LEAP UPDATES
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes. 
--Peter Drucker
Each month, we publish a Leap of Reason Update to share insights, tools, and learning opportunities for those who are working to raise their performance.
Nothing but Bionic Parts
Wouldn’t you like a good way to take a deep look into your organization—to discover how you’re doing, identify ways to get better, and create open introspection that helps people learn and improve? If so, please take a look at the Performance Practice, a resource from the Leap Ambassadors Community. According to Ingvild Bjornvold, who oversees the continuous-improvement process for the Performance Practice, “I doubt there’s a nonprofit out there that…
The Ultimate ‘Hyperagent’
Have you seen the new Netflix documentary “Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates”? If you haven’t, you should! The film does a great job of illustrating how philanthropy can be, in the words of educator Paul Ylvisaker, “society’s passing gear.” It also offers great lessons for donors who don’t have Gates’s stratospheric wealth.
Great Ways to Squander Your Money
Last month’s update, “Fool Me Ten Times, Shame on Me,” struck a chord with many of you. This month, we’ll stay with the theme of unforced funder errors and share five more examples of 💩 that funders routinely step in.
Fool Me Ten Times, Shame on Me
This week, Lowell will conduct the first of a series of learning sessions for an entrepreneur at the very beginning of his philanthropic journey. He’ll ground the session in borrowed wisdom from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Tom Reis: “All new philanthropists get a black eye. That’s fine—and can actually be a good learning experience. But if they get ten black eyes, they’ll say, ‘To hell with it!’ So help them avoid repeated black eyes. Help them learn from others’ mistakes.”
Going to Bat for Grantees
One of Lowell’s foundation clients is in the midst of a generational succession and looking with new eyes at some long-established practices. Two practices under review are the foundation’s default…