Becoming a Social Entrepreneur After a Facilitation Career

Over the last 3 months I’ve conducted, with the help of about 10 beloved and skilled facilitation colleagues, 4 Focus Groups and 2 interviews of women doing eco-work. We are calling these women eco-femmes, because they are women leading the way in planetary healing.  Our Damiana ecosystem is meant to nourish, resource and uplift women devoted to earth stewardship.  The Focus Groups were meant to find out how to do this.

Below I share how we designed the Focus Groups and what the results are so far in broad strokes. Teh research has confirmed we are very much on target. Women are delighted to hear of what we are proposing to offer them. We have established good connections with some excited-about-us-philanthropists which will hopefully soon result in sustainable funding.  In the short term we need some interim financing to begin to assemble the technical and graphic design team, customize the digital portal, etc.  If you are able to donate any amount to this project, we would be very grateful. Thank you for considering this. All donors will get updates and invitations to webinars, etc.

How did we conduct our Focus Groups? 

First be very clear on what we needed to find out – in ToP language we call these rational and experiential aims.

The Rational aims included:

• Discovering what has been going well and key challenges for women doing this work
• Determining specific categories of support needed by eco-femmes globally

Experiential aims included:

• Gaining confidence in what we offer with the Damiana initiative
• Creating a valuable experience even if we relate to any particular participant only once.
• Creating connections for women doing complimentary work in various parts of the world

Who, Where and What:

• 17 eco-femmes have participated (including founder) in Focus Groups of 2-5 women or individual interviews to date. Over 1/3 are of Indigenous heritage.
• We have a data base of 100+ global eco-femmes and are building it to undertake a survey and some “virtual tea-parties” to build connections, excitement about collaborating, and more detailed understanding of needs
• Places where our eco-femmes participants to date do their eco-work include: Nepal, Mexico, USA, Taiwan, Philippines/Netherlands, Canada, Nigeria, UK/Spain, Thailand, Malaysia/Singapore, Sri Lanka, Caribbean, Central America, other areas of Europe and East Asia. (18+ areas)
• Areas of eco-work of the participants to date include: UN SDG (sustainable development inner and outer goals) game for educating youth and community leaders; Regenerative Businesses; mapping community sustainability; working in the intersection of climate change, gender violence and community leadership; fostering frontline community solutions to climate; traditional eco-knowledge and caribou harvesting; youth, community and women empowerment/engagement in pollution/climate issues; water purification of contaminated rivers; Neighborhood climate action forums; sharing eco- village learning with focus on Indigenous ways of living with nature; agri-forestry for future food systems; conservation finance and land regeneration in the palm oil industry; climate mitigation policy, climate justice and adaptation; ocean conservation; water and trash clean-up; using art, creativity and culture to raise awareness of sustainability, etc.

What we asked and what they said:

We asked the participants four questions, after they introduced themselves and their work (Objective level). We used small break out groups when the group was larger than 4. We had them share stories, and took care to create safety. We took notes of every person’s answer on a collaborative white board, Mural. We then clustered the common answers and found themes for each question. Below I give a VERY quick summary of the results of each question. I’m sharing this with you in case you know or are an eco-femme yourself. Please write to us and let us know what we have missed. FYI, we used a Mural collaborative white board to document responses, and then the ToP consensus workshop method to build the categories/themes to their responses.

Our first question was, “Where do eco-femmes find hope and impact?” It was amazing to hear that youth are engaging in many parts of the world, that lands are being regenerated, and people who have experienced climate change are becoming more resilient.

Next, we asked, “What challenges are eco-women facing?” They said that the enormity of the challenge makes it difficult to stay hopeful. They don’t always know if they are making a difference. Many of the leaders in the movement become temporarily unavailable when a climate disaster affects their communities and many of them felt they were not taken seriously and isolated.

Our third question was, “What are ways you’d like to amplify your work without increasing stress?” They came up with so many ways they could use support, that we have categorized them into 3 different areas with many sub categories. Note, we are still revising this draft of categories. Thank you to Elaine Chan, China for creating this first draft.

The final question was, “What could you give back so other eco-women could gain skills from your experiences?” Interestingly, almost every one of the needs listed above was something the women participating in the focus groups and interviews, were willing to give back. They came up with at least 50 different ways they could give back including things such as:

• project planning
• a shoulder to cry on
• movement and meditation practices
• storytelling about lessons learned
• graphic and improv techniques
• working with social media

Many were interested in becoming skilled in facilitation and community engagement techniques.

What have we missed?

Please share anything you know about friends and colleagues doing this work. Let me know if you would like to be involved in the project either giving back to women in this project, facilitating, or helping with the research phases and/or funding.

Another final learning …

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, several of my colleagues helped me with these Focus Groups. Thank you Sunny, Rosanna, Elaine, Yoyo, Farah, Kathleen, Grace, Lyn, Rangineh, and Eileen. Many scribed, acted as tech producers or monitored the chat. Three of us facilitated these focused groups.  I watched with delight as Rangineh and Eileen facilitated with distinct and subtle differences from me. They had such animation, authenticity, calming, laughter and skill in keeping the pace going. I was so happy to be taking notes and admiring their deep skill. What I learned is each of us have different styles and yet can be so effective. If you feel you lack style, don’t worry, just be yourself and you’ll get the results you need.

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Oh, and here is the video I promised in the sidebar (newsletter) about how I got started as an entrepreneur in facilitation…