Art by Anne Bentley

June 2023

Dear friends,

We love the month of June (our birthday month!) and all the ways it shouts “both/and.” Both/and because June is Gemini season, symbolized by twins given a Gemini’s duality and adaptability. Both/and because the season of summer officially begins, and we embrace longer days and shorter nights. Both/and because of bittersweet transitions as the school year ends and graduations are celebrated. Both/and because of bright sun and soaking rain. Both/and because even after the hardest days, we see fireflies bravely shining their light in the darkness and feel encouraged. 

As we begin the summer season, we are excited to celebrate Juneteenth, Pride, and the International Day of Purpose – see resources below.  We look forward to diving into new partnerships, continuing our learning, and taking time for restoration and reflection. And we are leaving ourselves open to the sun and the rain, because we need them both to grow. We wish you a summer of growth, rest, and continuing to lean into the both/and.

Join us!

Collective Conversations: Midsummer’s Pause

We’d love to take a Midsummer’s Pause with you! Please join us for our next Collective Conversation on Tuesday, July 18th from 11 AM – 12 PM ET.  We’ll be at the halfway point of both the summer season and the calendar year. So we’ll take a collective pause to reflect on where we are and what we’re loving this summer and to set intentions, whether for the rest of the season or the rest of the year.

Please grab a cup of coffee or tea (iced!) and join us for this informal conversation. We hope to see you there.

Partner Spotlight

Jovian Zayne, International Day of Purpose

We are always inspired by our colleague and friend, Jovian Zayne, founder of the International Day of Purpose, and invite you to join us in celebrating the 2023 International Day of Purpose® on Tuesday, June 20th!

Each year, The International Day of Purpose invites us to reflect on our sense of purpose and how we can be more intentional in how we live. This year’s theme “Gather, OnPurpose!” is a call to meaningfully connect with one another – a way for us to confront the epidemic of loneliness and mental health challenges posed by the pandemic.

Visit dayofpurpose.org to download resources from The OnPurpose Movement to curate your meaningful connections and be sure to share your experience by tagging @dayofpurpose and #dayofpurpose.

For more information reach out to [email protected] or visit dayofpurpose.org.

Client Spotlight

Heights Philadelphia

We had an amazing time partnering with Heights Philadelphia this winter and spring. Heights Philadelphia was created in December from the merger of Steppingstone Scholars and Philadelphia Futures. During this time of significant change, Heights Philadelphia was committed to supporting the growth and development of their leaders. 

We designed and facilitated a series of customized trainings for both new and seasoned managers to align on a management purpose and framework and to build skill in foundational management competencies. We loved working side by side with Heights Philadelphia leaders to help develop their new managers into thoughtful, effective people leaders. 

“This training series was engaging, informative, and illuminating. I loved the flow and pacing of the conversation as well as the opportunities for real world application.”

Participant in Heights Manager Training

If you’re seeking support to help grow and develop your managers, please reach out to discuss how we can partner with you!

June Reading Recommendations

Reflections on Juneteenth & Pride

We’re excited to dive into these books and resources this summer as we navigate transitions and move through change.

Our Summer Reading List

Management in a Changing World by Jakada Imani, Monna Wong, and Bex Ahuja

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Inciting Joy by Ross Gay

Gratitude

In this season we’re thankful for all of the teachers, administrators, coaches and mentors who encourage, challenge, and inspire students every day. Your work is hugely important and deeply appreciated.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

Image Credit: Photo by Kobzev3179 on IStock

December 2022

Dear friends,

We’re grateful that this past year – our first full year as partners at Illuminate Collective – has felt abundant. We are partnering with inspiring, mission-driven clients while also spending meaningful time with family and friends and celebrating important milestones. But we have also been reminded of how challenging it can be to create space and margin for ourselves. The conditioning of our culture can lead all of us to believe that we need to be more productive, say yes to more things, and never stop hustling toward the next finish line. We are challenging ourselves to be intentional about noticing and shifting that programming.

When we feel ourselves being pulled into a swirl of urgency and overwhelm, what helps us most is the power of the pause. Simply pausing to take one deep breath can shift how we’re showing up. In our workshops, we always begin with a “Pause, Notice and Breathe” exercise to help everyone slow down, center in the moment, and pay attention. When we slow down, we can reconnect with the “why” of the work. We can create space for more voices and new ideas. We can get to know each others’ stories. We can respond instead of react. We can imagine something different. We can rest when we need to.

We’ve learned from Black women leaders like Tricia Hersey, who names rest as an act of resistance and a “deep unraveling from white supremacy and capitalism” and Aiko Bethea, who shared in a recent Dare to Lead podcast episode that the opposite of creating space is defaulting to the status quo. We’ve learned from our collective partners who model setting boundaries and creating space for rest and restoration in their practice. We’ve learned from our clients, who have experienced the benefits of slowing down and resisting urgency in their work.

As always, we’re seeking to live in the “both/and.” We can slow down and make a deeper impact. We can slow down and get further than we thought we would. Here’s to taking a pause, making space, and seeing what magic we experience in the coming year.

Join us!

Collective Conversations: New Year Reflections

Friday, January 6th from 3 PM – 4 PM ET – We’d love to welcome in the new year with you! Please join us to ease into 2023 in community and with intention. We’ll reflect on our learning and growth over the past year and share thoughts on stepping into a new season with grace and space.

Please grab a cup of coffee or tea and join us for this informal conversation. We hope to see you there!

White Leaders Working on Antiracism

Registration is now open for the winter cohort of White Leaders Working on Antiracism. This winter we’ll be meeting weekly from January 24th through February 15th from 7 – 8:45 PM ET.

Over two years ago, we partnered with our colleagues at Leading Elephants, with advisory support from Lesley Brown Rawlings of Beloved Community, to create this learning and accountability space for white leaders. Since then, more than 200 people have participated in this series, engaging in the inner work that is foundational to taking informed, antiracist action. If you are a white or white presenting leader seeking a space to reflect, process, and practice, please consider joining us.

Partner Spotlight

Chelsea Kasen-Kells of Meditative Coloring

This month we’re highlighting Chelsea Kasen-Kells, creator of Meditative Coloring. Meditative Coloring is a simple and gentle way to build emotional literacy and tap into your intuition. And, yes! – it’s really as simple as coloring anything you want to color on a blank piece of paper. To learn more about Meditative Coloring you can purchase the Meditative Coloring eBook or join a Virtual Workshop.

In addition to teaching meditation, Chelsea is a brilliant marketing professional and content creator, and we are grateful to have her partnership to help us create this newsletter and dabble with our social media. We are slowing down to participate in our own Meditative Coloring session with Chelsea before the break and will share our reflections soon!

Reading, Listening, Learning: 2022 Favorites

We’re excited to dive into these books and resources this summer as we navigate transitions and move through change.

Favorite Non-Fiction

How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith

Favorite PD Resource

The PD Book: 7 Habits That Transform Professional Development by Elena Aguilar and Lori Cohen

Gratitude

This year we’ve been able to do work we love with partners we care about. And we’ve done it as a team, which was our hope and dream in the fall of 2021. We are so deeply thankful for the relationships we’ve built and the spaces we’ve created with this community. We wish you a wonderful, restful winter break with the people you love.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

Image Credit: Photo by Wout Vanacker on Unsplash

September 2022

Dear friends,

As we send this, we are once again sitting in the both/and. We are celebrating that one year ago today Illuminate Collective was born. And we are sitting with the heavy news of the destruction caused by hurricanes Fiona and now Ian over the past week. Our hearts go out to all who have been impacted, and to those preparing for Ian’s continued path.

This experience of simultaneously sitting with what is joyful and what is difficult is central to the human experience. At Illuminate Collective, we believe that we have to do both in order to live fully and authentically. We have been grateful to be able to hold the space to do that for ourselves and for our clients in our first year together.

As most of you know, our name was chosen with intention. We are Illuminate because we believe in shining a light on our strengths and successes, while also acknowledging the shadows and opportunities for growth. We are a Collective because we know that we are better together. It is in community and partnership that we lean into new challenges, expand each other’s thinking, and deepen both our learning and our impact. We’ve reflected many times over the past few months about how much we’ve accomplished this year that we could not have done alone. We look forward to continued collaboration with our partners and clients in the year ahead!

Join us!

Collective Conversation: The Power of Working Together

Tuesday, October 18th from 11 AM – 12 PM EST – As we kick off our one year anniversary celebration, we will be reflecting on how the power of partnership has deepened our work experience and our impact. We invite you to join us in this conversation along with one of our favorite Collective partners, Natalie Basham, in our next Collective Conversation on Tuesday, October 18th.

Please grab a cup of coffee, bring a friend or work partner, and join us for this informal conversation about the power of partnership.

White Leaders Working on Antiracism

Registration is now open for the fall and winter cohorts of White Leaders Working on Antiracism.

In the summer of 2020, we partnered with our colleagues at Leading Elephants, with advisory support from Lesley Brown Rawlings of Beloved Community, to create a learning and accountability space for white leaders. Over the past two years, more than 200 people have participated in this series, engaging in the inner work that is foundational to taking informed, antiracist action. If you are a white leader seeking a space to reflect, process, and practice, please consider joining us.

Pennsylvania Conference for Women 2022

You don’t have to be in Pennsylvania to attend the PA Women’s Conference on October 6th and 7th, as there is a virtual option on the 7th! Join amazing speakers such as Jane Fonda, Yara Shahidi, D-Nice, Austin Channing Brown, and more. Marion is excited to serve as a leadership coach at the conference!

Partner Spotlight

Loa Cover & coLeague

Earlier this month, our good friend and brilliant talent leader Lora Cover launched coLeague. We’re excited to celebrate Lora’s work, which is rooted in a commitment to building and developing teams where everyone can thrive.

In Lora’s own words, “At coLeague, we believe that at the heart of successful organizations are people who can, and want to, bring their full humanity to work. To us, HR is more than compliance. It’s a people-centered approach that unlocks your organization’s potential to meet your mission.

coLeague places on-demand Chief People Officers, people strategists and implementation experts inside organizations—exactly where and how organizations need them. Our work is done in deep collaboration with the organizations we support, co-designing, co-creating and co-partnering with them every step of the way.”

To learn more about coLeague, check out this coLeague panel discussion featuring Marion and other talent leaders discussing current trends in talent work and how the coLeague model can make an impact.

What We’re Reading

We are excited to share we have begun a certification program in the Enneagram, a transformational tool that helps us shine a light on our motivations and behavior patterns so that we are able to grow. We first learned of the Enneagram from our friend and colleague Kelly Harris Perin at Little Bites Coaching who introduced it to us at a retreat with our coaching colleagues.

Among the many books Kelly shared at that retreat, one that we have especially loved is The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. Through our certification program, we are now reading Discovering Your Personality Type: The Essential Introduction to the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. We look forward to bringing deeper applications of the Enneagram into our coaching spaces to support our clients’ learning and growth.

Gratitude

We are grateful to the incredible clients we’ve had the great pleasure to work with over the past year! Individually and as a collective, we’ve:

• Provided executive coaching engagements to over 30 leaders and created a an executive coaching program to be part of a company’s year of service rewards

• Designed and facilitated diversity, equity, and inclusion sessions with a wide range of organizations, including some who were engaging deeply in this work for the first time

• Designed a performance management system and provided ongoing, embedded HR support for a start up

• Designed and facilitated team culture building sessions anchored in core values

• Provided mediation and conflict resolution for teams that were feeling stuck

• Launched the fifth cohort of White Leaders Working on Antiracism

• Hosted five Collective Conversations to create space for connection

Our clients bring commitment, creativity, and humor to their work every day. We are honored to walk alongside them. And we’re excited about what’s next.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

Image Credit:Lisa Congdon/Lisa Congdon Instagram

July 2022

Dear friends,

Every newsletter message we’ve written since we launched Illuminate Collective last fall has been grounded in embracing growth, beauty, and grace as we walk through a world that is challenging, painful, and imperfect. You may be feeling that the world has never felt as challenging, painful, and imperfect as it does in this moment. As a country, we’re experiencing wave upon wave of mass shootings, racial violence, and erosion of women’s rights as we continue to move through a pandemic. It’s not possible for us to write a newsletter that doesn’t name the fear and pain and heaviness that many of us are feeling this summer.

And. There is always an “and.”

We name the fear and pain and heaviness and . . .

• we take one step forward.
• we rest if we need to.
• we keep learning so we can show up in productive ways.
• we hold our loved ones close.
• we march.
• we watch for fireflies when it gets dark.
• we take a walk.
• we take action.
• we take care of our colleagues and our neighbors.
• we take care of ourselves.

At the mid point of the year, as we name and acknowledge so much that is hard, what is the “and” for you? What is helping you to lean into the second half of this year and keep growing?

We’ll be talking about this – and just checking in with each other! – in our Collective Conversation next Tuesday, July 19th. Please join us for this moment of connection and reflection. And let’s keep taking care of ourselves and each other.

Join us!

Collective Conversation: Embracing the Both/And

Tuesday, July 19th from 11 AM – 12 PM EST – We invite you to pause, grab a cup of coffee (or a glass of iced tea!), and join us for this informal conversation about embracing a “both/and” mindset as we step into a new season.

Fall Coaching Opportunities

We’d love to add you to one of our remaining executive coaching spots for the second half of 2022! If you’re interested in learning more about how we can support you and your work through coaching, use the link below to schedule a 30 minute consult with us.

White Leaders Working on Antiracism Fall Cohort

White Leaders Working on Antiracism (WLWA) is a dedicated space for reflection, learning, and practice for white leaders who aspire to lead with equity. Through this four part series, white leaders engage in the internal work of rigorously reflecting on their impact as well as the external work of engaging responsibly and thoughtfully on issues of race and equity. Learning, reflecting, and practicing in community with other leaders can be transformative.

We invite you to join our WLWA email list to stay up-to-date on WLWA cohorts for Fall 2022 using the link below.

Partner Spotlight

Kelly Harris Perin, Little Bites Coaching

Our friend and colleague Kelly Harris Perin of Little Bites Coaching is dedicated to helping people and organizations work better and feel better. Little Bites has just launched Navigating Parental Leave, a course and coaching package for parents and a partnership for organizations committed to supporting a positive parental leave for everyone. As a mom of 3, transition coach for working parents, and advisor to human resources leaders on policies and practices, Kelly has seen it all – bright spots where parents and managers felt supported and productive, horror stories of bungled leave policy, team conflict, and long-term career harm – and everything in between. She believes that parental leave can be better for EVERYONE, including all kinds of parents, their managers, and their team members.

Find out more about Navigating Parental Leave here, and get the free resource “5 Ways You Can Support a Positive Parental Leave… for EVERYONE” here.

What We’re Reading & Listening To

We’re excited to dive into these books and resources this summer as we navigate transitions and move through change.

Marion’s Podcast Queue

Weekly listens:

• Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

• We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle & Abby Wombach

• Code Switch by NPR

• The Integrated Schools Podcast with Andrew Lefkowits, Val Brown, Courtney Mykytyn

• Everything Iconic with Danny Pelligrino

Can’t wait to dig in…

• History is Us with Dr. Eddie Gaude

Gratitude

We are grateful for long summer days, time with our families, and meaningful work in this season. And we’re thankful that there is always an “and.”

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

Image Credit: Poets & Writers

May 2022

Dear friends,

At Illuminate Collective, the concept of “both/and” is central to our work with our clients and to our partnership as friends and colleagues. Exploring the “both/and” enables us to acknowledge complexity, think more expansively, and open up new possibilities. But embracing this approach – and holding ourselves back from rushing to find only one seemingly perfect answer – hasn’t always felt this central to us. This is something that we’ve learned over time and that we often have to remind ourselves to do.

We’re conditioned to view our world through a binary lens even though being a human in the world is messy and nuanced and layered. Reflecting on “Either/Or & the Binary,” Tema Okun shares that we “reduce the complexity of life and the nuances of our relationships with each other and all living things into either/or, yes or no, right or wrong in ways that reinforce toxic power.” Giving ourselves the space to hold two feelings or ideas at once, to get creative about alternatives, to take a step back from feelings of urgency and scarcity – this moves us from an “or” to an “and.” It shifts our conversations, transforms our thinking about what is possible, and leads to new ways of showing up and taking action.

With a commitment to shifting conversations and transforming what is possible, we’re continuing to collaborate with our collective partners to offer coaching and training on diversity, equity, and inclusion to leaders and organizations in every stage of the work. Maybe you’re feeling daunted about starting this work with a team that hasn’t centered it before. Maybe you’ve just begun to get below the surface of equity issues within your organization and it’s been painful. Maybe you’re ready to reimagine systems and structures and the way things have always been. We’re here to partner with you in this work and make space to consider where an “or” can become an “and.”

Join us!

Collective Conversation: Embracing the Both/And of a New Season

May 24th from 11 AM – 12 PM EST – Our Collective Conversations are a monthly opportunity to learn and reflect in community with others. This month we’ll be discussing how we’re leaning into the “both/and” of a new season. As summer begins, what are we welcoming and what are we releasing? How are we both acknowledging painful realities and staying open to beauty and joy? Where can we be thinking more expansively and creating more possibilities for ourselves?

We invite you to pause, grab a cup of coffee (or a glass of iced tea!), and join us for this informal conversation about embracing a “both/and” mindset as we step into a new season.

Fall Coaching Opportunities

We’d love to add you to one of our remaining executive coaching spots for the second half of 2022! If you’re interested in learning more about how we can support you and your work through coaching, use the link below to schedule a 30 minute consult with us.

White Leaders Working on Antiracism Fall Cohort

White Leaders Working on Antiracism (WLWA) is a dedicated space for reflection, learning, and practice for white leaders who aspire to lead with equity. Through this four part series, white leaders engage in the internal work of rigorously reflecting on their impact as well as the external work of engaging responsibly and thoughtfully on issues of race and equity. Learning, reflecting, and practicing in community with other leaders can be transformative.

We invite you to join our WLWA email list to stay up-to-date on upcoming WLWA cohorts using the link below.

Partner Spotlight

Keva White, VIP Community Services & John Kepner, Fenway Management Advisors

We’re excited to shout out featured partners in our Illuminate Collective community in every newsletter. This month we’re highlighting two of our colleagues, Keva White, Founder of VIP Community Services, and John Kepner, Founder of Fenway Management Advisors. John and Keva recently launched a podcast called The Race to Social Justice. Marion was honored to be one of their first guests, talking about her story and journey in DEI as a white woman. Marion is also thrilled to be joining Keva as a guest facilitator in his Power & Privilege course, part of a multi-year DEI initiative with Redeemer Healthcare System in the Philadelphia region. Learn more about the DEI Training Institutes VIP offers here.

What We’re Reading and Listening To

Here are some compelling reads to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. JR Thorpe writes, “One 2005 analysis found that of 100 Americans recommended as worthy figures for history curricula, only 4% were Native American, 1% were Latino, and none were Asian American.” This month, and every month, let’s commit to more deeply understanding our shared history.

Gratitude

Huge appreciation to the amazing Chelsea Kasen-Kells for her friendship and her marketing genius. And many thanks to our incredible colleagues and clients who inspire us to continue to live into the “both/and” and embrace the complexity and potential of people work every day.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa