As we prepare for our seven-year anniversary celebration and company leadership retreat in Boulder, Colorado on August 21st, I’m moved to reflect upon the last seven years. What I can share is that it has been an extraordinary ride — with some incredibly high highs with beloved clients and team members, and days (weeks?) when … whew, it felt like a monkey-knife-fight to meet intense deadlines while delivering excellence. Now that the firm is humming with a twenty-plus member team of fundraising ringers, and clients across the globe addressing 16 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), I have to admit that God had much bigger plans for Black Fox Philanthropy than I originally did, and s/he is just getting warmed up!
How did it begin? After bequeathing the nonprofit I founded to the Denver Art Museum in 2011, I spent a year in deep internal and external inquiry around the next chapter of my professional life. Part of the external inquiry was inspired by the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. I recommend the book highly for those looking to reach new heights of impact and meaning; in fact, I bought forty copies for friends and family! Through the exercises in the book, I realized I had a number of beacons in my life who fully embodied the qualities I most wanted to cultivate in myself. I determined – if I am at Point A, and they are Point B — what is the roadmap? So I decided to curate people in my life whom I admired most, and take them to a long lunch to ask them about their journeys, perspectives, wisdom gained, and more. I was thrilled when all eleven said “yes!” To this day I am profoundly grateful, and have truly taken in their wisdom on a cellular level – it serves as my North Star in many areas of my life.
At the completion of the year, I distilled the wisdom into a letter I shared with each of them. And while in the letter I allude to my intention around a path toward lifting our world (starting a girls leadership program), in my due diligence I found that there were a great many fantastic programs with solid infrastructure, leadership, and stellar young women candidates — and determined that starting such a program was the least efficient thing I could do with my strategic mind, philanthropic heart, and financial resources. (We have, however, funded “Black Fox Scholars” since our inception to fulfill this aspect of my vision.)
What I did discover in my due diligence is that all of the nonprofits had one core thing in common – they were in varying levels of struggle around fundraising – hamstringing their effectiveness, depth and reach. My “Aha!” moment was realizing I was uniquely qualified to strengthen existing nonprofits through my true Zone of Genius: Fundraising strategy, and engaging all manner of funders in a meaningful way that translates into sustained funding. (Keep in mind I had just spent a decade successfully running a nonprofit, including a robust fundraising program, and the first 17 years of my career was in corporate sales & marketing, leaving corporate America in my mid-thirties to start the nonprofit. At that time, I was the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the largest woman-owned company in Colorado. And let’s face it: fundraising is sales — in its highest form).
Seven years on, I am profoundly grateful to this sector, and am madly and deeply in love with the extraordinary leaders who work fiercely and brilliantly to usher in a new era of possibility for humanity. As for our team — no words can truly describe the depth of my respect and awe for who they are, and how they show up in the work. They fully embody this portion of our tagline: Your mission is our mission.
Read on for the letter I shared with those long-ago mentors whom I still hold dear.
22 March 2012
Beloved “Dream Team”:
Thank you for being an integral part of a most extraordinary year by allowing me a glimpse into your life, values, and altruism. I am grateful to you all for the wisdom and clarity I’ve gained over the last several months.
After bequeathing Salon du Musée to the Denver Art Museum, I reached a crossroad. I was clear that as I moved forward, I wanted to contribute to the greater good in a thoughtful, strategic, and powerful way. Who better than those who embody the qualities and effectiveness I most admire to help me create a blueprint for my next chapter? The unexpected benefit was a deepened connection to my good friends, and the transformation of acquaintances into cherished friends and mentors.
While those with whom I met are incredibly diverse (from my “Bodhisattva Handyman” to several of Denver’s “Bold Face” names to a “Swami” in India), what everyone has in common is grace, humility, leadership, thriving relationships, happiness, and an authentic passion for leaving the world a better place. In short, all of the qualities I most want to cultivate in myself.
While I discovered many personal truths that I hope to incorporate on a cellular and spiritual level, there was considerable universal wisdom I’d like to reflect back to you. You may recognize yourself in some of these pearls; however, I may have changed some of the original wording.
Themes emerged from many of the conversations, so I will categorize them as such:
LIFE 101
* Take care of yourself first and everyone around you benefits. (“Protect the Asset” – you are the asset.)
* Everyone is valuable and has something to offer you and the world.
* Take care of yourself first and everyone around you benefits.
* Envision your life backwards. Develop a life plan based upon desired outcome.
* Laugh at yourself. Don’t take yourself so &^%$#@ seriously.
* Talk less. Listen more.
* Speak your truth. Stand your ground.
* Someone else’s advice is that person’s truth, not necessarily yours.
* If at a crossroads between two equally good choices, choose the one that is most fun.
* Jump on in with abandon (now and then).
* Eliminate the word “I” from conversation as much as possible.
* Forgiveness is understanding. Take yourself off the pedestal and forgive.
SPIRIT
* When your soul is doing its dance, there is no selfishness or unselfishness. Only being.
* Stay present. Smell the roses. Soon it will all evaporate before your eyes.
* Never underestimate your power.
* Trust that life’s traumas are there to teach you something for the higher good.
* While a spiritual life is important, be human and take the full curriculum.
* Don’t consider yourself better or worse than others; you are simply on your respective paths.
* Count your blessings. Share your good fortune.
* Celebrate where you are; do not focus upon where you are not.
* “I believe God gave me gifts and desires to use those gifts, so it’s hard for me to want to be anything or anyone else.”
* Humility means having the quiet confidence to allow your actions to speak for themselves.
* Enemies are often your greatest teachers. Love your enemies.
* It is difficult to be in a foul mood when you are grateful.
* The ego is a wonderful servant and a lousy master.
* You are the architect of your fortune and misfortune.
* “A healthy sense of humor about our limitations and a gentleness with ourselves and others is what helps lubricate the process by which the manifested world grinds us inevitably and inescapably down and makes us the fertilizer for new creation.”
AGING
* “I’m going down in stilettos.”
* Step out of inaccurate aging beliefs. Unless you permit otherwise, only your body is aging ~ not your core, not your passions, not your zest for life.
* Surrounding yourself with young people keeps you young.
* Be open minded to new perspectives.
* If you work out, you have a healthy body. If you don’t work out, you have a lousy body.
LOVE & MARRIAGE
* Love deeply. Never be stingy with affection.
* Let the people whom you love know: “I am for you.”
* Keep your accounts current with the people in your life. If you love them, tell them. If you are upset with them, tell them.
* Love your spouse. Not the “your” (possessive) part, but the person.
* Don’t expect. Accept.
* You can’t change a tiger into a lamb. You need to learn to relate to a tiger.
COMMUNITY
* You are the monarch of all you serve.
* Apply all you’ve learned and all you are to serving others in a sector that sings to your true heart. Your actions will then be more energetic and inspiring, and the result will be greater.
* Create change in your own community first, strengthening that fabric. Good will ripple out to the world at large from your own kitchen.
* “Your job can be the vehicle for a higher purpose. For me, it’s about loving my colleagues and nurturing their talents and helping solve problems.” (paraphrased)
* Only do elective things that are at least an “8” on a scale from one to ten. Find something you love that is a 10 and compare things to that.
PARENTING
* Respect that your child’s life is not your life. You are the Trustee only.
* Grit, respect, zest, integrity, humor, and hard work are better life tools than straight As.
* Be in the trenches with children with quantity and quality time.
* Actions, not words, teach children.
* Make yourself known to your children.
* Make space for your child’s greatness, whatever form that may take.
* Make space for children’s emotions. Listen.
* Hold a place of love for her when she fails.
* Enjoy the “in between” times, just watching movies or being in nature together.
* Be consistent with your No. Do not fall into the trap of becoming a “slot machine” parent where kids keep at you until you finally cash out.
* Determine which battles to engage in, and which they should fight on their own. As the parent you have to weigh the down-side of a bad outcome, and act accordingly.
There are so many more insights and perspectives, but I found these to be particularly relevant for who I am and where I am in my life.
✦ ✦ ✦
MOVING FORWARD: THE NEXT CHAPTER
I have a core belief that the world would benefit from more strong, capable, compassionate female leaders. Yet, I am one person with one set of hands and one checkbook; therefore, my individual impact is finite. However, by helping to build an army of leaders with the passion to inspire and mentor their own and future generations my contribution becomes limitless. Only then can I contribute to the alleviation of suffering in all sectors (homelessness, abuse, genocide, slavery, etc.) through these women and their legacies.
My mission is to encourage and enable the dreams of young women in Colorado who are pursuing a path of leadership and contribution while instilling the desire and responsibility to pay it forward. I plan to focus upon young women under the age of twenty-one who have demonstrated potential, but lack the resources and access that typically paves the way to greatness. How this will take shape is yet to be determined; however, I have some ideas that are unfolding. On one thing I am clear: It is the feminine side of our natures that will lift our world.
And while I have some trepidation about the magnitude of the mission, I hope to leapfrog my doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs through the deeper knowledge that the greatest gift I can give myself, my daughter and my community is the nourishing and development of compassionate, powerful leaders.
✦ ✦ ✦
The time to consider the wisdom I’ve been given has been a great gift. As a former achievement junkie, I have slowed down, learned to say yes to only the right things, and stayed present in magical, fleeting moments with my daughter Sophie. I can’t help but add that I’ve also spent countless moments in head-thrown-back laughter with my incredible friends, many of whom I have been lucky enough to interview.
And yet my hope is that this time will have been ultimately selfless: the more clarity and integrity I bring to my life and my work, the more effective I will be in strategically guiding the course of young lives, shaping a new paradigm of leadership, and therefore maybe, just maybe, changing the course of the world.
I will embark on this adventure in 2013, and look forward to sharing the journey with you!
With deepest gratitude,
Natalie
P.S. I’m often asked where the name Black Fox Philanthropy came from. We are named after a black fox that I sighted in my backyard the day I brought my newborn daughter Sophie home from the hospital. While holding her in my arms, the fox and I locked eyes for moments or minutes – it was surreal and deeply impactful. So the fox became a totem animal for Sophie and me over the years. In the spirit world, a fox is a “teacher and guide.” As consultants we are also teachers and guides, hence the name!
