Tag: Impact

NationSwell is kicking off 2020 with a series that looks back on our biggest moments of impact from 2019. In our fifth installment, we’re delighted to celebrate how NationSwell supported Microsoft in their journey to develop better tools and services for social impact organizations and beyond.
NationSwell: We were delighted to parter with the Microsoft Envisioning team last year. Can you tell our audience about the work your team does within Microsoft? 
Microsoft’s Harald Becker and Ming-Li Chai: We work on this unique team that looks three to five years out, that uses research to try and reimagine how people will get things done in the future. We like to go out in the field, find interesting organizations and people and try to learn from them. Our research last year was focused on the future of work and how organizations are evolving in the future. Our thesis was that organizations are going to be more networked, working in ecosystems and platforms, and we had the idea to talk to social impact organizations because they have a unique environment and they’ve worked with a lot of different partners in complex environments. They’re trying to solve big, complex challenges and they’re very mission-driven.
NS: So interesting. And how did working with NationSwell support that mission? 
M: It started with a co-hosted conversation on the power of networks. That was a fantastic experience and our first exposure to the kind of the magic NationSwell can create. There were amazing NationSwell Council (NSC) members at that dinner. We then shaped a plan to work together on a research project alongside the Studio team. It was a joint learning journey to better understand how social impact organizations thrive, with a thesis that we can learn from their tactics and strategies and apply those to other domains. Ultimately, as a technology company, Microsoft could then think about developing better tools and services to support those organizations in the future.
NS: Share a bit about the journey of the research project. 
M: The project had three main components. For the first component, the Studio team organized interviews with 30 NSC members. It was a diverse representation of executive directors across different domains and industries as well as different sizes and social impact organizations. We conducted those interviews over the course of two or three months and there were a lot of amazing conversations. We also had a chance to come out to New York and bring a camera crew and we did some of those conversations on video, so we ended up with rich visual data that was awesome. Our team also spent a day and a half working with the Studio team at the NationSwell offices, both to understand some of the patterns we could detect from the interviews and to distill them into a clear set of key criteria that ultimately were the inputs for our final report. We were actually able to visit some of these amazing organizations.
There were two more things we did together that were very important to us. First, you created two video cases studies for us. [The videos] were very touching and you should see them — they’re really great. And the final piece was the salon you created and produced. We brought a whole bunch of Microsoft executives and stakeholders to the event and mixed them with NSC members. We had a half-day experience together where we unpacked some of our findings and we did some interactive table discussions. Our colleagues actually got a taste for what it means to operate in a social impact organization. It was a lot of fun and we got great feedback.
NS: What did this partnership and project mean for Microsoft? How did NationSwell ultimately impact your work? 
M: It enriched our understanding and made us smarter about the dynamics that are important to make social impact organizations successful. We also got a sense for what some of the key challenges are. The project with NationSwell really helped us get a better, more nuanced understanding of those dynamics. There’s a lot of very superficial, high-level talk about what the future of work will look like and I think now we can actually bring a much more nuanced conversation to the forefront.
NS: Were there any internal perception shifts that took place as a result of our partnership and if so, can you describe them?
M: One of the key learnings was really the importance of purpose and mission in social impact organization’s work. We had an inkling about that before, but now we have a much clearer understanding. Yesterday’s announcement at Microsoft was all about purpose, mission and sustainability. So many employees were so excited about our articulation of purpose and mission and accountability and responsibility, and the work we did together really clarified that for us and made it a lot more tangible.
The exercises we did at the salon and visiting the social impact organizations… it touched people. We walked in with our heads and we walked away feeling in our hearts that people are devoting their energy towards something really bigger than themselves. We now talk a lot more about impact at Microsoft. Like “what’s your impact? What are you going to do?” It’s very closely aligned to the industry and the technology jobs and roles that we have. You can touch people’s lives in very profound ways. And there’s so many organizations focused on that and in tremendous ways. For some people, it was a bit of an awakening and that was very powerful and emotional for them as well.
We were super impressed with your team. Everybody at every level of the effort really brought the energy, brought the expertise and always had smile on their faces. We could feel that you care about your work and that was very stimulating for us. It was really a true partnership. It wasn’t like there’s a big firm hiring a vendor. I never really felt that dynamic at all and that was really great. You were challenging us and we learned a ton in the project.
NationSwell is always trying to learn more about how we’ve supported our Council members (and partners!) in their efforts to make the world a better place. If we helped you, we’d love to hear more about it. Let us know.

NationSwell is kicking off 2020 with a series that looks back on our biggest moments of impact from 2019. In our fourth installment, we’re delighted to celebrate a Bob Woodruff Foundation grant that supports Tuesday’s Children.
NationSwell: Thanks for taking the time to speak, Terry. Tell us about the mission of Tuesday’s Children.
Tuesday’s Children’s Terry Sears: Tuesday’s Children began after the events of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, where there were 3,051 children who lost a parent on that day. It was started as an organization to provide long term support for those children through mentoring programs, college and career guidance, and leadership programs, as well as programs for the surviving spouses. And in 2011, after the 10-year anniversary of September 11th, we broadened our mission to include the military families, the fallen, the gold star families, and have really been reaching out across the country. Our long-term healing model provides mentors (whether they’re career mentors or youth mentors) and leadership programs which adds value to the grief and the scholarship services that are currently available to the gold-star community. We are really pioneers for broad-based resilience focus tools for that community.
NS: Such an important cause. How has NationSwell been able to support you and your mission?
TS: I joined NationSwell to take part in the veterans roundtable series a few years back, where we heard anecdotally that less than 1% of all veterans’ organization served gold star families. The fact that there weren’t others doing this work reaffirmed our mission. We ended up receiving a sizable grant from the Bob Woodruff Foundation after meeting them through the NationSwell series. So much of organizational collaborations is between people and not so much organizations, as you hear a lot. From getting to know Marshall and Anne Marie (from the BWF) we’ve had opportunities to get the word out about the work we’ve done. Having some personal relationships that we made through NationSwell was great.
And the other thing is that, a couple of years ago, we started traveling to places like Silicon Valley, San Francisco, North Carolina any beyond where NationSwell had members, and I was able to set up meetings in each city. I met Mary Beth Bruggeman, president of the Mission Continues, who was able to connect us with veterans interested in continuing to serve in a different way — by being paired with a gold star child for four to six hours a month over the longterm. These were really important relationships for our organization. When I went to [the West Coast] we were able to get introductions with some of the big tech companies. And, as luck would have it, there was a NationSwell event when I was out there.
It was just really great to be able to walk into a new city and have 40 people right there, where you can say, “Hey, I’m an NSC member too,” and exchange cards and follow up in that way. That was great.
NationSwell is always trying to learn more about how we’ve supported our Council members in their efforts to make the world a better place. If we helped you, we’d love to hear more about it. Let us know.

NationSwell is kicking off 2020 with a series that looks back on our biggest moments of impact from 2019. In our third installment, we’re delighted to celebrate four NSC members joining the board of the Children’s Council of San Francisco. 
In July 2019, Anna Nordberg Thompson became board chair of the Children’s Council of San Francisco, where she was tasked with growing the board during a pivotal time for the organization. Below, she shares how being a part of the NationSwell Council helped her support her 2019 goals.
NationSwell: Tell us about why you joined the Children’s Council of San Francisco. Why is its mission so critical?
Anna Nordberg Thompson: Both of our kids were born premature and we were lucky enough to have resources and live in an area where we could access excellent medical care, excellent childcare and a wonderful preschool for both of our kids, who are now five and seven and these robust little nuggets. Going through that experience, I saw both the power of early intervention and I felt the agony of what would it be like to be in a position where you didn’t have access to that kind of care. That really brought home for the importance of early education — those early years are essential for neurologic and social development. But for most parents in this country, finding support during those years is private problem, and its creating a real readiness gap that persists through K-12.  I’m passionate about kids, about childcare — and I really don’t think we can fix our K-12 education system without investing heavily in early childhood.What the Children’s Council does is help families find and afford quality childcare in San Francisco. We connect families with the childcare that fits their needs through intensive counseling and resource and referral.
NS: How has being a part of the NSC helped you in this mission? 
ANT: I met with my community manager and shared that one of my big priorities as new board chair to build the board. He let me know that the NSC was launching a new project, to try and connect members who were interested in board service with members who were serving on boards and looking to recruit new members. He ended up connecting me with probably 15 people that resulted in 11 conversations and we now have four new board members. If you’re familiar with onboarding new board members to nonprofits, and it’s a big process and it’s a big time commitment and a lot of people go through it and decide, “I love what this organization does but I can’t commit to this right now.” So, to find four new board members from one network or organization is pretty extraordinary. And the four we have really come from a range of industry backgrounds. Chris Thomas is head of nonprofit engagement at SalesForce. Victoria Fram is a female cofounder of a VC (VilCap Investments), Omar Butler is the CEO of a nonprofit, New Door Ventures, one George Israel is in private wealth management at UBS and his wife is a developmental pediatrician (so he’s very connected to the issue through that).
NS: We’re so thrilled for you! What a great group. What does the future hold for the board and for the CCSF, and what are you hoping to celebrate as a result of this board growth?
ANT: We have a new CEO, we’re starting a strategic planning process and a it’s pivotal time for early childhood in the Bay area and nationwide. California governor Gavin Newsom has signaled how important childcare is to him. And it’s an exciting time: paid parental leave is finally gaining steam — it’s about the only bipartisan issue there is on Capitol Hill right now. So these issues at least are getting more awareness even though there’s so much more that needs to be done.
And we’ve already seen real strategic planning in our board meetings. I’m already seeing those new points of view help shape the discussion in powerful ways. Victoria, as a female co-founder, has a lot of understanding of how hard it is for women in the business world who are trying to manage childcare and their careers and those challenges. Chris at Salesforce has a really strong sense of how different platforms might support our work. So my hope is that with these new board members, we can really continue to raise our profile and connect with people in San Francisco who understand that childcare is a equity issue and a social justice issue, in addition to an incredibly spicy issue for every family dealing with it, regardless of income. Childcare is a challenge for every family, every parent I know — it’s something they’re always working on or trying to solve a problem in or they’re so happy in a situation they’re in and just hoping that it lasts. I think that our NationSwell members can bring is new networks and new people who are ready to care about this issue and need to just be informed about it. With their perspective on what our core focus areas of our strategic plan should be and how we’re going to achieve them,
NationSwell is always trying to learn more about how we’ve supported our Council members in their efforts to make the world a better place. If we helped you, we’d love to hear more about it. Let us know.

NationSwell is kicking off 2020 with a series that looks back on our biggest moments of impact from 2019. In our second installment, we’re delighted to celebrate a first-of-its-kind project that empowered an at-risk population right here in our city. 
After attending a NationSwell Council (NSC) Strategic Advisory Group in 2017, NSC member Joe Esposito (managing director at Jennison Associates) became deeply involved with Restore NYC, an organization seeking to end sex trafficking in New York and restore the well-being and independence of foreign-national survivors. Below, Joe shares how the NSC community supported Restore in creating what might be the nation’s first entrepreneurship program tailored for survivors of sex trafficking.
NationSwell: Thanks for taking the time to speak, Joe. We know a little bit about how Restore helps women who have survived human trafficking find financial independence. Could you share the origins of the innovative solutions you all have piloted?
Joe Esposito: Restore is an extremely mission-driven with a very healthy culture and an extraordinary impact relative to the resources that go into that organization. At the end of 2016, and I went to their executive director with an idea for an online jobs platform to reduce the friction involved with their clients finding jobs. At that time, I also learned about an organization in London that was running a successful entrepreneurship program for survivors that we wanted to replicate here. We knew it would have massive transformational potential. We saw a lot of synergy between these two programs and we wanted to bring it to New York City – a place with financial resources and immense human capital.
NS: How did the NationSwell Council help support this innovative program?
JE: The NationSwell Council had a critical role here.  I first turned to my community manager who helped me connect with fellow NSC members in educational institutions, [including Gabe Brodbar, the then executive director of the social entrepreneurship program at NYU.]  We connected and quickly realized we could host this program out of NYU. Had it not been for my community manager’s efforts and connections, this program quite literally would have never happened.
Furthermore, part of the program includes connecting the women with mentors, and we have a very specific set of criteria for these mentors, given the sensitive nature of the program. I again reached out to my community manager, and she connected me with more folks in the community. Several NSC members ended up being mentors.
NS: Incredibly powerful. What’s next?!
JE: We completed the first two-week program and supported 28 women who came from 20 countries. It was a massive success. We’re planning to measure success of the program by tracking outcomes at the 6-month mark, 12-month mark, etc. We’re also planning the second cohort for 2020. I don’t say this lightly, but I believe we are in the early innings of revolutionizing economic empowerment for this population. And then I expect we can move on to at least one other population of at-risk people in the U.S. I see a long, steady upward trajectory for NationSwell to be at ground zero of this change that has the potential to impact hundreds if not thousands of women over the next decade. And I think it’s a very unique opportunity for people to invest time and energy into. I hope NationSwell continues to be a partner because your organization has so much in terms of capabilities, so much in terms of its diverse, rich community. I think NationSwell can play a unique role here.
NationSwell is always trying to learn more about how we’ve supported our Council members in their efforts to make the world a better place. If we helped you, we’d love to hear more about it. Let us know.