Cancer-Free Economy

We worked with really great, committed, inspiring leaders.

In 2013, I was part of the Garfield Foundation team that evaluated the semi-finalists and recommended the finalists. The Garfield board chose the winner.

I spent 2014 in two roles:

• Capacity-building for the network
• On the leadership team primarily as an advisor, although I ended up playing a lot of backup

I resigned from the project at the end of 2014.

Design Approach

• Modeled strong group information hygiene practices from the beginning
• Intention was to build in capacity-building right from the start
• Participatory design process
• Emphasis on developing a shared understanding of the system together

Lessons Learned

• Team did not have a strong, shared, rigorous theory of change, and we did not invest in building it. There were minor successes in practicing together, but for the most part, we neglected it, and we suffered as a result. There were a lot of unnecessarily bad meetings. Had to give up on the capacity-building early, because we were not on the same page about its role and what it would look like.
• We did not invest in a strong container up-front, and the start was very bumpy and slow as a result.
• Commitment to storytelling was the first to go as things started going south
• Questionable collective ownership over the final map