Evolving Minds Partners With The Greater Sum to Bring Connection Trainings to Early-Stage Nonprofit Innovators
Beginning in May, Evolving Minds will launch a partnership with The Greater Sum, a foundation that helps early-stage nonprofit innovators succeed with training, connections, grants, and assistance.
In order to give these early-stage innovators the tools they need to build healthy work cultures at their newly-formed organizations, Evolving Minds will offer a series of three Connection Trainings for The Greater Sum’s nonprofit grantees.
This partnership marks the beginning of Evolving Minds’ foray into a new industry: foundations and philanthropies. Workplace mental health and well-being training is vitally important in this field as nonprofit leaders nationwide grapple with staff burnout. A recent National Council of Nonprofits survey found half of 1,600+ nonprofit respondents reported stress and burnout as a top reason for staff vacancies.
Our trainings with The Greater Sum
Our trainings with The Greater Sum will consist of one 90-minute session on social connection, one 90-minute session on workplace mental health, and one 90-minute session on team-building. In total, grantees will do four and a half hours of training with Evolving Minds.
These Connection Trainings are designed to teach the building blocks of workplace well-being in a short period of time. The sessions include:
Social connection at work (90 minutes)
In this Connection Training, participants practice resilience skills that foster coworker trust and empathy, learn about the benefits of social connection at work, and brainstorm tangible ideas for creating community in their workplace.
Workplace mental health & well-being (90 minutes)
In this Connection Training, participants practice resilience skills that build social support and belonging, learn the components of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Workplace Mental Health and Well-being Framework, and gain an understanding of the risks of poor workplace mental health, as outlined by the World Health Organization.
Team-building (90 minutes)
In this Connection Training, participants practice resilience skills that boost camaraderie, increase team engagement, and improve communication through interactive sharing circles, immersive breakout discussions, and hands-on experiential skills learning.
Each Connection Training will engage participants in meaningful small and large group discussions to share key learnings, build community, and increase social connectedness through the practice of evidence-based resilience skills.
The importance of training the next generation of nonprofit leaders
The Greater Sum’s grantees are all nonprofits working to create positive change in the world through new, innovative means. Issues grantees work on range from reducing gender-based violence to helping people with brain injuries use smart devices, to strengthening disadvantaged communities by investing in literary and performing arts.
These grantees are the next generation of nonprofit leaders. By teaching them the foundational aspects of workplace mental health when their organizations are in the early stages, a culture of care becomes part of their foundational values and remains part of the organization for years to come.
In addition to instilling these values, workplace mental health and well-being training also builds lasting trust between a philanthropy organization like The Greater Sum and its grantees. When grantees know that a foundation prioritizes their well-being and puts people first, it creates an environment of mutual support, making the foundation less of a patron and more of a partner.