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Partners in School Innovation is proud to be part
of the Silicon Valley Encore Initiative. Sponsored by Civic
Ventures and funded by the David & Lucile Packard Foundation and
Hewlett-Packard, this pilot initiative matches recently or soon-to-be
retired corporate leaders with a highly selective group of local
non-profits. Corporate veterans are placed in innovative social
purpose internships, or "Encore Fellowships." PartnersSI is excited
to be working with two Encore Fellows, Leslye Louie, former Vice
President of Sales and Marketing for Supplies at Hewlett-Packard
and Lyle Hurst, former Vice President of Business Development
at Hewlett-Packard. Leslye and Lyle are focusing their support
in three critical areas that will build PartnersSI's capacity
to grow successfully: performance management, strategic communications
and leadership coaching.
Encore careers are taking national stage as the
Obama administration reinvigorates the movement for public service.
The Serve America Act that is now before Congress is a bipartisan
bill that would scale encore fellowships across the country. PartnersSI
is thrilled to be one of the first organizations in the country
to be a part of this movement and proud to support Civic Ventures'
national efforts to elevate and increase encore careers as a means
for social change.
Q&A WITH ENCORE FELLOWS
1. What is the Silicon Valley Encore Initiative?
Lyle: The Silicon Valley Encore Initiative
is a pilot program created by Civic Ventures, based in San Francisco,
and funded by the Packard Foundation. The initiative matches individuals
who have recently left the corporate world with encore career
opportunities in the nonprofit sector. We were selected by Hewlett-Packard
(our former employer) to be among the first group of Encore Fellows.
The program is part of a growing social trend of people completing
their midlife careers and seeking out "encore careers" - significant
new work assignments that offer greater meaning, societal impact
and continued income. It is like a Teach for America or AmeriCorps
program for mid-career people. It has received a great deal of
attention as an innovative and timely approach to infusing human
capital into the social sector.
2. Why have you chosen encore careers?
Lyle: After long, rewarding careers at Hewlett-Packard,
we knew we wanted to do something different and something with
greater meaning. We have done a variety of volunteer work, and
we've operated our own informal youth jobs program, arranging
odd jobs and working side-by-side with local high school and college
students to teach them work skills. This initiative gives us a
deeper, more structured experience in an encore career in the
social sector.
Leslye: So this is a bit of an experiment
for us to see if we can succeed in an entirely new field at this
point of our lives. Having an Encore Fellowship is a great opportunity
to transition to something new and exciting. We were honored to
be selected and it is a special privilege to be in the first pilot
group - we really want this to work and grow into a successful
national service program for former corporate employees wanting
to do meaningful social work. All of our good friends from our
HP days are watching our experience with interest and are proud
that HP is a founding sponsor of this pilot initiative.
3. Why did you choose to work with Partners in
School Innovation?
Leslye: Through Civic Ventures we got a chance
to consider ten organizations in the educational and environmental
fields. We chose PartnersSI because of the high caliber of the
people we met in our interview, our desire to be in the educational
field, and a good fit between our skills and the needs expressed
by PartnersSI. We wanted to have an impact but also learn something
new, and PartnersSI offered that.
4. What are you supporting PartnersSI to do?
Leslye: We have several projects in the communications
area working with their Director of Development & External Relations
and a big deliverable in the performance management prototype
system working with their Organizational Learning & Effectiveness
Team. Both are substantial challenges, and we have some relevant
experience. We are also working with the Executive Director and
the organization's leadership team to strengthen some management
practices. We think it's important to leave a lasting contribution.
5. What have been the greatest highlights and
challenges of your work so far?
Lyle: We spent the first few weeks mostly
in learning mode! But by month two we started to gain some good
momentum in putting together a video for the upcoming 15th Anniversary
Celebration event, participating in some fund raising work, scoping
out the performance management system and doing some basic data
analysis work. So it's been fun and exactly what we had hoped
for. We've especially enjoyed getting to know a whole new group
of people with great passion for education reform and for social
justice.
Leslye: Our biggest challenge is grasping
the complexity of the field of public education and how many levers
are outside your control. Our prior experience was in running
large businesses at HP, where we had direct control of resources
and decisions and our metrics were more directly in our line of
sight. We learn something new every day.
6. What impact do you want to leave at PartnersSI?
Leslye: Well, our goal is to build capacity
that will help PartnersSI on a sustained basis. So, after we're
gone, we hope they are using a new performance management system,
including the tools and processes. We hope they are spending more
time using the data to refine their program and actions instead
of time spent gathering and cleaning up the raw data. Also, that
they will be using the communications materials on their website,
brochures, videos, fund raising proposals and in conversations
with district leaders.
7. What are you learning from working with PartnersSI
about education reform?
Lyle: First of all, we are learning that
education reform is a huge and complex challenge, with no easy
answer. At the same time, we can see numerous initiatives - including
PartnersSI's - that are showing encouraging results on a local
or regional scale and have the potential to expand. We are learning
about the philosophies and methodologies behind the PartnersSI
model, and can also see how vital it is to have exceptional on-site
change agents working directly on systemic transformation.
8. How does PartnersSI compare to the other sponsoring
organizations?
Leslye: PartnersSI is very similar to many
of the other sponsoring organizations in terms of size, geographic
scope, and range of activity. Many of the other organizations
are in the education field operating as charter schools, education
foundations and suppliers of surplus educational materials. PartnersSI
is really impressive in terms of the caliber of its people and
the thoughtfulness of its approach. The Civic Ventures program
team did a good job in qualifying organizations that were well-suited
to sponsoring an Encore Fellow for a year.
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The Silicon Valley Encore Initiative is part
of Civic Ventures' Encore Careers campaign, which aims to
engage millions of boomers in encore careers, providing personal
fulfillment doing paid work and producing a windfall of human
talent to solve society's greatest problems. Civic Ventures
is a think tank on boomers, work and social purpose. For more
information, visit the website. |
Articles in this issue (Spring 2009):
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