IDG is growing up – Call 1 🌱
In the first of a 3-session Learning Journey, Erik Fernholm shared honestly about where IDG is right now – and why a transformation is needed if we want this movement to stay alive, regenerative and truly owned by all of us. A few years ago, IDG started as a small initiative exploring inner development for systems change. None of us expected it to grow into a global movement with 800+ hubs and so many committed people around the world. From the outside, the website and big partner logos can make IDG look like a large, well-funded organization with dozens of people in a big Stockholm office. In reality, it’s a tiny team doing what they can with very limited time and resources. That mismatch has created a real bottleneck. Erik named a few pieces of this: - The founding group has been quite homogenous (Northern European, mostly male and white). - The current, centralized “startup” structure is now slowing the movement down instead of enabling it. - Too many initiatives wait in a “permission queue” – especially those without funding. The shift: from “IDG does this for us” to “WE are IDG” Erik’s proposal is bold and very aligned with inner development: - The board will give away its central mandate rather than hold onto it. - Decision-making and agency move closer to where the work is actually happening – in hubs, circles, projects, local contexts. - People get clear mandates to act in coherence with IDG principles, without needing to constantly ask for permission. *** Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the breakout rooms, but the question that was proposed was this: "How do we together cultivate the conditions for agency, learning and practise within the movement?" Let's have this conversation here - in the comments. And @Denise Pang, @Sibylle Breiner, @Maria Niermann, @Veronique Sikora Gasser, @Mark Vandeneijdne who were at the call, please share what was discussed in your breakout rooms.