The Jameson Fellowship fosters collaboration amongst the various social sectors to influence compassion, unity, and enhance leadership skills to construct impactful change. Often operating in silos and rarely having the time to connect with one another, the Jameson Fellowship creates a culture of cohesion and trust amongst community leaders. With an alumnus of nearly 300 members, Fellows learn about the power of collective impact, teamwork, trust, and collaboration.
A Letter from Dr. Gard Jameson
Dear Friend,
In teamwork with my friend Julie Murray and her team at Moonridge, we have gathered and developed an opportunity to show up in a new way in our community, the way of compassion. After early research into our community, it was discovered that we, like so many communities, operated in siloes of isolated activity for the welfare of the community. With the help of Pierre and Pam Omidyar, founders of eBay, the community enlisted the wisdom of Richard Harwood of the Harwood Institute, to imagine a better way forward. Out of those whispering conversations, the Jameson Fellowship was born.
The idea and ideal is to foster a community in which trusting and deepening relationships may come forth not only within the various sectors of the community, but, most importantly, between those sectors. Among the sectors identified were: Workforce, Human Services, Healthcare, Environment (Natural & Built), Arts & Cultures, and Education. The idea is that better solutions to community issues arise from a Collective Impact approach, than a siloed approach. As one community leader put in, “It is hard for a child with a toothache to study!”
So, year by year, cohort by cohort, there has been an attempt to reduce isolation and amplify connections embedded with a quality of trust! The hope is that a collaborative team spirit might come forth leading to more and more informed collective impact approaches to community issues. The work of Parker Palmer, with the ideal of forming Circles of Trust, has been employed to help invite deeper levels of relationship, connecting soul to role.
A leadership summit is employed as the leading edge event of each cohort which is then informed by leadership classes in public speaking and presentation and the development of trust. A coach for each cohort member is employed to assist each person on their personal journey of self-development and realization.
The primary value that has been instilled with each cohort is that of compassion. Compassion is the social/emotional awareness of difficulty within a community with a certain resolve to be of assistance in a dynamically active manner. The Fellowship exists in relationship to a worldwide network of cities and communities who have likewise set compassion as their North Star through the Charter of Compassion. As a collective value, compassion has the capacity to galvanize a community and its resources to be its best self. The Chinese sage Confucius identified compassion, wisdom, and courage as the three prerequisites to real community!
As a personal value, compassion leads to peacemaking. Peacemaking is the foundation of real civilization. Compassion has the ability to transform the person, by bringing that person into meaningful relationships with the larger community. Peacemaking reduces prejudice, bias, and bigotry by affirming the intrinsic value of each and every person. When each person takes responsibility to be a peacemaker, a way forward appears.
Thank you for your consideration of this experiment in compassion, trust and peacemaking, We invite you to join us in this endeavor bib learning more about compassion, trust, and peacemaking. We invite you, whether you are a part of a cohort or not, to dedicate your life to being a compassionate peacemaker.
Blessings,
Gard Jameson
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