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Winter 2012 Issue:

Personal Reflection on Complexity and Leadership: With the year coming to a close, I am taking this opportunity to pause and reflect on how we can continue to sustain our work in the future. Our jobs are more complex and emergent. Prior routines are no longer effective; it is more difficult to predict the course of our work and funding; and there is too much information, too much to do, and more and more people we need to engage.

The Network Leadership Innovation Lab Prepares to Launch: The Network Leadership Innovation Lab deepens our understanding of leadership in movement networks. Developed by the Management Assistance Group, the Lab is a program of dialogue, analysis, and active learning that convenes social justice leaders and taps key thinkers, practitioners and funders. The Lab stimulates innovative thinking and identifies ways to support leaders who operate at the intersection of organizations and networks, and who see both as integral to strong movements and greater impact. It is a vibrant space for learning, enabling leaders to create practices for network leadership that will inform leaders, practitioners, trainers, and funders.

Network Leadership Innovation Lab Spotlight on Eveline Shen at Forward Together: MAG is excited to share with you the second of three in-depth case stories that seek to better understand the leadership required in networks and the contexts that aid success. The subject of this case is Eveline Shen, Executive Director of Forward Together. Forward Together evolved from Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, changing its programs, geographic scope, and role in the reproductive justice movement. In addition, Forward Together staffs Strong Families, a fast-growing network that currently includes 70 organizations and 12,000 individuals across multiple movements

Welcoming the Newest Member of Our MAG Team: MAG continues to grow in order to better serve our clients and advance our work strengthening the social justice sector. We are proud to take this opportunity to introduce you to the newest member of our team. This fall, MAG welcomed Pam Sysiuk to the staff as our Finance and Operations Coordinator.

Donate to MAG's Subsidy Fund: Economic justice. Immigrant rights. Reproductive justice. Environmental protection.On issue after issue, the stakes are high. Our clients tell us that to be successful we need to continue building strong, focused, high-functioning organizations and leaders. And to reach the power and scale we need to fully realize our purpose, we must also reach out across organizational boundaries and building lasting networks. Our clients are hungry for better ways of working as individual leaders, within their organizations, and across organizations in broader movement and network spaces. And they need your help.

Fall 2012 Issue:

New Case Study: Sarita Gupta and Network Leadership: MAG is excited to share with you the first of three in-depth case stories that seek to better understand the leadership required in networks and the contexts that aid success. The subject of this first case is Sarita Gupta of Jobs with Justice.

Spring 2012 Issue

How MAG Went from a Bricks & Mortar Office to a Virtual One: Last year, MAG did something pretty unusual for the nonprofit sector. After 30 years, we got rid of our office space and every staff person started working from their home offices. It took a while to make this decision, but in the end, MAG felt that our mission and our clients would be better.
Welcome the Newest Members of our MAG Team: MAG has been growing in 2012 in order to better serve our clients and advance our work strengthening the social justice sector. I am proud to take this opportunity to introduce you to the newest members of our team.
MAG is Hiring: We’d like your help in finding the best candidates for a new mid-level position at MAG -- a full-time Program Manager.

Fall 2011 Issue

Welcoming MAG’s New Direction and Robin Katcher as Managing Director: Recently MAG engaged in a reflection and strategy development process on how to best strengthen social justice efforts. We concluded that the traditional framework of organizational development needs to be adapted and changed if significant progressive political strength is to be built in the US.

A MAG Reflection: A Call for Something More: Our clients seem to be working harder and faster than ever before, and yet the daily lives of their constituencies are generally getting worse. We need to up our game, rethink how we do our work, and take our work to a new level.

Tribute to Inca A. Mohamed: We cannot acknowledge enough the unique contribution Inca has made in the lives of staff and clients as Executive Director. We can only continue to be excited about the impact Inca will have as she continues her work in the world with MAG clients as an Associate Consultant.

Fall 2009 Issue

If the Buddha Was a Fundraiser: In these challenging economic times, it is easy to become discouraged about fundraising. Yet it's precisely at times like these that we need access to our best thinking and the ability to create perspectives that empower us. If the Buddha was a fundraiser, how might he help us learn to do that?

Letter from Inca: Helping Leaders Manage Complexity and Change: As nonprofits face increasingly complex and changing environments, they are calling upon their leaders to be and provide something more to address these new situations. So how do we stretch our leadership style in order to be effective, adaptive, and authentic - as we continue to do all that we've already been doing?

Summer 2009 Issue

What's Power Got To Do With It? Owning Your Power As a Manager: Fundamentally our work - the work of social justice - is about power. Many of us entered social justice work because we were outraged by the harm caused by misuse or abuse of power. Since we have seen power used so badly, many of us, in our roles as managers, are uncomfortable with power and want to disassociate ourselves with it. As a result, we managers often fail to acknowledge or take responsibility for how much power we have - in our own organizations, over our own staff. So how can we, as managers, acknowledge and responsibly exercise our formal power and avoid abusing it?

Letter from Inca: Partnering With Clients to Serve Them in Tough Times: Many of you have contacted MAG seeking guidance as you wrestle with tough choices that call into question aspects of your organization's traditional ways of working. You're looking for immediate affordable solutions that don't compromise future effectiveness and sustainability. And so we, here at MAG, are...

Spring 2009 Issue

Tools You Can Use: Finding Opportunity in Crisis: An executive director of a leading national advocacy organization captured the conflicted mood enveloping the nonprofit community:"I feel this wonderful optimism about new political openings mixed with a great sense of anxiety about the economy." How can we responsibly deal with the repercussions of the economic crisis while at the same time take maximum advantage of the new political opportunities to advance our mission and goals?

Letter from Inca: Weighed Down by Stressful Times? If and how you take care of yourself has a big impact on your ability to lead your organization through new territory and change. So, for the good of the organization, how's a busy weighed-down executive director going to practice self-care?