Since I’ve last blogged, we have gotten well on our way to a new Big, Hairy Audacious Goal.
The process kicked off with a review of SVPP’s mission and history and then the creator of the B-HAG concept, Jerry Porras, led a session with our B-HAG Team to better understand its framework. This encouraged us to back up a step and consider our purpose and values as context for our ten-year goal. In Jerry Porras’ framework, your purpose is the reason you exist in the world and your “North Star” while your core values provide the banks or container of your efforts (the "how," if you will). Within that, organizations he has studied have achieved incredible goals, sometime even betting the entire organization on their success.
So our B-HAG team focused first on zeroing in on our CORE VALUES. Jerry Porras says these are values that never change and are tested by time and sacrifice in the organization. They differ from strategic values in that they are not situational; they are immutable. Core values are such that the organization might even “bleed” following them, meaning we might have passed up opportunities or taken hits because of them. It’s still a work in progress, but we feel like we are getting to the heart of SVPP’s core values with the following:
- Accountability
- Leverage
- Collective effort
- Compassion/Concern for most at risk
- Secular and non-partisan
- Sustainable impact
We also looked more closely at our PURPOSE for existing. In Jerry Porras’ framework, this is a goal you never reach but one that you work toward every day in every way nonetheless. For Disney, it’s “making people happy.” For Merck, it’s “preserving human life.” After considerable conversation, the debate focused most on whether our forever goal focused on “children” or “people.” Children and youth at risk have certainly been the focus of our attention for the last nine years, but will it be forever or are we about making sure the community at large is healthy and thriving by focusing on the issues most pressing for our people? Or is it always about our children most at risk? We tabled the issues for further discussion with our Board and other refinement but settled on a purpose framework as follows: Community where all kids/people thrive
We were able to move on because we knew that the next ten years was still going to be about the crisis most important to us right now: children suffering at the margins of our community. There are countless kids out there who start life a wide margin behind others. They are abused, neglected, abandoned, impoverished, traumatized, learning disabled, and mentally ill. And that’s before they even start school where the educational disparities just make it worse. Our investments over the past ten years stand as witness to these needs.
The Partners gave us some great direction in the interest survey we conducted in October, so our B-HAG Team had a good place to start. Early childhood education and development came up as strong interests of our Partnership, as did literacy. When asked what each person’s “dream” is for the community, many of them focused on issues of poverty, inequality and disparity. (See the survey summary here.)
After reviewing at a high level some needs and efforts going on in the community, the team did some brainstorming and dreaming about a goal that would focus our attention, energy and resources over the next ten years. What could we deliver for the Portland community by 2020 by digging deep, building partnerships and gathering resources? What has a 40-60% chance of success—as Jerry Porras reports every good B-HAG does—but will motivate us to accomplish it?
I have to be honest and tell you this whole thing scares the hell out of me. I will be one of the first to tell you it’s something we need to do and something I’m committed to 100%. We need the B-HAG to focus our effort and our hearts. We are lacking clear vision. Moreover, kids are suffering in our community through no fault of their own. But it’s not clear we can accomplish a focused, public goal. We have enjoyed some success in our investments since 2001, but for the B-HAG to be accomplished, it’s going to require all of us to dig deeper, think bigger and give more. I know we can do it because of all that we’ve accomplished so far. I hope you’ll be along for the ride too.
The initial list of B-HAGs covers some familiar territory for SVPP but sets some clearer goals and areas of focus for kids most on the margins:
- Ready for kindergarten
- Ready for third grade
- Ready for college or career
- Social factors for thriving
The team and I are hoping that every Partner will weigh in on these possibilities with feedback over the next several weeks so we have more guidance on the Partnership’s strongest interests. (There's a survey circulating in the last week of November.) We’ll also be out in the community talking to leaders of government, nonprofit, business and foundations about where they most need our efforts focused.
After all of that is collected, our team meets again and off we go…the hard part of planning for and launching a ten-year goal that will mean incredible opportunity for Portland’s kids without hope or a clear helping hand…and that will potentially make or break SVP Portland!
