This year started with eating fistfuls of anti-acids. It ends also with eating fistful of anti-acids, although for positive reasons (there is bad stress and there is good stress). As such, we wish you a lot of good stress in 2017!
Anyway, let’s not digress… Have you made your yearly summary? YOU HAVE TO. Some people are emboldened by their failures; some get jet fuel out of their victories. While we came to think that a kick in the pants is not only natural, but somehow marginally mandatory from time to time, a lot of juice comes from basking in small and not-so-small successes…
Here is Sky(lark)’s little tally:
OUR UNLEASHING
• Launched Sky(lark) Strategies in California and Colorado with a 6 people team
• Launched GG Society Network globally
• Launched GG Fellowship in Los Angeles and Denver
• Launched an NGO Accelerator Lab in Eastern Europe
OUR DOING
• 1 University project
• 2 International projects
• 2 Fellowship Cohorts in California
• 2 speaking engagements in the US
• 2 international conferences
• 5 Fellows in Eastern Europe
• 12 California Fellows
• 14 nonprofit clients
• 192 Members for the GG Society Network
OUR GIVING
• +400 hrs donated in volunteer time
• 6{9885c0486e5a2dcd1a1edbf76fce71054dca1b0da4585463b276be294d4d00e8} of Sky(lark) gross cash receipts donated to local nonprofits
• 4 nonprofit leaders mentored pro-bono
• 1 grad student mentored
• 16 high school students mentored
OUR THINKING
• 4 business products launched
• 1 Fintech start-up product in R & D
• 1 Edtech start-up product in R & D
• 1 new economic paradigm for the nonprofit field in final stages of R & D
• 1 Social Entrepreneurship class in R & D with two universities
OUR EXPLORING & REFLECTING
• Business expansion in San Diego, Denver, and Detroit.
• 13 countries: Colombia, Holland, Belgium, Romania, Ireland, Canada, Iceland, Hungary, Italy (Cristina), Costa Rica, Mexico and Bahamas (Jessica), and Pakistan (Taimur)
• Allocating up to 20{9885c0486e5a2dcd1a1edbf76fce71054dca1b0da4585463b276be294d4d00e8} of our time for open unknown, for thinking and reflecting
OUR EFFORTS TO DEEPEN
• Built a provocative platform; a revolution is coming. Stay tuned!
• Worked in 12 focus areas: local and global peacemaking, early childhood, after-school programming, education, STEM, diversity & inclusion, media, the arts, economic modeling, Transatlantic relations, creation of collaborative dialogues, women entrepreneurship
• Facilitated 172 connections between people, some of which resulted in funding opportunities and working relationships
OUR PARTNERSHIPS
• Collaborations with local experts
• Transatlantic Core Group of the BMW Foundation & Robert Bosch Foundation
• Became an invited member of the Institute for New Economic Thinking – Young Scholars Institute. Became a member of the Economics of Innovation and Economic Inequity Groups.
• Became a SheEO Activator
• Became a supporter of the Skirball Cultural Center
• Became a member of +Acumen Corps
OUR PERSONAL GROWTH
• 12 professional development opportunities
• Crossed 4 items off the Bucket List
• 62 books read, of which we HIGHLY recommend the following:
- “Pitch Anything” by Oren Klaff
- “Hesselbein On leadership” by Jim Collins
- “Contagious; why things catch on” by Jonah Berger
- “The brand mapping strategy – design, build and accelerate your brand” by Karen Tiber Leland
- “Made to Stick – Why some ideas survive and others die” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
- “Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
- “How to fail at almost everything and still win big” by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert
- “Rubies in the Orchard” by Lynda Resnick
- “Effective Economic Decision-Making by nonprofit organizations” by Dennis R. Young
OUR IMMEASURABLES
• Healthy reserve, zero business debt, and zero deficits. Fully funded IRAs
• Many weeks of time off to balance all that hard work (about 10 weeks in average per team member, although we are not counting)
• Several hundred hours more spent with family and friends
• Countless all-nighters (to balance the extra time spent with loved ones and the time off. Hey! We work hard and play hard. As you can see, “achieved life balance” did not make it onto this list).
All and all, we are most proud of your trust in us.
What are YOU going to do to get ready to end the year? Take a page from Santa Claus’s work ethics; he works really hard during the holidays. Are you ready for hyper growth in January? Tally up your successes from the past 12 months and get motivated to have a monster 2017. Don’t wind down for the end of the year; it’s time to wind up! VICTORY FUELS MORE VICTORY.
Here is to a fantastic, full, bold, amazing 2017!
Cristina & the Sky(lark) Strategies team
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