As a recent recipient of Diverse Leaders funding from the NewSchools Venture Fund (NSVF) we were invited to participate in our first Summit this past May. We were so elated to meet the other people and organizations that are a part of the NSVF network of education leaders, policy makers, funders, and entrepreneurs that are actively engaged in innovative projects that are reimagining learning so that every student, in every neighborhood, is prepared to achieve their most ambitious dreams and plans. While there we learned two key lessons that I want to share with you!

Summit Lesson 1: Network is Vital

As we were making plans to go to sessions, a Summit OG – someone who had visited quite a few times – stopped us and asked if we had set up any one-on-one meetings. Sheepishly we answer no. She quickly let us know that that was a rookie mistake. We needed to be focused on leveraging the new level of direct access we had to such a powerful network. The veterans of the conference spent less time in any of the sessions and more time in the Atrium making connections with the other 1,299 leaders from across the country. “The Atrium” was the akin to “The Tree”, “ The Steps”, or the “The Lawn” on any college campus the first day of warm weather. Ongoing meetings where attendees shared about their businesses and projects with others to see how each could help, connect, or inform the other. Some people were literally parked in same spot all day and the people sitting across from them changed out like a revolving door. This is where the magic literally happened from 6am to well after 10pm as Summit attendees who had swapped cards earlier held longer meetings with future board members, partners, associates, and funders. While intimidating at first, we quickly warmed up as folks were eager to talk to us and we figured out how to “make the ask” of some people and organizations that could be totally transformational as our organization matures. We also learned how much we had to offer others as well as one of the few present with an extensive background in special education. We would have totally missed all this NSVF network magic without the insight and guidance from Summit veterans in our own Diverse Leaders portfolio network.

Summit Lesson 2: Build Conscious Intentional Community 

Community of Practice (Monday and Tuesday)
These 2 day sessions were an additional component of Summit for ventures within the NSVF portfolio. The communities are Diverse Leaders, Ed Tech, and Innovative Schools. During these sessions there were various high-impact activities for participants to engage with each other and complimentary organizations to develop, build, and exchange knowledge and information. This included sharing and solving problems of practice, work-shopping grant proposals with funders, visiting businesses that have innovation/futurist concepts in place (i.e. a restaurant where all the servers were robots), panels to discuss fundraising as a person of color, and private time (and training) to talk to potential funders. Our Diverse Leaders Community of Practice even hosted an intimate reception with potential donors that have money specifically earmarked for diversity and education focused projects. It was such a powerful experience to get to work with like-minded leaders in a non-competitive space, despite funders being present, to share not only our successes but also our struggles or “areas of growth” and have people going through similar to affirm and/or offer their support and insight.

Group Exercise &Affinity Breakfast (Wednesday)
NSVF values sustaining leaders in this important work. They opened the Summit with several opportunities for self-care. The day started at 6am with the choice of yoga or a 5K and then there were at least two ethnicity-based affinity group breakfasts that started at 6:45am. While we did not take advantage of the run or yoga, there were plenty folks that did. We did however go to the affinity Breakfast. Martrice and I went to the “Sustaining Black Leadership” one and Yaritza attended the “Latino’s in Education” breakfast. At both events, top executives that have been involved with NSVF shared their experiences as leaders of color, provided nuggets of wisdom to navigate the day, and led us in deep conversations aimed at connecting and challenging us all together in this work. It was placed on the table the need to have these sacred places, the need advocate unapologetically for diversity and more importantly, INCLUSION in leadership within our organizations, and how to intentionally increase the amount of people of color receiving NSVF funding.

Advance Screening: America to Me
We were privy to an episode of a great Sundance film that has been recently picked up by STARZ that follows students and staff in a Chicago high school that while very diverse, still struggles with issues of racial inequity and academic opportunity gaps. The 10-part documentary series titled, America to Me, will be featured on STARZ soon but NSVF hosted a viewing along with a panel of its filmmakers, school leaders, a student, and a school board member to start the discussion of what we can do as Diverse Leaders, EdTech, and Innovative Schools to intentionally challenge the systems that create the issues highlighted by the film. After hearing from the panel, watching the clips, and participating in the discussion, all I can say is WOW and make sure you have STARZ when this drops. Watch the trailer.

Bottom line

Invest in building relationships at the personal and profession level. Summit is safe space to grow and build. Everyone there believes in making education better for the future generations and recognizes we all are vital parts of the solution – no one is a lone actor.