Transcript - A book discussion on Mistakes to Success: Learning and Adapting When Things Go Wrong

A Book Discussion of

Mistakes to Success:

Learning and Adapting When Things Go Wrong

Event Description

Do foundations make mistakes? If so, why do we so seldom hear about them? And if foundations don’t talk freely about their errors, how can they learn from them? Robert Giloth, Vice President of the Center for Family Economic Success at Baltimore’s Annie E. Casey Foundation, has set about to remedy that deficiency by editing, with Colin Austin, a collection of essays entitled Mistakes to Success: Learning and Adapting When Things Go Wrong. Here’s how he describes the purpose of the volume:

“Two key challenges motivate the book. First, the overall challenge of solving intractable social problems like poverty is exacerbated by our inability to design and implement solutions that are effective and stick. We must admit that our progress has not been sufficient and that more innovation is needed. Second, our propensity for ignoring and hiding, rather than disclosing and reflecting on, failed approaches limits our ability for real learning and improved investments. . . We must ask ourselves whether we have an innovation problem or a failure-recognition problem, and consider what capacities, tools, incentives, and supports are needed to reflect more usefully about success and failure.”

The “learning from mistakes” approach was also in the news recently with the courageous launch of a new website by Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Canada, AdmittingFailure.com, as an accompaniment to its annual “Failure Report.”

 Giloth, Schambra, Mosher-Williams, Roter, Cohen

The Bradley Center held a discussion with two pioneers of this approach, Robert Giloth and EWB Canada’s George Roter, along with Rick Cohen of the Nonprofit Quarterly and Rachel Mosher-Williams of the Council on Foundations. Bradley Center Director William Schambra moderated the discussion. 

Program and Panel

11:45 a.m.
Registration, lunch buffet

12:00 p.m.
Welcome by Hudson Institute Senior Fellow William Schambra

12:10
Panel discussion
Rick Cohen, National Correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly
Robert Giloth, Co-Editor of Mistakes to Success and Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Center for Family Economic Success and Community Change
Rachel Mosher-Williams, Assistant Vice President at the Council on Foundations
George Roter, Co-CEO of Engineers Without Borders

1:10
Question-and-answer session

2:00
Adjournment