student and practitioner of facilitation, it delights me that in this new model of working together, we are developing our process consciousness. One of the ways I think of facilitation is as a practice, and a discipline, of doggedly pursuing a sense of clarity about where a group can and … Continued

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Sit and Listen: The Legacy of Circle Practices

by Aja Schmeltz, with Susan Grove When I was a kid, I remember my entire family (parents, grandparents, great-grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins and even close family friends) gathering in my Grandmother’s living room after we shared our Thanksgiving meal. The adults would form a standing circle and the children would have to sit in the … Continued

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