The Future of Our Community

Email to: All Ambassadors on 2/25/2022

Subject: The Future of Our Community

From: Mario Morino

If you prefer, you may download this letter.

I’m writing to present an opportunity for you, the Leap Ambassadors, to determine and own the future of the Leap Ambassadors Community (LAC). I hope you will read this letter and referenced overview in their entirety, as it may be the most important communication I’ve sent to this impressive group of leaders.

In October 2019, we introduced a Strategy for Change, outlined our rollout plans for 2020, and confirmed the community’s current operations will be funded by Morino Ventures and facilitated by the Leap support team through 2023. Click here to learn more. Please note that the pandemic changed our timelines and significantly impacted our ability to respond as quickly as we would have liked.

But now we’re ready to help the LAC move forward with planning for life after 2023. We’ve provisionally named this planning effort the Leap Futures Initiative (LFI). You can view the details here. As you’ll see, the purpose of the LFI is to help the LAC map out scenarios to become a sustainable, self-governed entity. We’re now in the process of retaining an outstanding facilitator to manage this process. We’ll have more to report shortly.

Since its 2013 founding, the LAC has grown to 300+ leaders aligned around the mission of improving performance in the social sector. Many of you have been wonderful contributors. What truly distinguishes the LAC from other learning communities of leaders is the quality of member interaction, depth of relationships, and extent of collaborative development—all made possible by your engagement and the community’s heterogeneity. Leaders come from different types of organizations, bring different expertise across all seven pillars of the Performance Imperative, and represent broad demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, and geography). This wide array of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives contributes to the LAC’s creativity, empathy, and effectiveness.

Now it’s up to you to determine if there’s enough value, interest, conviction, and support to continue operations beyond 2023. To this end, the facilitator and Leap support team will reach out to all ambassadors over the next several months to gauge whether you want to participate in this process. If there’s a lukewarm response, that’s fine; the community could celebrate what it’s achieved and then gracefully sunset operations by 2024. But my hope is that a substantial number of ambassadors will be eager to participate in the LFI process and make the Leap Community an even more vibrant one that’s member-driven and -owned. If you already know that you’d like to do so, please click here to let us know.

To be transparent, I do not intend to participate in the LFI process, for three reasons: 1) You have to define the LAC’s future, 2) I don’t want to interfere or skew the process, and 3) I’m stepping away from my work in the social sector. But I will fund the operations of the community through 2023, and I will fund the facilitator’s work (as defined in the Leap Futures Initiative Overview).

I continue to believe fervently in the LAC and its promise for the future.

I’m incredibly grateful to all of you who have put your faith in this community model.

Sincerely,

Mario Morino