This is not your average board training.
The training liberates natural leadership instincts from the constraints of our cultural mindset about charity. It helps boards become conscious of persistent, limiting assumptions. It is based on the idea that we are at our best, most fully alive, and most impactful when we are challenging assumptions of impossibility – often that we didn't even know we had.
I am people with cancer experiencing being cancer-free.
I'mpossible.
The training is led by Dan Pallotta
Dan invented the multi-day charitable event industry with the AIDSRides and Breast Cancer 3-Days, which raised over half a billion dollars in nine years and were the subject of one of the first Harvard Business School case studies on social enterprise. His 2013 TED talk on philanthropy is one of the 100 most-viewed TED talks of all time.
His book, "Uncharitable," is the best-selling title in the history of Tufts University Press. The Stanford Social Innovation Review said that it, "deserves to become the nonprofit sector's new manifesto." He is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review online. He is widely credited with changing the national conversation about impact and overhead in charity in America.
I am infinite opportunity for young women aging out off foster care.
I'mpossible.
For serious
dreamers.
The training empowers a board to create a new future based on what's possible, instead of being driven unconsciously by fear.
Sadly, dreaming can often be seen as a liability in the nonprofit sector. Something could go wrong, and we perceive that as a potential violation of our fiduciary duty. And convention ridicules. It tells us that dreams are sophomoric, silly – idealistic distractions. The training will show you that dreams are the most sophisticated, catalytic forces known to humanity. Where convention says it’s an organization’s duty to its donors to lower overhead, the training will show you how that mindset becomes a self-limiting obstacle to your true potential to achieve your real mission and deliver the impact donors really want.
The training is based on the idea that a dream, taken seriously – underline, "taken seriously," – is the most sophisticated thing known to humankind. It will take you and your organization to a place you may never have given yourselves permission to dream of going, but where you always wanted to be. It’s the serious conversation that typical nonprofit board trainings avoid. It will align, liberate and uplift. It will allow you to take responsibility for your own potential and create the possibilities that attracted you to this work in the first place. It is a hurricane of fresh air in what can be a suffocating paradigm of traditional thought.
I am a new birth of funding for the arts.
I'mpossible.
For serious
leaders.
The training is for board members who are serious about leading their organization into a bold future.
That's why we ask people to commit the better part of a day. It's a day that you'll never forget. And while you're coming in order to create new possibilities for the charitable organization you serve, you may well find that the training gets you thinking more boldly about other areas of your life as well.
Space to dream.
Our Boston training takes place along the banks of the Charles River with a view overlooking the Boston skyline at the beautiful Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The vista is appropriately dreamy.
All you
need to know:
1
How is it different from traditional trainings?
First, traditional board trainings begin and end with issues of governance and fiduciary duty. Staff trainings focus on best practices within the current operating paradigm. Those things are critical, of course, but should not be an end unto themselves. They should be a means to a far greater end. The Bolder Board Training begins where others end. It’s a counter-intuitive experience for organizations that are serious about impact, and about creating a future based on what’s possible, instead of what has happened in the past.
Second, you're not isolated with your own board. You're with a diverse community of board members that cross geography, demography and issues. You learn from a variety of perspectives and challenges, share ideas and insights, and even meet new friends.
2
What's the subject matter?
Each of us has powerful moments of insight when we see into our own greatness and the potential greatness of our organizations. We realize that there is no reason we can't perform at the level of those iconic organizations we most idolize. In those moments, we know that this is who we really are and these are the things we're meant to do. The training will help you take action to turn those flashes of vision into reality.
It's divided into two separate sessions on liberation and innovation. First, we’ll look at the anachronistic constraints under which most nonprofit organizations operate, so that you can become conscious of just how much they hold you and your team back. Because once you’re conscious of a pattern or system that has been holding you back, you can be free of it. In the second part of the training, we’ll take a counter-intuitive look at innovation. We’ll demystify the whole idea of it in a way that makes it much more accessible to you. What you’ll be left with is the opportunity to create a new possibility for your work and your organization and all those you serve.
3
What will we learn?
- New thinking. You'll get an entirely new way of thinking about charity, nonprofit business practice, giving and making a difference. You'll learn how loyalty to obsolete conventions and traditional definitions of fiduciary duty undermine your organization’s true potential, and you'll learn the five conventions that fundamentally obstruct your ability to achieve it. And you'll walk away with an intellectual arsenal that gets your donors to think differently about how they invest in you;
- The power of purpose, methodically and consistently applied;
- New ways of looking at innovation, including the four keys to successful innovation, how to understand the nature of the box outside of which you are told to think, and how to create an inspiring possibility;
- How to create a future that is not based on the past and why great dreams are easier to achieve than small plans;
- How to make intelligent investments in your growth;
- How to increase the aliveness, energy and enthusiasm of your team and your board and how to transform your board and keep it transformed;
4
How is it valuable?
Organizations report dramatic changes in the way they operate in these areas:
- Big changes in their traditional strategic thinking about self-investment and about spending on fundraising and growth;
- Entirely new ways of communicating with donors about impact and scale, and transformations in the way donors make decisions about giving in the future;
- Huge enthusiasm about the future for their service and their organization;
- Counterintuitive insights ideas about their organization’s entire marketing strategy;
- A brave new willingness to take greater risks;
- Audacious new goals for their future;
5
What are the logistics/cost/requirements?
- The trainings take place from 8:30am to approximately 4:00pm.
- Results are best when a majority of your board is present. Now, you may have the reaction that it will be difficult to get that many to attend. This then becomes an important first exercise toward getting your board aligned on a bold future. Getting them to commit part of a day to their own transformation becomes the first step in getting them to commit to the achievement of a great dream. This is what we mean when we say that the training is for leaders who are serious about making a great impact. We promise an experience that no one will forget;
- There are two brief morning breaks and a lunch break from approximately noon to 1:30 pm. Lunch is available at many area restaurants within easy walking distance;
- Seating is at round tables;
- Ample parking is available in the hotel parking lots;
Unlimit your
impact.
