I am going on a sabbatical. As excited as I am, those words have been hard for me to share and fully own. Extended time off for personal enrichment feels indulgent and far too rare in nonprofit culture.  

I’ve worked in the social change sector for my whole career, a sector that until very recently seemed to wear its insidious “no rest for the weary” culture with pride. Not surprisingly, the consequences of this culture of constant urgency and self-sacrifice have been astronomical rates of chronic stress and overwhelm, depression, burnout, and turnover. In our 2022 Changemaker Needs Assessment, over half of changemakers in our region reported rising staff burnout, and 40% noted worsening physical and mental health. In response to this pattern, Rotary Charities staff brainstormed ways we could begin to support greater cultures of wellbeing, beginning (as we’ve learned we must) with our own organization.  

In April 2024, the boards of Rotary Charities and Rotary Camps and Services jointly approved a revised employee manual which included several changes that support a healthier workplace culture, the most monumental being a new sabbatical policy. The policy is designed to give all staff, every five years of employment, the opportunity to be relieved of regular work duties for 6-weeks to explore an area of personal or professional development that aligns with the organization’s goals.  

Sabbaticals are being upheld as one of the most powerful strategies to not only combat burnout and retain talent but to build the capacity to create long-term change. The Wellbeing Project reports that they help changemakers to “think clearly and expansively,” giving them the space needed to reflect and innovate. “The insight gained from stepping back for a while is often the very thing that helps people move forward,” says Parker J. Palmer, founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal.  

Dr. Richard Davidson, of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin – Madison says sabbaticals build mental resilience – the ability to adapt to stress, challenges, and adversity while maintaining psychological well-being.  He says, “Taking time away to focus on inner transformation is not just a luxury, but a necessity for those working to transform the world.”  

To learn more about policies and practices that can contribute to healthier workplaces, check out this new resource hub from the NW Michigan CHIR’s Behavioral Health Initiative.  

My Sabbatical  

I am proud of Rotary Charities for making this change and honored to be the first person to take advantage of the new policy. I’ve worked with Rotary Charities in various roles for over 16 years. For more than six years, my work has been focused on supporting collaborative processes to transform complex community challenges. In this work, we often talk about “getting to the roots” of problems so that we might redesign conditions that create better futures.  

In a few days, I will travel to Sweden and Norway for 10 days to explore two different types of “roots,” intertwining an exploration of my personal history with the root capabilities for systems change. 

My Ancestral Roots  

If the roots of the societal problems we seek to solve hold the secrets to creating a more thriving future, doesn’t it also hold true that understanding our own roots might unlock doors to help each of us be even more effective in change work?  

Earlier this year, our staff and board took the Inter-Cultural Development Inventory (IDI). When I was debriefing my results with a coach, she asked me how I would describe my own cultural background and upbringing. The first ideas that came up for me were white, middle class, small town/rural. I wasn’t even sure I was answering the question. Then a picture came to mind of my maternal grandmother, and a dala horse she hung on her Christmas tree, and the pickled herring she served as a holiday snack. “I’m mostly Scandinavian,” I shared. “But I’ve never felt very connected to those ancestral roots.”  

“Maybe that’s a good next step in your development, learning more about your Scandinavian roots,” she encouraged.  This began as a fun assignment asking my family what they thought was particularly Scandinavian about our shared culture. I checked out books from the library and renewed my ancestry.com membership.

A couple of weeks ago a package arrived in the mail from my mother’s cousin who is now in her 90s. In the 1980s and 90s she painstakingly researched our family history, without the help of the internet, writing letters, visiting, and collecting stories from family members in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. She typed up what she learned and cut out copies of photos of our ancestors to paste next to stories about their lives. Her documentation has been a precious gift that has jump-started my journey to understand more about the people who came before me, their values, pursuits, and traditions.

I have already been inspired by the values I’m learning about. “Lagom” which translates “just the right amount,” is a concept that promotes balance and moderation in everything, using only what you need and sharing the excess. “Janteloven” emphasizes humility, equality, and the idea that no one is better than others.  And, “Bildung” is a holistic approach to education that has been practiced since the early 19th century and involves personal development, critical thinking, and civic responsibility. 

I look forward to exploring more about the lives of my ancestors, the culture they were embedded within, and what’s survived through generations and influenced my own journey and narrative. I’m excited to uncover deeper insights into the roots of who I am – and what I bring to this moment of change in the world. 

Root Capabilities for Change - The Inner Development Goals  

Rotary Charities has done considerable work detailing and training changemakers around the phases of systems change work – diving into the tools and methods that are useful to convene stakeholders, explore the upstream causes of a problem and find leverage points, create strategies for more durable change, and learn as we go. We talk about systems change requiring different mindsets and skills and we explore these concepts in our Systems Change Community of Practice. But, we haven’t clearly articulated what these capacities are or how they can be nurtured and developed.   

A few months ago, I contributed to a collaborative book project led by Adam Kahane, founder of Reos Partners, a systems change consultancy. The forthcoming book will be about the “everyday habits” of systems change leaders. I was reviewing a section where Adam was starting to outline the habits and another contributor commented that they seemed aligned with the Inner Development Goals Framework that was being developed in Sweden. As I eagerly learned more about this three-year old framework, a sabbatical plan coalesced.  

During the first leg of my trip next week, I will attend the third annual IDG Summit in Stockholm, Sweden and learn alongside thousands of changemakers from around the world who are integrating these capabilities into businesses, employee training programs, K – 12 and higher education, government, and more.  

The Inner Development Goals (IDGs) are a blueprint of the capabilities, qualities, and skills required to address the most complex challenges facing the world right now. The framework is organized into five domains: Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating, and Acting with 23 sub-skills and qualities. In many ways, it seems like a contemporary extension of the centuries-old “Bildung” I had been learning about. The framework has been developed collectively, informed by thousands of people from all over the world, and is open-sourced and available for anyone to use, customize, and build on.

I’m excited about the opportunity to integrate what I learn into our systems change work. I will return to work at the end of October to finish out our fall grant cycle, and then take the month of January away from my regular duties to begin to work with others, locally and globally, to see what might be integrated into my work at Rotary Charities. It feels like a rare gift to have the space to explore both personal and collective development in such an intentional way. 

If you're curious about integrating inner development into systems change work, let’s connect: fbradford@rotarycharities.org.