Back-to-school season is here, and whether you are parents to elementary school kids or pursuing education yourself or haven’t missed a classroom in decades, we likely all feel the fresh energy that comes with the start of fall. Formal learning may be in the past for some of us, but I hope we never stop being learners.
I love the rhythm of the school year, and a red thread in my career is learning and capacity building. I still remember how much I loved reading in high school, the first demographics conference I attended, and the way professional development shaped my early career. That’s what’s had me thinking about learning this September, not the kind we finish, but the kind that keeps changing us.
Gathering information isn’t the same as being changed by it. Any of us, and any organization, can run a survey, gather advisors, read a study, or take an online course, and walk away having learned nothing at all. But if we can let what we hear unsettle something that we assumed was settled, that’s real learning. For those of us in a sector built on service to others, this is a form of humility, and it isn’t optional. Staying teachable is how we stay useful.
I’ve been thinking about this because for the Murdock Trust, September has included a few key learning opportunities for us that caused me to consider the various shapes this learning can take:
- One shape is evaluation. The five state nonprofit associations across Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska recently completed a study with Dialogues in Action drawing on data from 110 nonprofits in our region. What stood out to me was how many organizations shared that they know how to collect evaluation data better than they know how to actually act on it. This honest reflection is crucial insight for the sector, and points to lots of ways we can grow together in impact evaluation. The challenge now is for us to take this learning, and act on it as a sector!
- Another shape is listening. As we did last year, we are holding listening sessions in each state we serve, asking nonprofits where they are seeing challenges and opportunities for change. Last year, that input changed our grantmaking opportunities, and we’ve already heard things this year that are shaping our work moving forward.
- A third shape is being challenged by people outside our own walls. Our Senior Fellows, an advisory cohort of experts across disciplines and communities, gather next week for two days of learning and exchanging ideas together. This group exists because we know our own vantage point has limits we can’t see from inside.
None of this is a comprehensive list of how the Trust tries to learn, nor is it a template. We certainly have ways to keep learning how to learn better! But underneath these three examples is the same question I’m sitting with: where are we assuming we already have the answer, when actually, we haven’t checked?
As school starts for the younger students around us, I hope we can all be students in our own context and take a real inventory. Who are we learning from right now? Who should we be learning from, and aren’t? How are we inviting accountability partners into the process to ensure that what we’re learning is actually changing us?
I hope we can take some inspiration from the kids on our blocks lining up for the bus, and put on our own hypothetical backpacks this fall. I’d love to hear where you’re finding your own version of this, and how your work is changing because of what you’re learning.
Romanita Hairston
Chief Executive Officer