LEAP UPDATES
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes. 
--Peter Drucker
Welcome to the archive of monthly Leap Updates from Mario Morino and Lowell Weiss. The final Leap Update was published in March of 2022.
Ditching Privilege
Lowell’s alma matter, Amherst College, has taken many steps over the past five years to embrace and embody anti-racism. And yet the school’s anti-racism efforts felt hollow. That’s because the school retained an embarrassing vestige of the old-school old-boy network: the admissions boost it bestowed upon the children of alums—a clear example of an elite…
Cultivating Great Leadership from Within
Just before COVID hit the U.S., the Leap Ambassadors Community published guidance on succession planning for high-performing CEOs and got great feedback on it from social-sector CEOs starting to think about passing the baton to the next generation of leaders. Today, we’d like to augment those insights with those of a Leap Ambassador who was…
We’re Awful at Rethinking
As the delta variant spreads like a western wildfire, many of us are wondering why brilliant scientists and communicators like Anthony Fauci haven’t been able to move more than half of us to get a free, highly effective vaccine. We’ve recently gained some valuable insights by reading Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant’s thought-provoking book, Think…
Ignoring Gravity
We know it’s not everyone’s idea of a beach read, but we both just read and loved The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by former Demos President Heather McGhee. We came away thinking that social-sector leaders who don’t factor McGhee’s brilliant insights into their advocacy work might…
The LeBron of Philanthropy
In 2003, Mario’s hometown Cleveland Cavaliers made Lebron James the number-one pick in the draft. Even though James was right out of high school, he immediately went on to record one of the greatest rookie seasons in history. MacKenzie Scott may just be the Lebron of philanthropy. In her first full year of grantmaking, she’s…
Quotes From Leaders Like You
“Managing to outcomes is not about simply counting things or gathering information. And it is not about satisfying funders. It is an internal effort aimed at figuring out what works and what doesn’t, so that the organization can provide the best possible services to its clients”
“You have to have undying passion for the population you’re serving. We can spend time patting ourselves on the back for the 85 percent of the kids who are doing really well in our program. But we need to be as concerned about the 15 percent who aren’t succeeding and learn how we can improve for them.”
“Through a process of self-reflection, our board members asked themselves fundamental questions: How can we improve? How can we make a greater impact?”
“Every day, you have to say, ’How can we do this more efficiently and more effectively?’ It’s in our DNA.”
“Any school in the country can do this. And it breaks my heart that we’re not [all] doing this!”
“Stories substituting for facts is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me!”
“You’re taking someone else’s money to get into somebody else’s life to try to make a difference. You better be showing you can make a difference!”