Leadership Letter
BARBARA BAINUM
DEAR FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS,
As I reflect back on the past year, I am both grateful and proud. The Bainum Family Foundation’s commitment to elevating our organizational performance by aligning learning with action and prioritizing community needs is at the heart of living out the new mission we shared with you last year.
I am therefore pleased to present the 2023 Impact Report, which represents a new approach to our annual reports and a significant step toward using community-led data to realize our mission and vision.
This report addresses pivotal questions about our endeavors this year — how much we did, how well we did it, the difference we made, and who benefited. System-level change requires significant time and tending, but it’s important that we understand our own performance along the way. Our partners’ perception of how we are showing up is overall positive, marked by high levels of trust, openness, and favorable influence, including positive impact on their organization, local community, and the broader field/sector. We strategically wielded financial, social, and political capital, responding thoughtfully to community needs. Acting as conveners, we maximized in-person interactions, fostered shared learning, and catalyzed collective impact approaches.
And yet, we are always reflecting on how we can do better. We developed internal learning and reflection practices, including all-staff learning sessions and an updated Board self-evaluation. And even more critically, we sought out ongoing partner feedback through surveys, shared learning sessions, and ongoing dialogue. I am grateful that our partners offered us concrete feedback on how we can be more effective. The Board and staff are committed to acting upon their feedback to strengthen our partnership in support of their efforts.
In my dual role as Chair of the Board and a family member, the significance of this mission is deeply personal. Our Board and staff are steadfast in our dedication to our mission and vision. The journey ahead will be shaped by our dedication to making informed, data-driven decisions that reflect the needs of the children and families that we serve. Input from our partner organizations and the community
will remain at the forefront of our decision-making processes, guiding us toward our shared goals. Examples of this include data from nearly 2,000 educators in our WeVision Early Ed and Seventh-day Adventist Initiatives. These data sets and others reflect our priority of centering proximity experts — identifying solutions with those closest to the challenges we seek to solve.
Your continued engagement with us is invaluable as we propel our mission forward with renewed insights and unwavering commitment.
Warm regards,
BARBARA BAINUM, LCSW-C
Chair of the Board