Doing BIG Things

I'm not one of those "mantra" people that looks into the mirror every morning and says "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it people like me." (That man is now my Senator) but every once in a while I come up with a short statement that helps me remind myself of the big picture and helps to keep me on track. My new statement is:

I have the time, energy, and clarity of purpose to make big things happen.

I'l break down why this is so helpful for me.

Time: A common excuse of mine is that there is too little time in the day to accomplish whatever needs to be done. Then I'll read some newspaper article about a woman with 6 kids who is running for U.S. Senate, teaches astronomy at MIT, is writing a book about her around the world sailing trip and has an organic raspberry farm. Her and I both have 24 hours a day, so I don't have any real excuses about why I can't accomplish my goals, besides the fact that there is an awesome "Man Shops Globe" marathon on the Sundance channel that is taking my attention away from whatever I'd really like to accomplish. Aw, I love that show.

Energy: Another excuse is that I am too tired to work toward whatever my next big goal is. Life has inertia and if I sit around thinking about how tired I am, I just feel more tired (and watch more of the "Man Shops Globe" marathon). If I start moving and working on a new blog post, cleaning out my closets, researching that cutting edge fundraising strategy or training for that 5K I suddenly find that I do have energy, I just wasn't harnessing it.

Clarity of Purpose: This is a tough one. It's really easy to move through life going through the motions. You deal with whatever comes at you and feel this innate sense that there is probably something better out there for you. Something that has worked well for me is to be a "practical dreamer". That means thinking about the best possible outcome for your afternoon, career, family, finances, whatever. Think about what you would actually like things to look like. The more detail the better because then you can recognize the opportunity to achieve that goal when it is looking you right in the face. You hate your job? Fine, what would your dream job look like? If you don't take the time to think about your ideal, you miss the opportunity when the job announcement comes to your in-box.

Big Things: Most people come up with goals this time of year and they are usually pretty mediocre. "Lose 10 pounds, try to pay off some debt." This year come up with some seemingly unreachable goals. "Make $1million dollars this year, give away $1 million this year, end homelessness, become a New York Times writer." Those are the types of goals that will get your adrenaline pumping and will become a burning desire in your life. You start to use a different part of your brain because they seem impossible, you have to start thinking differently to get there. Others want to help you do it because it seems so amazing. Suddenly an unreachable goal is much more attainable than a mediocre one because you are willing to do what it takes to get there.

What are your unreachable goals for 2010?

Get Your Money Right

I'm in the middle of a two week vacation from the hurriedness of work. The first week was spent celebrating Christmas like crazy, with every possible branch of the family. This week is going to be downright Zen by comparison. I've been taking this quiet time to do some long term thinking about my life and how I'd like to spend it and money is part of this thinking. Before some of you get all social justicey on me and say "Trista, you have committed your life to the nonprofit sector and to eliminating economic injustice, money is just a tool of the Man. You don't need that!" Let me just say, yes I do! I'll even add yes, you do, too. I do the work that I do because I love it, not because of the paycheck. But if I don't have my financial house in order it increases the amount of time that I am stressed about money and makes it more likely that I make career and life decisions based on dollars and not based on passion or where I can make the biggest difference.

So I've been getting my money right for the last few days. I've been using Mvelopes for the last few years for proactive budgeting (you set aside money for specific purposes before you spend it) and I just started using Mint.com to look at the bigger picture of our income and liabilities. Yesterday I took the next step and developed a ten year financial plan for our family. Yes, I know that is so nerdy of me and is making many of your cringe at my over planning, but whatever. Ten years gives me a clearer picture of the big things that we are working towards and makes small steps to reach those goals much more manageable. It also helps me and my husband stay on the same page when it comes to giving up small purchases now for big payoffs in the future.

Our plan includes our top 5 goals for the next 10 years, along with charts that help us track our progress on those goals. Here are the things that make the physical plan work for me:

• It includes accounts and hints on usernames and passwords so I can easily update
• The plan only needs to be pulled out once a year to update and to change our current financial practices to meet the goals (e.g. increase amount we put into 401K)
• It doesn't just include dollar goals, it also includes things that get us excited like becoming a benefactor to causes that we are passionate about (more on this in different post)
• It includes pictures because it is more likely that I will look at it if it's pretty (I love Mac Pages software)

I spent a lot of time in the past ignoring my financial state because I thought that the more I knew, the more stressed I would be. I have finally come to a place where I understand that ignorance is not bliss and that how I spend the money that comes into my life is an important part of who I am and how I want to change the world.

What are you tips for getting your money right?

Latest Info on Twitter

I've been posting most of my links to philanthropy gossip, nonprofit news, and social sector stuff on Twitter at twitter.com/tristaharris. Below are some of my most recent posts.

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How Can We Support Single-Parent Mothers?

Open Society Institute grantees David Miller and Matt Stevens recently told me of a scenario that occurred in September: A 14-year-old boy returns home after 2 am on a school night. He and his mother get into a shouting match. The academic year isn't a month old, and he's already been kicked out of two schools and is dealing dope. The mother slaps him in fear she's lost control. He reels and strikes her back, harder. After she phones 9-1-1, the police come. So does social services. Her son is arrested. Her other kids are removed from the home. The next morning, the leader of her son's gang threatens to kill her if she ever phones the police on her son again.

This scenario is reminiscent of numerous phone calls and messages (as many as 40-50) that Miller and Stevens receive per day from single-parent mothers around the country in greater or lesser degrees of peril.

The two men co-founded the organization Raising Him Alone as a means of surrounding single-parent, African American mothers with support for raising their sons. It's a comprehensive resource network that includes one of the most innovative models in the country for incorporating the web and social media. (View an example of downloadable parenting strategies.)

I profiled Raising Him Alone as part of the Open Society Institute's Campaign for Black Male Achievement, which seeks to create better economic, social, educational, and political life outcomes for African American men and boys. But many of the challenges to which Raising Him Alone responds reflect broader dynamics between men and women.

The impact is higher in African American communities because of structural forces (racially based, I might add, but that could be fodder for many more entries) that have caused approximately two of every three households to be led by single-parent mothers. But single-parent motherhood, and its challenges, isn't isolated to African American communities.

In fact, Miller and Stevens said they've received nearly as strong of a response from white single-parent mothers, despite the program's focus on African Americans. The demand for help is so high that Miller and Stevens receive calls from as far away as Phoenix, Seattle, and even New Zealand.

What about society tends to force women to raise their sons alone? What are the most crucial causes? How can we change? Why aren't we doing so? Why must African American communities suffer the most from this?

Clearly, the answers are too complex to be answered in a blog entry.

But I'd like to hear more of a conversation about this in philanthropy. I believe somewhere at the root is the need to find the intersection of healthy masculinity and feminist theory.

I Heart the African American Leadership Forum

There is a lot of time spent by philanthropoids (people who give away money for a living) on stuff that really doesn't make too much of a difference. There are the piles of paperwork, the endless meeting, and then more paperwork from the meetings. You are left with this subtle and sometimes not so subtle feeling that we aren't fixing anything. Then, every once in a while, the clouds part and you have the honor in taking part in a project or working with a grantee that you are sure will change the world or your little corner of it.

For me, that project is the African American Leadership Forum.   I've been involved with this project, which is designed to bring African American Leaders together to develop a shared policy agenda for the Twin Cities, over the past year. The idea behind this project is that the African American community has all of the resources that it needs to be successful, already present in the community. The issue is that each of us has been hiding our special ingredient (talent, resource, knowledge) in the cabinet and haven't pulled it out to benefit the larger community. The African American Leadership Forum is a method to pull those ingredients out and develop a promise to each other and the community that we will bring all that we have to lift each other up so that we can all be successful together.

Headwaters has recently taken over the project management of this initiative from the Northwest Area Foundation and I couldn't be happier. It is one of those special instances in philanthropy where the role of the funders isn't to write a check and walk away or stay around to dictate the future direction of the project. Our role is to support and learn from over 160 volunteers that are leading this project. That's the best place for us philanthropids to be, in the background providing the resources for communities to determine their own solutions and their own methods.

Taking a back seat to community is also a sometimes nerve wracking place to be. You don't get to determine the process from on high; without a centralized place for all information to go through, you sometimes get the telephone effect of mis-understanding and sometimes purposeful misinformation from those who don't want to see a community-led process succeed; and instead of just being responsive to your board of directors, you report back to a whole community with competing priorities and preferences.

After reading all of those drawbacks, I wouldn't be surprised if you were relieved to go back to the relative peace and tranquility of your desk. But, the purpose of philanthropy isn't for us to be comfortable, it's to make a communities a better place. So let's jump right in!

What project of your foundation or organization makes you proud to be a part of the sector?