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(Happy Monday! Today’s post is from Elizabeth Husserl, our money expert. The photograph is by Susan Freundlich.)

As the memories of our recent Thanksgiving gatherings linger behind us, I find it a perfect time to reflect on the flip side of the “act of giving thanks” which is “knowing how to receive.”

In our holiday season we usually get the opportunity to practice the art of giving and to experience its abundant benefits – giving promotes a sense of inner and outer generosity, a sense of peace and well being, and is an act of selflessness which benefits those around you.

Yet, just as important is the act of receiving. Receiving opens our hearts, it allows us to feel loved and plants essential seeds of feeling supported and held within our community and circle of friends. Without receiving there is no channel in which to give, and the cycle of abundance and flow is broken.

As Bernard Lietaer would describe in his Yin/Yang economy, polarities such as giving and receiving inherently exist within the other, and can not flourish if there is the absence of one.

This holiday season allow yourself time to reflect on how well you know how to “receive.” Oftentimes receiving can make us uncomfortable. We become the center of attention, we may have childhood defense mechanisms that block the entry of this particular energy flow, or we want to receive love and acceptance so dearly that we are not really sure how.

Use the practices of receiving in your organization to help guide you on how to receive in your daily life. (Sometimes it is easier to receive when it is for someone else!) Some of these may include:

• Know how to let “resources” come in. Reflect on how you feel when when a grant or donation comes in. Your heart may get warm and a smile may come to your face. Take the time to let both the monetary resources and emotional resources come in. This deepens our felt sense experience of being supported and sustained by those around us.

• Allow the energy you received to flow and be expressed through you. Try to find your unique way of giving thanks in return. It may be through a card or something different this year such as a picture, a collage or a drawing. The more you allow the embodiment of your act of receiving to be an expression of “you”, the more the act of receiving nourishes you from within.

• Allow there to be times where you just receive. Just as important as the suggestion above, allow times in your life when you receive, where you do not have to give anything back immediately, but you can rest, relax and “be” in the state of receiving. Here you can explore what you like about receiving, what may make you uncomfortable about it and what effects it has for you.

The more you intentionally know yourself in the act of receiving the more you can truly know abundance, from within.

Happy Holidays!

Substitute, “Giving” with “Receiving.”

The bottom line is that we need to realize that our current conventional money is not value-neutral. We now have evidence that complementary currencies create different types of relationships than conventional currencies do. We can promote competition, greed, and scarcity, or cooperation, generosity, and abundance with our money systems. The choice is ours.

- Bernard Lietaer

Happy Monday! Thanks to Deb Cottrell who shared this inspirational video with me last week. Perhaps you’ve already seen it? 26 year-old Nick Vujicic talks about never giving up, no matter how many times you fall down.

He was born without arms or legs. And yet his life is full of abundance. So often we live our lives thinking, “If only I had x,y, & z, I would be happy.”

Can we be happy with where we are and with what we have?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MslbhDZoniY

Substitute, “I can only be happy when I have x, y & z” with “I am happy now.”

“People say to me, ‘How can you smile?’ Then they realize ‘there’s got to be something more to life than meets the eye if a guy without arms and legs is living a fuller life than I am.’”

- Nick Vujicic

( Happy Monday! Today’s post is from Tuti Scott, our leadership expert.)

Each time I lead a board retreat or staff management seminar, the question comes up from at least one of the women attendees:

“How can I keep my confidence level up in _____ situation?”

I had the privilege of being an athlete and playing numerous sports roles such as coach, sports administrator, and colleague to many world class athletes.

I know the sensation of ‘walking like I own the earth’ – feeling I could accomplish almost anything no matter what the odds.

This is one of many elements that all of us can model from being around athletes as a participant and/or fan.

Here are three characteristics of high performance athletes and some cues that I find the most helpful to offer folks who may not have had the chance to compete or may have overlooked the connection between their performance on the field to their work product and practice.

1. Visualizing Success – Every athlete goes into a game imagining they will win. They have practiced the same skill for hours on end, they believe in their abilities, and they have visualized success. As part of a team, they have a level of surrender and trust that their teammates also have the skills for success. This positive team attitude is led from the top (coach, manager, owner) and expressed on the field by the captain.

Application – whatever your next ‘performance’ at work is, visualize what a ‘win’ looks and feels like. Be specific! Perhaps it is people applauding a speech, staff being motivated to work smarter, a proposal being approved, a check or new client coming into the office, etc.

Model this behavior in how you stand tall and proud, how you look people in the eye with confidence, and how you express a “captain’s positive attitude” to others around you. Your self-esteem is an extension of what you say and think about yourself so choose your thoughts and words wisely.

2. Discipline and Goal Setting– I can remember at age 12 having a list of drills and exercises that I would do every day. Each time I got to 10, I would push myself to get 15 with a new twist on the drill. Set a goal and then see what happens when you ask yourself to do more or to do it in a unique way. Putting your goals in writing and reviewing these regularly reminds you why the ‘daily drills’ are important.

Application –Each time you create something (speech, letter, budget, etc), pay attention to the detail and see how you can bring the product to a new level. When you have finished your project, read it one more time before you go to sleep and one more time when you get up.

Repetition and ‘practice’ makes you better. Put in writing what your goal and intention is for a project, for your career, for your organization, etc. Review your goals with loved ones and encourage them to support you in ‘doing the drills’ to achieve success.

3. Risk Taking and Empathy – There is nothing like sports to teach you compassion. When a good softball batting average is .350, this means you miss 65% of the time. Same with basketball with the best player making her shots 40% of the time. There is no team or player that has not experienced a loss and then gotten up and played the next time with a desire to win.

Application – Possessing empathy for people when someone loses, understanding the feeling of being on both sides of an issue, having a willingness to take risks; this is the type of emotional intelligence that employers and leaders look for in members of a successful team. When you enter a conversation or negotiation, imagine what it feels like to hear it from the other side of the table. Express yourself with words that honor the experience of the recipient.

And when the opportunity arises to move a step closer to your goal, don’t hesitate to ‘grab the ball’! There’s an athlete in each of us because confident performance truly is a state of mind.

Substitute, “Giving up” with “Trying again.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.”
— Serena Williams, eight-time winner of the Australian Open

“Be positive and work hard. I think it’s possible to overcome anything, if you’re willing to work at it.”
— Sheryl Swoopes, three-time WNBA MVP

Happy Monday!

Sometimes the simplest thing can transform our reality.

Acceptance is like that. Notice this week all of the things you are rejecting – in yourself, in the world, in the people around you. Notice how your rejection builds tension in your body and a rigidness in your interactions with whatever you are rejecting.

You don’t need to change. Just add gentle acceptance into the equation as you become aware of what you are rejecting. Be soft about it. Acceptance is subtle.

Notice the thoughts that tell you, “You can’t accept this.”

What if you do? What happens?

Substitute, “I reject this” with “I accept this.”

“Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.”

- Paul Tournier

(Happy Monday! Today’s post is from Sande Smith, our communications expert.)

This spring, I attended a talk by Kay Sprinkel Grace called, There’s Got to Be a Pony in there Somewhere: Finding Abundance in a Time of Change.

It was one of my favorite talks that I heard at the time – when so many of us in the nonprofit sector were trying to make sense of what the economic collapse would mean for our organizations and the people we serve. Grace retold the story of the boy who digs with gusto through a huge pile of manure in the barn. Why? Because, he said, with so much s**, there’s got to be a pony in there somewhere!

She did a great job of reminding fundraisers that one of the most important things we can do is to hold and convey the vision of what we’re trying to accomplish, and build relationships with donors that are based on shared values. She also called upon us to not forget to ask our supporters what they think about what we’re doing.

The talk inspired me in a number of ways. . . one of which was to work with my team to make the Global Fund for Women’s donor appreciation lunch more interactive so that donors could share with us and one another what inspired their passion for women’s rights.

Kay’s talk also inspired some radical changes in the production of our annual report. A very important vehicle for thanking our supporters and describing the work of women’s organizations around the world, our annual report tends to be 70 pages plus.

Last year’s annual report was no exception. A combined 20th anniversary book and annual report, it featured a 20 year timeline acknowledging achievements of the women’s movement, highlights of our 5-year strategic plan, and case studies of long-time grantees, which showed the impact of our combined partnership.

This year, in response to the financial crisis, we cut our budget by 6 percent, while maintaining grantmaking at 2008 levels. That meant that I had a lot less to spend on this years’ communications. Looking for the pony, I decided to radically transform this year’s annual report. But how?

The notion of streamlining annual reports isn’t new. A lot of organizations are asking themselves, and their donors, whether anyone really reads the annual report. And if they do, what format do they prefer? Print, online, a cd, a dvd video documentary?

The Communications Network has been a vocal advocate for streamlining annual reports. And the Lumina Foundation recently surveyed their donors to ask preferences and learned that many supporters do still want a print annual report.

Furthermore, a survey of Global Fund for Women donors who read our print newsletter revealed that many of our print readers are not active online. So I knew that making this a web publication alone wasn’t the answer. So, fueled by my work with tompertdesign, and sparked by other annual reports that I’ve gotten over the years, my team decided to center this year’s annual report around a poster!

Instead of 70 pages, I had 16 pages to tell our story, 8 of which would comprise the poster. Through brainstorming and strategizing conversations, we found a way to feature women’s organizations from each region, share reflections from our Board chair and CEO and thank our international network of supporters, advisors, grantees and board. Everything else would be available on our website.

We’re already receiving feedback from donors that they’re thrilled with our decision to save resources and still tell a compelling story. Plus they have a gorgeous poster to remind them throughout the year that Women Hold the Solutions to solving some of our most pressing problems!

Substitute, “We’ll never get through this” with “There’s got to be a pony in there somewhere.”

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”

- Albert Einstein