2019 has been an extraordinary year for IP3. This year, our ninth as an organization, has changed us, and we are stronger for it. If you’ve followed our organization and flagship website, Community Commons, you’ve been on this journey with us. We’d like to take some time now to share what we’ve learned, as well as our hopes for 2020 and beyond.
Daring to Lead
This year we’ve had to make difficult choices and big changes to stay true to our values. These choices have not been easy, nor have they always been popular - both within our organization and among partners. As an organization, we have leaned into vulnerability in a big way. Our Executive Director, Roxanne Fulcher, provided each team member with Brene Brown’s book Dare to Lead, and we’re working through the exercises as a way to acknowledge and foster the leader in each of us. We’ve become braver by acknowledging and naming the messiness that comes with big change as a value-based organization. This year we took bold steps to launch a new version of Community Commons… and then launch it again a few months later when the initial update wasn’t a fit. This was pretty scary and tremendously difficult. However, as a team, we grew stronger and more confident, and evermore clear of our organizational values and shared mission.
Embracing Change
Embrace Change has been our mantra over the past few years, but in 2019 we really lived it -- in more ways than one. In addition to a major shift in Community Commons, our team became 100% remote. This shift positioned us to find exceptional, diverse talent around the nation and enables us to better represent the communities we serve - from rural to urban, east to west, and red states to blue states. While we’re proudly based in Columbia, Missouri, our team has always included remote members. By making the leap to a fully remote team, we are able to improve team communication, better utilize existing team capacity, and ensure no team member is left out. We now span four time zones and look forward to growing our remote team in years to come.
Progress Over Perfection
We are lucky to have an incredibly smart, passionate, and committed team. This year, in addition to Embracing Change, we consciously adopted Progress over Perfection. We recognized that making a big impact means taking big risks. We won’t get it right every time, but we also can’t wait for perfection to move forward.
This year, we’ve moved forward in a number of ways, and in doing so, we’ve learned invaluable lessons that will make our next steps more impactful. With the launch of version 1.0 of IP3 | Assess, we learned what worked well, and where to improve the platform to better-meet partner needs. We’re launching version 2.0 (which will have a publicly-available version!) in early 2020. We’re adopting and refining content for Community Commons based on all we’ve learned from the launch, and we continuously iterate how we can best work together as a team to fulfill our mission of creating healthy, sustainable, equitable communities.
Knowing Our Value
Through all this change - in partnerships, technology, location, and projects - we’ve been able to hone in and focus on what we’re really good at. We’ve never been more clear about the value we bring as an organization. Many things change, but our unwavering commitment to serve and support community change-makers does not. We’ll continue to serve by bridging technology and data, and packaging stories and information in a way that: resonates with many, is conducive to community engagement and moves groups from insight to action. This renewed clarity will enable us to weather unavoidable, necessary changes and grow stronger as an organization.
Looking Ahead
We look forward to the year ahead! We’ll roll out a new version of IP3 | Assess in early 2020 that is more accessible than ever. We’ll continue to curate best-in-class resources, tools, and action-oriented content on Community Commons. We’ll welcome new partners working on data strategy to create actionable insights.
We’ll grow our team and community of members and users like you. We’re forever grateful for our supportive community of partners, clients, users, friends, and family.
Together for the Common Good,
The IP3 team
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