Celebrating M.A.D. women! Meet our new Executive Director We announce the ‘We Are Africa’ winner
Issue 7 - June 2016 1
Welcome to Aspire News! By Emma Barrett Welcome to the June issue of the Aspire Foundation News!
This month we’re looking at women and career progression. If you weren’t able to join us for the ‘Five Top Tips to be a M.A.D. Leader’, turn to Page 7 for a recap and the link to watch the webinar on-line.
The Aspire Foundation is proud to announce Jane Donaldson as our new Executive Director. I caught up with her to learn more about her and what she hopes to bring to the Aspire Foundation.
One of Jane’s first events as Executive Director was our ‘M.A.D. World’ event in London in May where we announced the winner of the ‘We Are Africa’ fund.
Dr Sam Collins explores women in the workplace. Although great strides have been made, we still have far to go. Globally the pay gap is over 20% and instances of pregnancy related discrimination are actually increasing according to recent reports. We tried to “man up”, but as authenticity is a key element to being a true leader, it’s time for us to change the system so that we all benefit, not just men.
Contents: P3 - Jane Donaldson interview P7 - Five Top Tips to be a M.A.D. Leader
P11 - M.A.D. World event P12 - Book Review P13 - Update on our mission to positively impact one billion women by 2020 P15 - Dr Sam Collins explores
I hope you enjoy this issue, please let me know what you think at editor@theaspirefoundation.org
the progress of women in
Emma
P17 - M.A.D. Leadership
Aspire Newsletter Editor
Events
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the workplace
Aspire Foundation Executive Director Jane Donaldson is the Aspire Foundation’s new Executive Director. Jane was an Aspire Foundation mentee, and credits the mentoring program with helping her articulate her dreams and put them into action.
Q: You recently joined the Aspire Foundation as our new Executive Director, what made you want to join the team?
However, as a woman, working in the nonprofit sector, without access to much in the way of free professional development or career planning, a free mentoring opportunity seemed worth a try so I signed up to be a mentee.
Joining the Aspire team is a dream come true for me. A little back story - I am from London but I live in California. I moved here 24 years ago and for the past 16 years I’ve been running an arts organization for underserved children in Los Angeles. A few years ago I had a dream to continue living in USA, but work around the world, travel to England regularly and to make a bigger difference in the world. I was very specific about what I wanted but had no idea how to make it happen. Around this time, it so happened that Sam and Robert moved to my neighbourhood. Through the grapevine I heard about Aspire and the Aspire Foundation and that these new neighbours were English, lived here and worked in England and globally. I was intrigued but didn’t see the relevance to me immediately.
Becoming a mentee with the Aspire Foundation was the catalyst for the change I was looking for and helped me to articulate what it was I wanted. I was able to write a proposal to the Aspire Foundation and, to cut a long story short, it brought me to where I am today – the Executive Director of the Aspire Foundation. I credit our Mentoring Program with helping me make my dream come true. But to answer the question! As I learned more about Aspire, attending the Aspire Trailblazing Leadership Conference last year and the Aspire M.A.D. Global Leadership Event this year - which happened to be about finding your purpose - I found I really wanted to join the Aspire team and be more connected to the Aspire Community.
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Q: What skills or experience will you bring to the Aspire Foundation?
Through Aspire and the conferences I have met some incredible and inspiring people. Sam walks the talk and lives what she believes, it’s really refreshing. She is like a spa for the brain! Janet Jenkins is amazing. I’ve never known anyone so on top of things! Hats off to Liesl Ritts for the work she does with matching mentors and mentees, it’s a huge job! And one that’s increasing all the time with more and more of you signing up! And how great is our newsletter? Designed and created by Editor Emma Barrett.
My career has been in non-profit organizations in the UK and the US so I have a wide range experience of the charity sector in both places - from small grassroots nonprofits to more corporate institutions like The Getty Center in Los Angeles. When I look back, a common thread in all my roles has been building community. Being a connector and community builder is one of my key skills. Impacting a billion women and girls globally requires connecting people, so being able to bring people together is a strength and much need in my new role.
The partnership the Aspire Foundation has made with Avanade is so important to the future of the organization and will provide much needed support to help us reach our goal of positively impacting 1 billion women by 2020. Later this year we will launch a new platform Avanade are creating for us, so that the mentors and mentees can match online, (and make life easier for Liesl), it will be a bit like a dating website!
Q: Your career shows a commitment to supporting the community and, in particular, children – why do you think that’s so important? Children really are the future. When you compare the progress that’s been made in technology in the last 20 years, with where women are in terms of equality, it’s really disappointing. Young women are still facing discrimination, unequal pay, sexism… I could go on and on…While great strides have been made in some countries, looking globally it is heart breaking. There is so much to be done. That is why it is important to work with young people, to listen, nurture, educate and support their ideas so that they may learn from the past and change things for the better in the future.
The other part of our team are the M.A.D. volunteers, they are another reason I wanted a full-on role with Aspire. I volunteered at the M.A.D. Global Leadership Conference in London in January, along with 43 other women, and I loved it! I was a first timer but many had volunteered at other Aspire events. I appreciate the commitment and sense of community, they are very supportive and I am excited to work with such an inspiring group. It was wonderful to see many of our volunteers at the M.A.D. World event in London at Freshfields in May.
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Q: You know the goals of the Aspire Foundation very well, having been both a mentee and mentor! What top tips would you give to one of our mentees for getting the most out of their mentoring?
I’d also recommend attending to the Aspire webinars, they are a great way to get involved in the Aspire community and the training for the mentoring program is excellent. If you are able to attend a conference, do it! It is so inspiring and, for some, life changing. Thanks to Avanade and several other corporate supporters, we have a scholarship program for a number of mentees and mentors to attend each of the conferences.
My top tips would be:
Set dates for your sessions at the beginning of your 6 months with your mentor. You can change them later (we all know how life and work can get in the way of even the best-laid plans!), but it’s important to set them.
Try not to jam the sessions into your diary. The beauty of the program is that it’s only 1 hour a month so you can be flexible. I like to have time after the session to reflect.
If you journal - and I highly recommend that you do! - do it right after the session. I find writing freeform after the session is a great way to reflect and take the most out of the experience.
As the mentee, remember that you’re in the driving seat! Respect the time you have with your mentor. Plan ahead, send an agenda ahead of the session, so you keep focused and finish on time.
Q: Having been so involved in the mentoring program, what benefits do you think it can bring to participants? Taking part in our mentoring program has been truly life changing for me and I know this is true for other participants. If you are open to the opportunity, it provides you with a level of support and growth you might not expect. I am currently mentoring an amazing young woman in South Africa and I am finding it a very enriching experience. Funny how when you set out to give something, you get something extraordinary back. My personal experience is that the mentor program can help you to articulate your dreams and reach your goals – and as they say, if you can dream it, you can do it! As it turns out, that is true!
Q: Any words of advice for any of our mentors who want to develop and learn from their mentoring experience?
Q: Thinking of women in the workplace, how do you think the Aspire Foundation can support women with their career progression?
Much like with mentees, I’d recommend taking time to reflect after each of the sessions.
I believe the Aspire Foundation’s mentoring program can massively help women with career progression.
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We’re partnering with forward-thinking companies like Avanade, who actively support women in their career progression, and seeking partnerships with other organizations who are working to raise up women in their work place. These companies are not just taking on more women but supporting their career path to the top.
Q: Last month we looked at male support for female empowerment? How important do you think male allies are in the drive for equality? Male support is critical. It was right for the Aspire Foundation to start off as a women’s organization, but to make a difference and have a greater impact in the lives of women and girls, we need to work together. As men are roughly half of the population, we need to get more M.A.D. men involved, then we can increase the ripple effect and positively impact more and more women and girls. When we impact women and girls, we improve the lives of their families as well.
I’m so happy to have Jane on-board as Executive Director of the Aspire Foundation. She has great experience of driving non-profits forward, which will help us achieve our goal of impacting 1 billion women by 2020. She is also a great advocate for and example of how the mentoring program can work! It’s great to have her on the team!
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Five Top Tips to be a M.A.D. Leader Here at The Aspire Foundation, leadership isn’t about hierarchy or being the boss. Leadership is about how you make a difference.
Making a difference is a huge part of our self-fulfilment. The attendees of the ‘Five Top Tips to be a Making a Difference (M.A.D.) Leader’ webinar were asked what ‘Making a Difference’ meant to them, most people responded that it was a combination of making a difference in their personal life, in their career, in their workplace and in their community… We’re all after the ‘triple bottom line’ - making a difference to people, profit and planet! Read on for Five Top Tips to be a M.A.D. Leader!
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Top Tip 1: BE YOUR BEST M.A.D. SELF
Top Tip 2: GET CLARITY ON YOUR M.A.D. ASPIRATIONS
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Top Tip 3: KNOW YOUR PURPOSE
Top Tip 4: DEVELOP EMPATHY SKILLS
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Top Tip 5: GET CREATIVE
To learn more about Aspire’s Top Tips to be a M.A.D. Leader, you can access the full webinar here.
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M.A.D. World Event
We held our ‘M.A.D. World event in London in May where we announced the winner of our ‘We Are Africa’ campaign!
Keep your eyes peeled in July’s issue for our interview with the winner and her mentor!
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Book Review
‘We Are Africa’ winner Emma Scullion with her M.A.D. copy of Radio Heaven At the M.A.D. World event, the Aspire Foundation team gave away specially annotated copies of Radio Heaven by Dr Sam Collins. Radio Heaven, described as “a story of losing yourself to find yourself” (Harriet Minter, The Guardian), is Sam’s story. In it, you learn about her journey from north London council estate to living the dream in California and how, along the way, she started Aspire, her award-winning business, and the non-profit charitable arm, the Aspire Foundation. A key take away from the book is how believing in yourself, understanding what is important to you and allowing yourself to dream big can make a huge difference in the world. We need to be resilient to knock-backs (because they’re likely to come along!) but, at the same time, “failure is a stepping stone to success”. Have you read Radio Heaven? What did you think? If you’d like to tell us about your favourite inspiring read, please drop me a line at editor@theaspirefoundation.org
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The Aspire Foundation offers women and men with a corporate or small business background the opportunity to give something back by mentoring aspiring women from the charities and social enterprises sector. Our vision is to create a positive ripple of change by providing mentoring to women that helps them in turn make even more of a difference to even more women worldwide. We believe that if more women gain business, social and economic freedom, the world will become a more equal, ethical and balanced place. Our goal is to make a difference to 1 billion women by 2020. Here’s how we are progressing towards our goal:
If you or someone you know would like to sign up to the program, either as a mentor or mentee, you can find more information here.
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Join us on the 14th June for an interactive webinar on “Top Tips for Mentoring Virtually”!
Key outcomes of the session are:
How to start a session with a defined topic aligned with the overall mentoring goals
Keeping on track during a session and over the six months
The pros and cons of solutions and advice
How to end a session with action planning
How to set accountability throughout the sessions
Plus….an opportunity for your questions at the end of the session!
You can sign up here
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“Leaning in� or the New Feminist Tsunami By Dr Sam Collins
A close look at the waves of feminism through history reveals feminist predecessors were women who refused to be adaptive to the status quo. They were marked by trailblazing, taking on challenges, and aspiring to brighter horizons.
And if you think about it, while women have been working towards this moment, we haven't been in the workforce all that long: women's suffrage began before the turn of the 20th century and had won the vote in the US by 1920 and in Britain by 1928; then those resilient "Rosies" took over traditionally male jobs to support the war effort and most later withdrew to raise families in an unprecedented post-war economic expansion; then the bra-burning 60's and Equal Rights Amendment 70's that gave way to women entering the workforce en masse in the 1980's and 90's.
Once accepted into the corporate world, many of us "leaned in" and suppressed our femininity, worked like men, and avoided discussions of an outside life or motherhood for fear of losing our credibility. Others tried relishing the victory only to discover the very environment devalued the feminine as soft, finding ourselves dominated not necessarily by men but by the distorted concept of masculinity pervasive in big business. Many women started their own businesses or opted to remain at home, but for many neither option really suited - a quiet and resentful generation of women has been brewing without rocking the boat too much.
And over two decades later where do we stand? The Global Gender Gap Report ranks Britain 26th, its lowest overall score for equality since 2008; with the U.S. not much further ahead at 20th... Where is the gender leadership from these so-called leaders of the free world?
Yet there is a new wave building momentum, not far off shore. And it's a tsunami with enough potential energy to sweep away these archaic masculine-dominated forms of business once for all... and for one simple reason: If business can't embrace the new feminine, they stand to lose more than half their talent--and what's more, they won't be able to fill those vacancies with qualified men because, surprise, many new generation men want to see the same changes!
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“Leaning in� or the New Feminist Tsunami As part of our work with women in corporate leadership, we recently surveyed more than 1,265 female executives and managers about the current status of their lives and careers. The astounding facts: fully 78 percent are considering leaving the corporate world; despite the fact that over 70 percent are the primary breadwinners in their households. Women are coming together in their hundreds and thousands at our events, not to learn the 'top tips' for working with men but to grow in personal confidence, discovering how to change an organisational structure, or a community, or a country. This army will no longer accept the platitudes of the past, not the unequal pay, nor the bias towards men in promotions, or the queen bee who won't support younger women on their ladder upwards.
What we are seeing now is a new growing solidarity among women. And from a historical perspective, it's about time for the next feminist wave to break. This new generation of women of all ages, all backgrounds, stands ready to fully embrace their feminine strengths, identify with them, and change the world with them; simultaneously refusing to identify with traditional feminism as a concept, and instead fully experience the power of their gender in collaboration with their masculine counterparts in the workforce and the world.
Let's not 'man up' or change who we are - we must redefine the systems and structures so that they work for women, unashamed to put family first, having pride in what makes us different. More women leaders must rise to the top ranks of business, politics, and community power to provide new perspectives and new leadership for the world's pressing issues, which are legion.
The world needs our help desperately, threatened on all sides from issues economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological. The World Economic Forum's latest report calls these "global risks of highest concern." Who better qualified to help take a refreshingly new approach to these issues than women with our unique perspective as mothers, sisters, and daughters?
As women, we must learn to rely on our intuition, gut feelings and instincts, which society either minimises or rationalises away. And rather than ask women to conform to masculine-patterned styles of leadership, as is commonly found in the business world, we must challenge others to realise these valuable feminine qualities are indispensable to the businesses in which we work, and not least of all, to the world at large.
At a time when women are increasingly dissatisfied with our work lives and desire for balance combined with the world suffering with some of the most dramatic issues in our history, we need to send out a clear message: women can change the world, if we join together, focus on our strengths and rely on their inner strength, instead of blindly accepting a path that we have been told by society is the only route to success.
Who's with me? 16
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Aspire 2016 Women in Leadership Join us at one of our forthcoming Aspire M.A.D. Leadership programs taking place in Chicago, USA, London, UK and Johannesburg, South Africa. M.A.D. Leadership Outcomes: Develop the qualities of great 'M.A.D.' leadership:
Define or evolve your ‘M.A.D.’ Leadership vision, aspirations and 'M.A.D.' projects. Gain a tool kit for vision and create or recreate your own life, work and world vision.
Be inspired to think bigger about your career, life and making a difference (M.A.D.) in the wider world. Learn a tool to determine your values, passions, strengths and career direction.
Learn about the real life reality of M.A.D. Leaders. How have they achieved what they have? What steps did they take? What strategies did they follow? How did they overcome their fears and obstacles?
Gain top tips and inspiration on achieving definitions of success, work/life balance and RQ (resilience intelligence) that define the norm.
Increase your courage and become fearless to achieve your M.A.D. goals and aspirations. Learn a tool for eliminating fear.
Get inspired:
Understand the importance of defining your purpose both personally and organisationally as a key to achieving M.A.D. Leadership. Increase your confidence, gravitas and personal and professional impact.
Participate and learn about mindfulness practices for a M.A.D. life, work and world.
Improve your networking skills, learn about the critical importance of mentors and role models and find and receive help and support to be a M.A.D. Leader in a supportive and non judgmental environment.
Learn time leadership skills to move from busy and day to day to being a successful strategic leader of your time, life and career.
Explore the role for men in the empowerment of women, what is needed from men in order for there to be more women leaders and tips for women to influence men.
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Aspire 2016 Women in Leadership Take action:
Grow an external and diverse network ~ meet new and inspiring people who will help you think differently, gain new ideas and support you to achieve your goals during and after the programme.
Develop your how to tool kit for influencing, communicating and leading others; how to overcome leadership obstacles and manage people, teams and projects more effectively.
Gain a time-efficient boost of inspiration about financial success that goes deeper to address how you feel about money and what you can do to attract it.
Join a Meet up for Aspire Foundation Mentors and Mentees and those interested in becoming one. Find out about our movement to empower a billion women by 2020.
Time the time away from your inbox to reflect on your career, life and community. Gain exercises and tools to translate your insights into real life and create your M.A.D. plans for post the conference.
Leave M.A.D. Leadership inspired, empowered and ready to follow through.
Come back for new speakers and updated content or join us for the first time at: Chicago, USA: 13th – 15th September, 2016. See the new speaker line up and register HERE. London, UK: 22nd – 23rd November, 2016. See the new speaker line up and register HERE. Johannesburg, South Africa: 27th - 28th February, 2017. Find out more and register HERE.
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“There’s no other way to find out whether or not you will be successful other than
Just doing it” Richard Branson, Entrepreneur
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