Field Notes (Sept 2023): Building the Firetree Senior Fellowship

The Firetree Senior Fellowship is a pilot programme of Firetree Philanthropy to support experienced senior leaders from Southeast Asia who are transitioning out of their existing organizations and are exploring their next initiatives. This flexible one-year fellowship offers mentorship, learning sessions, and a small community of support for senior leaders who are working to support youth and families in Southeast Asia. Fellows are also offered stipends on a case-by-case basis.

You can read more about the fellowship and why we founded it here. You can also read about our previous reflections and insights here.

You can read more about the current fellows and alumni here.

In this blog series, we hope to quickly share some of our thoughts and the lessons that we’ve learned as we facilitate and hold space for this fellowship. If you found this helpful or if you have your own insights to share, we would love to hear from you (fellowship@firetree.org).

From Welcome Circles to Closing Circles

We are entering new territory in our pilot as some of the first fellows are coming to the end of their fellowship year with us. We are also gearing up to welcome two new fellows into our community. But since we accept fellows on a rolling basis (whenever it makes most sense for them to join), these new fellows are each joining a month apart.

The end of the fellowship for two of the pioneer fellows means the start of their “alumni engagement” as most fellowships call it. The current fellows are quite keen to continue engaging with the Firetree community even after their fellowship year. For small teams like ours, it is always a tricky balance finding ways to continue supporting alumni while still being able to focus on the onboarding and support of the new fellows. This is something that we’ve been discussing with the fellows to better understand the level of post-fellowship connection that they would value and what we are capable of committing to.

As we onboard new Firetree Fellows, this will also be a test of whether we can sustain the culture of openness and mutual support that we’ve created within the fellowship so far. With each new fellow comes the responsibility to build trust as well as the opportunity to discover a new and energizing group dynamic. We are hoping that the presence of fellow alumni in some of our gatherings throughout the year can help reinforce our culture of trust and continue to anchor the group on our shared values.

Career Transitions as Evolutions, not Departures

One of our main eligibility criteria for the fellowship was that a senior leader had to be in a transition phase — this means that they have recently left or are leaving an organization that they had built or led. We wanted to support these leaders as they transitioned out and give them the space to explore their next potential initiatives. From experience, we have seen how career transitions like these can come with a high-level of anxiety and uncertainty.

A year into supporting the Firetree Fellows, we realize now that these career transitions are less about a departure from a previous organization and more about personal growth and evolving into the next phase of a journey.

The focus of our support isn’t about leaders making a clean break from their past organizations and developing new identities and ideas from scratch. This can be overwhelming and unrealistic. We should acknowledge the wealth of experience and the rich networks that these leaders have built over the years. This expertise and these networks will not disappear when a leader transitions out of an organization. The question is how can we leverage this expertise and networks to help them accomplish their next goals.

This learning has led to a shift in how we start a leader’s fellowship year. We begin by identifying and acknowledging the existing networks, resources, and support structures with which a fellow is entering into this year of exploration. Anchored on this knowledge, we can then help figure out where a leader may need more support or what their potential blind spots can be. We can also work together on pushing beyond comfort zones and taking in diverse perspectives when necessary.

Supporting “Senior Leaders” Can Mean Different Things

Another key learning for us has been that the term “senior leader” can mean many different things. As we engaged and supported the Firetree Fellows more deeply, we found that each of their needs were very different despite the fact that they had all been in senior leadership positions in their organizations for many years. For example, on the one hand, some leaders were the founders of their previous organization and were more familiar with the dynamics of piloting and fundraising for start-ups. On the other hand, you have leaders who came in as the Executive Directors of existing organizations and have the experience of growing and managing larger teams. You also have some leaders who held senior roles with very specific subject expertise which they are leveraging in their next endeavor but they need more support on governance and administrative capacity-building.

We’ve seen that having a mix of these different types of senior leaders is beneficial for peer learning. But it also requires us to be flexible and adapt our support based on each leader’s needs.

Money Matters: How do Fellows Sustain their Work?

As we approach the end of our first fellowship year, we can see that fundraising and finances are top of mind for the fellows. In as much as the year-long fellowship stipends were greatly appreciated by the fellows, it also means that they will need to find new sources of funding by the end of the year. When leaders first join the fellowship, Firetree Philanthropy states upfront that our financial support is limited to their fellowship stipends (if offered) and there should be no expectation of additional project funding.

A year is not a long time to explore and develop a new and effective initiative. We’ve learned that we need to have this timeline in mind and have practical discussions about income and fundraising opportunities earlier on in the fellowship year. Some fellows may want to pitch their idea directly for funding while others may opt to sustain the development of their idea through part-time work with other organizations or by partnering with existing groups who are interested in incorporating their ideas.

Fellow Recruitment: Planting Seeds Early

Finally, in terms of recruiting new Firetree Fellows, we have learned that it helps to plant the seeds early and have conversations with values-aligned senior leaders even if a career transition is not on the radar yet. It is helpful for them to know that this fellowship exists as a resource and it also enables them to nominate peers from their network who may be approaching a transition soon.

In our future field notes, we will be featuring each of the current Firetree Fellows so that they can share their progress, insights and challenges that they faced during their fellowship year.