By Carrie Fox

This holiday season, as we celebrate the first anniversary of Mission Partners, we are thankful for you and for your partnership in moving missions forward for the benefit of our communities, our nation, and our world.

2017 was as promising as it was challenging. As our nation grappled with issues of access and opportunity, our work was bound together by a common theme: a commitment to providing an equitable future for all. To that end, here’s our year in review:

• We developed bold new strategic plans for nonprofits, foundations and socially responsible businesses who committed to increase their impact.
• We built fresh, new narratives that lead with strength and simplicity—and are based on insights gleaned through research—about workforce development, higher education, healthcare, housing, philanthropy, and public media.
• We helped to mobilize a DC community for collective impact, in order to preserve its neighborhood and provide opportunity for all residents to remain and thrive, even under the immense pressures of gentrification.
• We led and facilitated Board meetings and community convenings—across the country and across sectors—that challenged long-held ways of working, and identified new solutions.
• We hosted and facilitated salon dinners, community events, and working groups to drive changes in our systems, including philanthropy and the workplace.
• We designed creative campaigns that presented the impact of established organizations in new ways, driving increased community impact and engagement.
• We recommitted ourselves to equity, inclusion, and identity in our practice with clients and in our own learning by participating in Equity, Diversity, Inclusion Training with CommonHealth ACTION, and doubled down on our commitment by partnering with CommonHealth ACTION to bring this life-changing experience to our network. As a direct result of the training, Mission Partners will launch an Equity Advisory Board in 2018. We look forward to sharing more details in the new year.

Through it all, we’ve realized that the work we’re doing at Mission Partners has never felt more fulfilling, or more urgent.

As a woman-owned and women-led organization, our mission is to advance issues and causes that result in an equitable future for all. And, as we reflect on this first year at Mission Partners and look forward to where we’re going, we realize that to truly advance issues of equity, we must address and learn from our roots, and then intentionally change behavior. It’s how we invest in today, as organizational leaders, that can affect our ability to create a more equitable future.

For this reason, we will soon launch the Mission Forward Leaders Exchange, a new series of cohort-based learning groups that will drive purpose-driven leaders like you through a year of skills-building, reflection, critical thinking, and “visioneering” for the future. Each exchange will welcome up to 12 people per cohort to convene on critical topics that are reflective of our shared responsibilities as leaders, and will be facilitated by my partner, Carolyn Berkowitz, and me. More details will follow in January, but if you are interested in learning more, please email me at [email protected] for advance access to registration materials.

As you reflect on your own experiences in 2017, and recommit to being an agent of change in the coming year, we hope you’ll consider joining us in 2018 to transform your good intentions into great impact.