As you probably know, I am pretty passionate about young professionals taking charge of their professional brand. It is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure a long and successful career, especially during a tough job market. Rosetta Thurman is my favorite example of someone who lives their brand online and offline. She have leveraged her blog into a full time consulting career, speaking engagements around the country, and is now teaching young professionals how to leverage their own brand to jumpstart their nonprofit career. A description of the program is below:

Join Rosetta for the Personal Branding Bootcamp, a crash course in today’s most effective career tool for young professionals, personal branding! Starting May 22, you’ll start a weeklong, intensive training program with other go-getters just like you. The entire program is virtual and you can participate from anywhere in the world.

There are two registration options:

1. Webinar Only: This registration level includes one ticket to the May 22 Personal Branding 101 Webinar, as well as access to the recording (audio & slides) after the live event. Webinar only registrants will not be able to participate in the intensive portion of the Personal Branding Boot Camp held from May 24-31 nor any of the associated forums. This option is good for those who just want to get their feet wet in learning more about personal branding and some quick, practical tips they can apply as part of their career planning.
2. All Access: This registration level includes full-access to the Personal Branding Boot Camp learning experience through May 31 as well as one ticket to the May 22 Personal Branding 101 Webinar and access to the recording (audio & slides) after the live event. This “deep dive” option is for those who are ready to go whole hog and set aside the time to implement social media tools or improve the ones they have in order to advance their careers.

Sign up for this Branding Boot Camp here!

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Lost amidst the hubbub about Arizona’s recent legislation to crack down on illegal immigration, is the simple fact that most baby boomers, approximately one-third of America’s labor force, will reach the retirement age of 65 during the next two decades.

Leave aside, for a moment, the arguments about the legitimacy of being a legal citizen and human rights. Our country isn’t producing enough new workers to replace those who retire: according to the US Census Bureau there are about 77 million baby boomers and only 46 million people in generation X and generation Y.

Where will the new workers come from? It’s immigration, or else a miraculous breakthrough in robotics engineering.

In 2008, the first of the baby boomers hit the age of 62, which is significant because it’s the age that the average worker retires. Although baby boomers will likely work longer than predicted because of extended life expectancies and over-extended retirement plans, health conditions and the effects of old age will prevent many from working full-time into their 70s and force others to retire much earlier.

By 2020, if not sooner, we’ll be competing with countries in Western Europe, Japan, and elsewhere in the world to attract immigrants. If we’re unsuccessful, much could change for the worse for our economies and in our lives:

• Of course, annual increases in social security, Medicaid, Medicare, and insurance payouts are already steep, and they will steepen even more sharply in the coming years.
• Home values may once again decline because many Baby Boomers will need to sell or downsize to cover their retirement expenses.
• For the same reason, savings rates are also likely to shrink because Baby Boomers will be cashing out their stocks and IRAs and won’t be earning enough new income to continue their current rate of savings.
• Accordingly, interest rates would need to rise to encourage more savings. This could trigger a return of runaway inflation.
• Taxes are also likely to rise to pay for the needs of an aging population. This could also trigger more inflation.
• Employers will need to pay higher salaries as they compete for a dwindling supply of workers, especially for services that cater to seniors, like health care. The added inflationary pressure will likely cause the price of goods and services to rise.

Sound farfetched?

Not at all, according to forecasts from leading political scientists and economists, such as those printed in recent books from George Friedman and Jacques Attali, and from national and state demographers, such as Minnesota State Demographer Tom Gillaspy. In fact, the above scenario might be an understatement. Some observers expect a return to the stagflation that crippled the economy in the late 70s and early 80s, but for a more extended period of time.

One effective response that political scientists, economists, and demographers all agree on is to attract more, more, and more immigrant labor.

Immigrants can provide the specialized skills we need to replace retiring engineers and researchers, executives and managers. They can fill vacant positions for doctors, nurses, and aides in health care facilities and nursing homes. They can also provide the manual labor needed to harvest the fields and operate factories.

Like it or not, within the next 10 years we’ll not only be begging immigrants, legal and possibly illegal, to stay, we’ll be begging them to live here and help us keep the country’s economy afloat.

If we keep passing laws like Arizona’s, what kind message will this send?

Could it add up to a record of hostility that causes workers we need from India, from Eastern Europe, from Latin America, and from elsewhere to ignore the call to help us prop up our economy when it begins to sag beneath the sheer number of retiring Baby Boomers a few years from now?

(You can learn more about philanthropic communications consultant Paul Bachleitner at his website www.bachwriter.com.)

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 Today we have a guest post from Keneta Anderson, a consultant with the Quixote Foundation. I have been so impressed with the foundation’s decision to spend down its assets in its efforts to create real and lasting social change. From Keneta:

Early this month, Quixote Foundation announced its intent to spend everything, using the entire endowment between now and 2017.  Quite a few people have asked why this small family foundation would decide “not to go on in perpetuity.”  The answer?  Quixote Foundation is working in perpetuity—but that’s different than staying in business forever.

The folks at Quixote Foundation see the next few years as a landmark chance to make the most of their particular foundation’s assets.  They’re convinced their greatest impact will come from spending everything over a short term.  In their view, infusing all the money now will be more catalytic than doling it out in smaller amounts over an indefinite period of time.

This strategy means giving up the exacting control foundations often want to have over programs and results. It also means releasing a certain amount of social power, and the prestige associated with having a foundation.  But it doesn’t mean giving up anything at all in terms of legacy.

For Quixote Foundation, the point is to be an effective change agent, even if that means not being a foundation anymore in the institutional sense. They call their choice “spending up” instead of spending out or down, because who they are as a foundation will be fulfilled, not diminished, by putting more money into action.

Quixote Foundation was started by “Stuart” Hanisch in 1997.  Stuart’s son Erik says his Dad “Set up the foundation so when he passed away I had complete freedom to do what I wanted with it.”  Despite the founder’s strong affinity for specific grantees, he trusted his son to move the foundation’s goals forward without bylaws constraining that work to a particular form.  This wasn’t by any means a lassez faire decision, it was a thoughtful choice made at a strategic time to place Erik in charge of generating results.

In turn, Erik sees spending up now—investing everything in pinnacle opportunities and trusted leaders—as a way to create “Something that’s going to have a life of its own beyond our directives; continuing the spirit of the people who have come before and are with us now, and who carry it into the future in a way we can’t even see or envision.”

Quixote is a “family” foundation after all. Unless parents want to land in the tabloids, they can’t dictate a child’s actions forever.  At some point they have to relinquish authority and trust the children to carry on in their stead.  For some foundations, that letting go might be as simple as funding leadership networks or general operating support.  In Quixote Foundation’s case, it means spending all the way up into progressive causes.

There is quiet power in foundations willing to know their goals, choose their opportunities, spend everything, and trust others to carry the work forward more dynamically and effectively than if they’d tried to remain in control.  Asked what his Dad would think about the decision, Erik mused, “He’d say ‘Wow.’ He’d be amazed. He would have had no idea we’d ever end up with the results we’ve had so far, and in this particular place…and he’d be proud.” That, for Quixote Foundation, is continuing in perpetuity.

Keneta Anderson is a strategic, brand and communications consultant who works with Quixote Foundation and other progressive corporate and foundation clients.  Hear more from Quixote Foundation by following QuixoteTilts on Twitter.

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I tweeted from the EPIP pre-conference that Robby Rodriguez mentioned love in his remarks and I was pretty sure that that was the last time that I would hear that word at this conference. The universe has a wonderful way of proving me wrong.

Speakers on the racial justice panel taking about putting love into your work to achieve real results, Crystal Hayling at the ABFE lecture said “you only have one choice, love or fear”, and the dessert and the lunch plenary had a heart design on the plate.

I get it universe, you can’t have philanthropy without love. This is the last time I make broad generalizations about philanthropy (for today).

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Crystal Hayling, the former president of the Blue Shield of California Foundation was the 2010 Association of Black Foundation Executives James Joseph Lecturer this year and is subsequently my newest Fairy Godmentor. Crystal started her remarks with the idea that foundation staff need to take risks. Not the little risks like letting a grantee turn in a report two weeks late and suddenly feeling like some sort of maverick grantmaker but real risks that are personal and dangerous. If you aren’t sometimes ticking off your friends and allies because you have decided to work on an unpopular issue or you have taken a job that people think is too risky you aren’t trying hard enough. She said “the policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.”

She is also on my fairy godmentor list because she had the nerve to quote Chris Rock’s mom at a philanthropy gathering. In regards to people who are asking you to play it safe, Chris Rock’s mom said “if they aren’t paying your bills and they can’t kick your ass, why do you care what they think?”

In philanthropy we are often too afraid to accept the risks that come with not playing it safe, but that is where the best in all of us comes out.

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Conferences have a way of wearing you out and this Council on Foundations’ conference is no exception. Despite my pained feet and elevation-induced headache, I am overjoyed at the passion and commitment that I have seen from my peers to use philanthropy as a tool to strengthen communities.

EPIP hosted a star-studded panel on racial justice equity in the field (we can have stars in philanthropy). One of the panelists said ” we need to lift up racial justice, diversity is no longer sufficient.” I think that was a telling refrain because we have moved beyond the point were diversity is enough. True justice in our community isn’t about counting the heads around the table, it’s about making sure that members of our communities are getting equal results.

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I’m in Denver for COF’s annual conference, as well as for some amazing pre-conferences that the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) and the Association of Black Foundation Executives(ABFE) are putting on. It’s cold in Denver (36 degrees last time I checked) but the conversation in the sessions is keeping my brain warm. EPIP started their conference today with great presentations from Robby Rodriguez from the Southwest Organizing Project and Cynthis Gibson from Cynthesis Consulting, who were talking about talent and workforce issues in the nonprofit sector.

When I started in the field, everyone was talking about the leadership gap and the coming crisis as baby boomers retired. “There is no one talented enough to take over for the boomers” people screamed from the rooftops. Ouch! As a gen xer it hurts to have comission reports saying what a loser you are and that you aren’t going to step up to the challenge of leading the sector. As we all know the mass exodus of baby boomer from the field didn’t happen by 2006 as predicted by earlier reports and it really isn’t happening now as nonprofit and philanthropic leaders have seen their retirement accounts take a serious plunge with the stock market.

Robby Rodriguez, co-author of Working Across Generations, gave us some reasons why the logic of those earlier reports didn’t pan out. He said that if a lack of a leadership pipeline was the issue, then the solution is finding a people that fit into the various entry points of a pipeline and having them stand at the ready for when a senior leader steps down. He said that if it’s about a pipeline, you have to fit into the pipe, diversity of background and experience limits entry to those types of leadership development opportunities. There is also this idea that there are no leaders in the sector. This happens when you have a vision of what leadership has to look like i.e. a six foot two white man with a degree from an ivy league college. If we can’t broaden our vision of what a leader is and check our assumptions, there will always be a “leadership crisis”.

Are you seeing a “leadership crisis” in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors? If you are, what are some solutions?

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The Institute for Philanthropy is soon going to launch Cohort 2 of the Next Generation Philanthropy program.

NEXT GENERATION PHILANTHROPY, NEW YORK

Next Generation Philanthropy is a program in strategic philanthropy for 18-30 year olds stepping up to a deeper engagement in their personal, family or corporate philanthropy. Developed through fifteen years of running the world’s leading donor education program, The Philanthropy Workshop, Next Generation Philanthropy was launched in London in 2007 to build the skills, knowledge and networks of young people, so that they could achieve more impact in their giving. Its success saw the program replicated in the US for the first time in 2009, and now we are delighted to be inviting participants to join the second group of Next Generation Philanthropy to be based in New York.

“For children of wealth, learning about and getting involved in philanthropy is essential. And it’s really important to be involved at a young age. A lot of people only start to learn about philanthropy when they are older and I wonder how differently they would have done things if they knew what I know now at the beginning of my career.” Valerie Gordon, Next Generation Philanthropy Alumna, Cohort 1

Next Generation Philanthropy is set over two modules; one of five days in the summer and one of four in the fall. Participants learn with a group of peer givers, and work with the civil society experts, activists and non–profit founders who act as innovators in the social sector. Facilitated by the Institute for Philanthropy, participants are guided through a mixture of case studies, site visits and strategic philanthropy frameworks, leaving them with a deeper insight into the issues they care about, the seeds of their own philanthropy strategy, and a growing cross-Atlantic network of peers working in a similar way.

The program is an excellent way of both connecting with the latest thinking in creating social change, and also of meeting other future family business leaders and family foundation principals who want to create impact with their giving. Following the program, Alumni continue to connect as the Next Generation Philanthropy Network for sustained interaction, collaboration and learning.

The dates for the next New York program are:

Module 1: July 28th– August 1st, 2010
Module II: October 21st – 24th, 2010

For more information go here for video testimony from philanthropists in the network who have been through the Next Generation Philanthropy program.

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I really, really wanted to be at the Global Philanthropy Forum Conference this week. But two small kids at home (young enough to miss me when I am gone and old enough to guilt me about travel), and an intensive travel schedule for the rest of April made this conference a no go. But luckily for you and I, there was an ash-belching volcano in Iceland that encouraged the Global Philanthropy Forum planners to offer a live stream of the conference.

I’ll be covering the Council of Foundations’ annual conference in Denver next week, as well as the Association of Black Foundation Executives and Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy pre-conferences. I’ll be twittering about the conference (follow @tristaharris) and posting here, so check back often for updates. SPOILER ALERT: I’m pretty sure there will be postings about social justice philanthropy, payout rates, and there may even be an Al Gore sighting. Could this get anymore exciting?!

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“We African American Women seldom do just what we want to do, but always do what we have to do. I am grateful to have been in a time and place where I could be part of what was needed.” – Dorothy Height

The world lost a civil rights icon today and I lost a fairy godmentor. Dorothy Height was the backbone of the civil rights movement and the only woman’s voice that was included in the highest levels of leadership in the civil rights movement. She was an amazing organizer, mediator, and an unparalled fundraiser. It was under her leadership that the National Council of Negro Women purchased its new headquarters, the only Black owned building between the White House and the Capital.

Dorothy Height was my fairy godmentor because she took a seat at the table as a civil rights activist. She faced both racism and sexism but managed to achieve great things despite the many barriers that she faced. She was also was able to leverage her relationships with foundations and donors to bring financial resources to the movement.

She was a doer in the best sense of the word. Many of us get stuck in planning and thinking and never move to the action step. Even at 98 Ms. Height was still a doer, working for the next phase of the civil rights movement.

 I’ve heard many people say today that she has left big shoes to fill. That implies that there will be one person that must fill her place. Instead I think that she has carried all of us halfway up a mountain and it is our collective duty to finish that journey.

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