As you know, ivoh’s Board of trustees and I are dedicated to empowering you, as strengths-based media (SBM) practitioners, with the tools you need to create media that connects, uplifts, and activates. With that goal guiding us, we spent our annual retreat weekend this month (the first since I joined as executive director) considering how to best do that. After careful and thoughtful discussions (and fun! see photo above), we concluded that revitalizing and scaling our programs for impact and sustainability is the first step. Committing to that focus unfortunately requires some temporary, short-term changes this year.
Two of our programs will be on hold (but are not going away!):
- Instead of hosting our annual Summit & Retreat for 2018, we will be convening a smaller meeting to help us design a strategic movement toward strengths-based media. We know this is a big disappointment to many of you who hold this space on your calendar every year, but we promise your patience will be rewarded with a bold plan of action.
- We’re delaying the next class of Restorative Narrative Fellows while we enhance the program and reach out to organizational partners so we can bring the training to an even larger and more diverse group of strengths-based media makers.
Over the last year or so, many of you have expressed an interest in replicating ivoh’s unique approach in your communities and I look forward to being in touch with you in the coming weeks so we continue to build this local capacity. Please also look for periodic email communications about our progress organizationally and progress in the field toward SBM, opportunities to provide your input, and other ways to be involved in building a strategic SBM movement. And finally, we’ll be highlighting–here and on social media–the good work our previous classes of Restorative Narrative Fellows, and our other friends, are doing.
I’m excited and eager to work together to create media that moves us toward a collective sense of hope and drives us to make changes in the world.
Please feel free to reach out to me by email or connect with me on Twitter. I’d love to hear from you.