How to Engage in Visioning: Reconnect with Your “Why” for Lasting Impact
“All organizations start with why, but only the great ones keep their why clear year after year.”
This quote from Simon Sinek is one we often refer to when discussing the power of visioning and the importance of consistently reconnecting with your organization’s core purpose.
But what does it truly mean, and how can you use it to unlock transformational growth within your organization?
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy for leaders to get swept up in the endless demands of running an organization. With so many responsibilities, tasks, and urgent matters, reconnecting with the “why” behind your organization — and ultimately your work — can sometimes feel like a distant luxury. That said, it’s during times of transition, challenge, and change that this “why” becomes an invaluable anchor. It’s time to stop and reflect:
Why are you doing what you’re doing? What impact do you want to make?
Reconnecting with your purpose through visioning is not just an opportunity, it’s essential for long-term relevance and success.
Moving Beyond SWOT: Why ABW Partners Uses the SOAR Framework for Strategic Planning
When it comes to strategic planning, many companies and organizations turn to a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. This framework has long been the go-to tool for evaluating what an organization is currently doing, whether at a macro level or for specific programs or initiatives. At ABW Partners, we have used the SWOT framework for many years and can attest to its value. However, we’ve also come to realize SWOT analyses are not always the help our clients truly need.
Empowering Organizations Through Strategic Collaboration: Inside ABW Partners' Unique Approach
As we wrap up the year, we are reflecting on how the ABW Partners collaborative model fosters creativity, improves problem-solving, and amplifies strengths by bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise.
This model redefines how mission-driven organizations grow and thrive. Combining the expertise of a core team with a network of specialized strategic partners, our consultancy delivers tailored solutions across strategic planning, fundraising, and organizational development. The flexibility of this model allows us to tackle diverse challenges, from strategic planning to fundraising, with bespoke strategies. Guided by Andrea Wasserman’s vision, ABW Partners ensures growth-oriented, sustainable impact through innovative, client-focused collaboration.
Practicing ‘Internal Philanthropy’ to Boost Organizational Strength
Practicing ‘Internal Philanthropy’ to Boost Organizational Strength
Internal Philanthropy is a concept rooted in the idea of looking inward and ensuring that we and our colleagues are taken care of emotionally, mentally, and physically. It involves organizations adopting practices that help employees prioritize self-care, manage stress, and foster a balanced work environment.
As the final leg of 2024 ramps up and our personal lives become more cluttered, I’m encouraging my team and clients to embrace the “October Theory,” and use this month as well as the final two of the year to reset their goals. This will ensure that once 2025 rolls around, the habits we’ve set forth are part of our routine and lifestyle.
Bridging the Gap: How ABW Partners Transforms Strategic Planning into Actionable Success
Bridging the Gap: How ABW Partners Transforms Strategic Planning into Actionable Success
Activating New Major Donor Relationships for Philanthropic Organizations
ABW Partners: Activating New Major Donor Relationships for Philanthropic Organizations
Room for Growth | My commitments personally and professionally
For all of us trying to blend what we know to be the essentials of our fundraising practices with new skills required during this time - might it be possible for us to cultivate more fun, humor, and grace into our learning process?
The Cement is Wet - Add your print!
“The concrete is wet right now in a way that I’ve never seen in my career. There’s a lot more opportunity now to reimagine,” says Henry Timms, CEO of Lincoln Center, which is shifting to become more of a civic institution as well as a cultural one. “My prediction is, in three years’ time, when we look back at this period, there’ll be a real difference between those organizations who saw this as just a pause, and those organizations who saw this as a chance to reframe their work.”
Find the Vertex in the Vortex
Since the earliest stage of my career, I have navigated fluctuations in the economy, the lives of major stakeholders and donors, and the organizations to which I have served. So not to get sucked in by what I affectionately label " the vortex" I have, with intentionality BUT not perfection, cultivated a mindset and practice that enables me to not only survive but sometimes even thrive in challenging circumstances and achieve excellence in fundraising through all sorts of storms.
Philanthropy at Core
At ABW Partners, our philosophy is that organizations must have the discipline to engage in priming, a series of preliminary, foundation-building advancement activities and strategies designed to achieve robust growth-oriented and sustainable fundraising.
We developed a model that we use as our true north in our consulting practice. It’s Philanthropy at Core.
A New Chapter Written in the Eye of the Storm
This inaugural blog post honors my network of outstanding partners who tirelessly work to repair our world through philanthropy. It also heralds the end, and in many ways, a new beginning for my beloved business, Social Profit Ventures, which I have aptly renamed, ABW Partners.