Recap of Winter Retreat for Foundation CEOs

Executive Summary

Thank you for joining us in December as we gathered together in sunny San Diego to share best practices from the front lines of philanthropic leadership at the Council’s Winter Retreat for Foundation CEOs. When asked for one word to describe the retreat, you responded with a powerful range of the practical to the uplifting, using words like “useful” “productive” and “helpful” to “invigorating” “energizing” “fantastic” and “empowering.” Your willingness to engage with each other and the presenters in open and transparent sharing provided the successful building blocks for an inspiring event. Now that we have all had time to recover from the holiday and new year’s rush, we return for a moment to the objectives, themes and potential next steps that our time together inspired.

At a time of great shifts in the philanthropic arena and the issues and causes that foundations support, the Council on Foundations continues to advance new ideas and expand leadership to address these dynamic changes. In the first of what is meant to be a series of events focused on philanthropic leadership – The Winter Retreat for Foundation CEOs – you embraced this vision of an interactive platform for executive officers from the full spectrum of foundation types and sizes. Thanks again for joining us and making the Retreat such a great event.

Creating the Right Balance

The overall goal of the Retreat was to allow for a “safe space” for you as leaders to learn, as well as encourage transparency and vulnerability in the interactive discussion with your peers. Starting with the networking lunch, the mood was set as far as dialogue and openness for all the participants and this continued throughout the event.

You asked us to be ambitious about the deeper objectives for the Retreat and we heard you, focusing on – A. creating an interactive learning environment, B. elevating issues that are important to a new or transitioning CEO, C. creating opportunities to connect with a wide range of people engaged in similar issues of interest, and, finally, D. creating content that was meaningful to participants in their professional role. We tackled these objectives in three primary ways:

1. Through plenary and breakout sessions centered on topics that you had elevated during the annual conference and subsequent follow up,
2. By allowing you to anonymously pose questions before the retreat that were then displayed and addressed in a variety of sessions and manners; and
3. By structuring the formal and informal engagement that best suited you and the location, thereby allowing for “open space” in a variety of settings – all the while narrowing in on the driving themes and next steps, including development of succession plans, board and leadership interaction and roles and the changing scale and scope of philanthropy as it affects the next generation of leaders.

Some Takeaways

Your questions and conversations were primarily about the specifics of succession and transition throughout, with related responses from panelists and “war stories” about planning (or lack thereof) that had resulted in a variety of outcomes, good and bad. We heard about the pros and cons of outside search firms, the attempts to nurture successors from within, and the details of board involvement and the use “interim periods” including the positives and negatives. You appeared to engage on very specific feedback and the presenters obliged in most cases. This was especially the case in the concurrent breakout sessions with more narrowly defined topic areas and you noted in the evaluations that you were hungry for more.

The use of poster boards created from questions that were submitted by you in advance allowed presenters, attendees and facilitators to circle back with topics that were specific to one organization type or another. The liveliest conversations, both in plenary and concurrent sessions, tended to be those where everyone could relate – evaluation, metrics, impact, specific tools and takeaways. There is clearly a desire for deeper, more specific coverage in a variety of topics affecting CEOs and leadership.

A Few Data Points

The vast majority of attendees gave the Retreat extremely high evaluations, which points to potential success for future sessions. The overall rank for the Retreat was “good,” ”very good” and “excellent” rankings at nearly equal amounts. The verbal feedback we received during and after the Retreat supports that level of response.

All of the individual sessions over the two days were ranked in the positive, again with the vast majority receiving rankings of “very good” or “excellent”. Effectiveness rankings for the four primary objectives of the Retreat were overwhelmingly positive, pointing to overall coverage of those intended objectives through the design of the sessions. Comments highlighted the attendees’ appreciation for the unique, relaxed, intimate and open nature of the event and the surrounding sensitive topics. There were certainly many requests for more leadership training/exchange events and annual versions of the Retreat.

The evaluations also showed opportunities for improvement. A primary piece of feedback is for more tools, resources and materials being provided that would align with the discussions. Related feedback asked for more specifics in the conversations and less focus on big picture topics. The length of time the CEO had been serving in his/her role influenced the evaluation, as there were a number of new (+/- one year) leaders with issues key to their growth, balanced on the other side with longer term CEOs.

The Way Forward

During the final session, you were asked what your first step upon returning home would be. Responses fell largely into two categories – “Internal Tools and Processes” and “Succession/Transition Planning” – just as they should have been. However, there were also a number of very personal responses, as well those that covered the gambit of CEO/leader issues that one might expect in a foundation, including staffing, board, professional development and culture.

We want to be on that journey with you. The Council is committed to providing the space, opportunity and tools to continue to navigate these issues.