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September: Our StoriesThis first group provides an opportunity to get to know each other; as well, it sets the context and builds the foundation for our community learning experience by orienting ourselves to the program objectives, expectations and process for the course of the next 10 months.
- Introductions will take the form of individual reflection on core questions, followed by pair discussions and then a community debrief.
- We'll look at how our stories intersect, overlap and diverge to get a better sense of our community and what we're each bringing to it.
- We'll hear from a member of the MWF community who will speak to the current focus and future vision of the Fund as well as the relevance to New Girls' Community.
- We'll dive into the specifics of the program, familiarizing ourselves with the overall objectives and expectations as well as the monthly themes.
- We'll prepare for an exercise that enable us to "authorize ourselves" to create what we want from this experience.
The topic this month invites our group to dive into the premise that is the fundamental underpinning of the Maine Women's Fund: Feminism. We will explore our own notions of feminism, paying special attention to how these notions intersect with the choices we make as women especially as it relates to our relationships to power, change and leadership.
- As individuals, we'll examine how we hold ourselves in our minds words, images, metaphors with which we identify. We'll then repeat the exercise to explore how we hold feminists. These two lists will be the basis for a discussion to gain insight as to where there are overlaps, disconnects, congruence or black holes in our understanding of ourselves as women.
- As a group, we will speak to those women who have inspired us. More specifically, we will seek to understand that inspiration as it relates to being a woman in the world. Finally, we will take a more macro view of feminism, examining our role in it today as well as those who have come before us.
- Using a "blue ocean" approach, we will be joined by women from another generation to engage in a conversation that seeks to co-create our future.
This will be an extended group session (5:30-8:30) to allow for site visits within the community. Groups of three will meet at a pre-determined site to visit, tour and/or speak with a local agency, organization, government or women's group to increase awareness and exposure. The group will reconvene at 7:00 to debrief their experiences and share their learnings, perceptions and insights.
- Small groups will share their experiences from the site visits through the lens of the core questions.
- Using the metaphor of curtains being pulled back, we will explore the blind spots that have been revealed through this experience and honor what is (or might be) emerging in us as a result.
- In recognition of all that we have taken in, individuals will have some sorting time to reflect on and ascertain what is most meaningful, salient and inspiring from their newfound perspective and/or insight.
This group is about exploring the many different ways we can move from talk (conceptual, theoretical, "out there") to action (concrete choices, systemic behavior, "in here"). In doing so, our various theories of change will begin to emerge and be discussed within the context of our personal styles, our internal drivers/resistance, visions and perceptions of ourselves as change agents.
- The group will engage in a competitive/creative exercise to generate as many examples of activism it can think of in a quick timeframe. We'll use this list as the basis to distill our notions of what activism is and how it looks. We'll then explore how those examples impact our perceptions about ourselves as activists.
- Using a "force field" analysis exercise, we'll deconstruct the changes we envision, identifying the drivers supporting and barriers resisting forward movement. We'll pay special attention to our own rules, language and relationship to change.
- Using the work of Bryon Katie, we will re-write our stories of creating change "out there" and then turn it around to be about creating the change starting from "in here."
- In a fun (yet serious) way, we will invite each other to put a stake in the ground as an activist to claim the change you want to see and your role in making it happen.
In this group, we will shine the light on one of the most taboo topics for women: money. We will explore our own perceptions and relationship to money and will recognize how our culture/society reinforces them. This group will also feature an educational component, intended to further support financial literacy in you as women leaders.
- We will explore our current perceptions to money and finances through a creative card game. This will be the basis of a small group dialogue to begin to put words to our own experience as individuals and women in general. Using the group as a mirror, we will begin to see incongruence our self-perceptions and other's perceptions of us.
- Financial experts will join us to discuss the places women typically get tripped up or short-changed when it comes to money and financial management. We'll make the connection between these insights and the current Economic Security Initiative at the MWF.
- Working in pairs, we have an opportunity to boil the insights and learnings from this conversation down to brass tacks for our own financial houses as women and leaders. We will set intentions, renew commitments and create plans to hold ourselves accountable to them.
This is an extended group session (5:30-8:30) to allow for site visits within the community. Groups of three will meet at a pre-determined site to visit, tour and/or speak with a local agency, organization, government or women's group to increase awareness and exposure. The group will reconvene at 7:00 to debrief their experiences and share their learnings, perceptions and insights.
- Small groups will share their experiences from the site visits through the lens of the core questions.
- Through a couple of different case studies and scenarios, we will explore our thoughts, responses and decision-making criteria to better understand who we are (and who we want to be) as donors. We will make the connection between philanthropy and our values, underscoring the deeply personal and passionate undercurrent of this act.
- We will delve into a deeper discussion of MWF's Economic Security Initiative and explore the values and criteria used for making decisions in the 2008 grantees application process. Citing recent statistics and projections, we will examine the role of women and the state of philanthropic giving in the context of today's economic and political environment.
The topic this month will provide an invitation to wrestle with the bitter-sweet notion of power. As we reveal the various expressions of power, we'll gain insight as to why we are simultaneously attracted and repelled by power as women and as leaders. We'll explore the intersections of collaboration and competition and the role power can play in both. We'll also discuss how these notions impact us as leaders, shaping our behaviors and informing our choices.
- Individuals reflect on their own experiences of power through a series of guided questions. The conversation continues among pairs and then as a group.
- Group members will engage in a dialogue about the experiences, perceptions and perspectives of women leaders as it relates to the topic of power with a particular focus on the notion of women's alliances how they can be a powerful force for change or a devastating source of destruction.
- We'll conclude our discussion with recognizing the need to have more women holding positions of power high-ranking positions in government and corporations if we are to create significant and sustainable positive change for women. We will prepare for May's session on leadership by generating a list of women to invite for our panel and craft our questions.
This group serves as an extension of the leadership conversation from March, moving beyond the lens of the individual woman leader into the realm of the collective women's movement for social change. More specifically, we will examine our capacity and desire to carry the torch of feminism as a generation of women leaders and will seek to clarify the future we wish to create as a result.
- In the spirit of true community learning, we will begin this session by hearing insights and perspectives from a panel of guests on the topic of women as leaders. We will deepen our appreciation of what we offer as women leaders and will explore way in which to unleash those gifts.
- As a group, we will take inventory of our capacities as a generation of women leaders and begin to piece together a renewed social construct or infrastructure for women's culture that will enable and sustain a higher degree of collaboration and support.
- With this refreshed perspective in mind, we will read the letters we wrote to ourselves back in September and reflect on our journey, our progress to date and begin to recalibrate our visions accordingly.
As we near completion of the program, this group will begin to shift our focus from what you want to "get to what you want to give". Group members will begin to synthesize all the topics covered thus far in the program in the context of their true passion(s) for change and social justice. Special attention will be paid to reframe issues as barriers to be removed in service of a future vision.
- In the spirit of the New Girls' Fund for Social Change, each participant will have an opportunity to speak to her particular passion. Most importantly, she will be encouraged to identify her voice as a leader going beyond words and into a commitment to act in service of her vision.
- Building off of Patricia Lynn Reilly's “Imagine a Woman” poem, group members will each speak to a particular word or phrase that rings true for them and will discuss how these words can serve as inspiration for them as leaders of change.
- We'll prepare repeat the exercise that began the journey, asking each person to write a letter to herself, articulating what she will be creating and authorizing her to create it.
This final group is a chance for us to reflect upon, honor experiences from the program and ensure the activist spirit continues to stay alive through concrete and specific action plans and commitments.
- Pairs will reflect upon their experiences over the past 10 months and will lock in their learnings, insights and commitments through an interview process.
- To further galvanize passion and vision into action, the group will go through a strategic planning exercise to flush out possibilities, clearly define action steps and establish some concrete goals that will support continued activism.
- The community will close down the formal monthly meeting structure by means of a ritual of appreciation and will open up to possibilities for maintaining informal connections with each other.