“We look forward to the response we will receive from coaches in the non-profit sector who are making a real difference in the lives of students, teachers and administrators,” said Diane Brennan, the former ICF president who serves as president of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

The ICF Foundation, founded in 2004, has had a mission of supporting coaching education, research and charitable programs. This year, the Foundation decided its sole focus through the year 2011 would be supporting pro bono coaching in the area of education. “Faced with budget cuts and limited resources, educational systems, teachers and ultimately students are struggling,” said Brennan.

Professional coaches and non-profit groups have until January 31st to apply for the grants. No set dollar amounts have been announced, but groups and individuals who provide pro bono coaching to school principals, headmasters, teachers or students are encouraged to suggest an amount of money that would help support their efforts, and outline exactly how the money would be put to use.

“We see coaching as a way to expand perspective, focus and opportunity to find a way forward and to contribute to society in a way that supports long-term success and sustainability for teachers and our future generations,” said Brennan. Finalists for the grants will be announced in the Spring.

According to the most recent filing with the IRS, the ICF Foundation had $44,456 in direct public support, cash on hand, and revenue from interest on savings and investments. The Foundation had no expenses and had been “dormant,” said ICF president Karen Tweedie. “We haven’t had a mechanism to grow funds.”

Over the last few years, the Foundation has built funding through a program to provide telephone coaching to humanitarian organizations. Compensation from the program was directed to the ICF Foundation, and added to the Foundation’s initial funding of $27,238–which was money raised through the sale of Steve Mitten’s “Marketing Essentials for Coaches.” Mitten, a past president of the ICF, had donated his proceeds to support the Foundation.

Recent research has suggested that combining coaching and education can create powerful results–for students and for teachers.

Dennis Small has been actively involved in a publicly-funded peer coaching program in Washington State, where teachers are trained to coach each other. “Peer coaches join a supportive, evolving community of learners and practitioners,” said Small. “Within this lively and inspiring context, they become social learners who experience a dynamic way to develop, practice and refine their pedagogy. These teachers are keen to explore a rich new dimension of their craft – the educator who is at ease as a co-learner, guide or expert at the center of a technology-rich learning experience.”

Washington’s program involves federal grants of $9,000 to recipient teachers in the first year, and an additional $4,500 in the second year. Since 2007, 280 teachers have been trained as peer coaches. The ICF Foundation hopes to similarly spread coaching through grants to individuals and groups.

“We’ve focused on the pro bono aspects of coaching, knowing the research is well taken care of,” said Tweedie, who said she was excited about the prospect of supporting worthy programs. “Because coaches do care, we do want to make a difference. This is a practical way we can do it.”

Note: Ruth Ann Harnisch, President of the Harnisch Foundation, serves on the ICF Foundation Board of Trustees. The Coaching Commons is a project of The Harnisch Foundation.

The Idea of Reciprocal Coaching - by Kerryn Griffiths

It’s a familiar story. I gave up my day-job to pursue full-time coaching only to discover that making it as a coach was much harder than the training school made out! I was living on savings that were dwindling quickly and had few resources with which to build a business, the most important of which was a coach of my own – I couldn’t afford one myself!

Eventually I plucked up the courage to go to my local ICF meeting and “confess” that I didn’t have enough money to pay for a coach. Low and behold, more than ten other coaches were in the same boat! I stuck my hand up and volunteered to organise us into coach-client relationships, so that each person gave 12 sessions of coaching to one coach, in return for receiving 12 sessions from another coach.

When word got out that this was happening in Brisbane (Australia), coaches with and without tight budgets from the rest of Australia (and then the rest of the world) crept out of the woodwork to ask to have a coach in return for coaching a coach too.

At this time, I did it all on paper… but when I reached the point when I was printing out more than 100 applications and trying to keep up to 40 coach profiles and preferences in my head at one time, I designed a website for the purpose.

Inspired by the popularity of online dating websites and eBay, Contra Coaching (the original name of the program) went live online. Full of technical bugs and glitches that the first ReciproCoaches must be commended for putting up with, this website was the prototype for the ReciproCoach website you see today that is now home to almost 400 coaches from around the world!

Now the vision has changed.

With MCCs, PCCs, ACCs, as well as certified IAC and AC coaches, and every coach in between among the ReciproCoach ranks, reciprocal coaching is no longer about saving money. ReciproCoach has become a community of coaches who believe in walking their talk, and take on coaching at least once a year for their own ongoing personal and professional development.

ReciproCoaches challenge their own willingness to consider different perspectives and possibilities AND allow themselves to be coached by another coach who may employ very different coaching methods than they have experienced to date.

The ReciproCoach vision? For every coach in the world to have their own coach, at least once a year.

As a bare essential for any coaches’ personal and professional development, the energy exchange (as opposed to a financial exchange) makes this possible for everyone. There are no excuses left – except time – but even that is something you can work on with your new coach!

Do you have the conviction to become a ReciproCoach and walk the talk too?

There is a round starting in early December, and several rounds starting early in 2010.

Sign up for free here: http://www.ReciproCoach.com

Kerryn Griffiths
Global ReciproCoach Coordinator

When you participate at the Coaching Commons as a guest contributor whose post is a featured story, or when you make a comment that generates lively conversation, you will receive a unit of ReciproCoach credit called a “coaching coin.”

You’ll receive an email with the news – how many coins you’ve been awarded, along with information about how to register. The more you join in the coaching conversation at the Commons, the more coins you collect – one gift each month – up to six coins in a year.

Here’s how it works:
Once you register at ReciproCoach, a professional ReciproCoach match-maker will choose a coach for you in what is called a coaching “round.” (A coaching round is the term of the coaching agreement: a specific number of coaching hours over a specific period of time.)

And here’s where the “Recipro” part of ReciproCoaching comes in: you take a turn coaching another coach. (No worries - it’s not the coach who’s coaching you.)

Reciprocal coaching. ReciproCoach!

Simple. Collaborative. Brilliant. Life-changing.

And free to Coaching Commons participants.

So why do we call this “a gift” when you’re asked to coach someone else?

That’s because ReciproCoach coins ordinarily cost up to 25 USD each. You need two coins to join a coaching round. These coins pay for the professional administration of the program, web development, matching coaches with coaches and monitoring the coaching rounds.

Through a grant from The Harnisch Foundation, the Coaching Commons partnered with ReciproCoach to offer this rare opportunity to our guest contributors and readers who keep stirring the conversation with their published comments.

ReciproCoach (formerly Contra Coaching) was created in 2005 by Kerryn Griffiths in Brisbane, Australia. She believes, as we do, that every coach should have a coach.

When we ask coaches why they don’t have a coach of their own, most say they’ve had a coach in the past, and plan to have a coach again, but right now they have too many demands on their time and/or on their budgets.

ReciproCoach was created to meet that need.

The Harnisch Foundation is covering registration fees and has purchased a number of coaching coins for Coaching Commons guest contributors and commenters — and you’re eligible to get your share  – until all the coins are awarded!

To find out more about Kerryn Griffiths and ReciproCoach, click here.

To visit The Harnisch Foundation, click here.

We think it’s the best gift anyone can give or receive: Coaching.

Through a grant from The Harnisch Foundation, the Coaching Commons is partnering with ReciproCoach to give a special gift to our guest contributors and readers who keep stirring the conversation with their published comments.

ReciproCoach (formerly Contra Coaching) was created in 2005 by Kerryn Griffiths in Brisbane, Australia. She believes, as we do, that every coach should have a coach. When we ask coaches why they don’t have a coach of their own, most say they’ve had a coach in the past, and plan to have a coach again, but right now they have too many demands on their time and on their budgets.

ReciproCoach was created to meet that need.

Beginning next week, when you participate at the Coaching Commons as a guest contributor whose post is a featured story, or when you make a comment that generates lively conversation, you will receive a unit of ReciproCoach credit called a “coaching coin.” We’ll send you an email telling you how many coins you’ve been awarded, along with information about ReciproCoach. The more you participate at the Commons, the more coins you collect – one gift each month – up to six in a year.

You can use your coaching coins to pay for coaching. Here’s how it works:
A professional ReciproCoach match-maker will choose a coach for you in what is called a coaching “round.” A coaching round is the term of the coaching agreement: a specific number of coaching hours over a specific period of time.

And here’s where the “Recipro” part of ReciproCoaching comes in: you take a turn coaching another coach. (Don’t worry – it’s not the coach who’s coaching you.)

Reciprocal coaching. ReciproCoach!

Brilliant.

You might wonder why we call this “a gift” when you’re asked to coach someone else.

That’s because ReciproCoach coins ordinarily cost up to 25 USD each. You need two coins to join a coaching round and these coins pay for the professional administration of the program, web development, matching coaches with coaches and monitoring the coaching rounds.

The Harnisch Foundation is covering registration fees and has purchased a number of coaching coins for Coaching Commons guest contributors and commenters — and you’re eligible to get your share until all the coins are awarded.

For more information about ReciproCoach, click here.

For more information about The Harnisch Foundation, click here.

These efforts involve individuals, leaders of non-governmental groups as well as localized leaders of the community bringing the ‘coach-approach’ to developing countries.

Coaching the Global Village started as an idea shared among a few friends.Then it picked up steam and is now increasing our outreach, training global leaders in ‘villages’ wherever the need is big to use the coach approach to empower the local citizens and the leaders of nongovernmental organizations (NGO’S).

More information.

Self-Leadership Pilot Program at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility began with two courses based on the Co-Active Coaching Fundamentals Course by The Coaches Training Institute. These courses took place in March and August of 2008 along with another course, launching our brand new curriculum in mid December.

Self-Leadership Curriculum was created by an amazing group of coaches and leaders who held the prison population in mind when developing the concepts and content of four courses. Each course will have a Core Component that will be the same in all four courses.

This Core Component will include coaching tools and building group trust. Each Course has its own manual which provides supplemental material related to the content of each course. It also includes journaling prompts, space for collage, and other tools that are used in the course and can be referred to and revisited by participants. Each course can be taken as a stand alone course or in any order with the other courses.

In order to both honor our roots as Co-Active Coaches AND to meet the communication needs and interests of some of our participants, we will also continue offering a Basics of Life Coaching course.

More information.

Coach Initiative coaching helps nonprofit organizations and their leaders to improve performance through professional coaching.

Nonprofit organizations depend on leadership to help those most in need. Yet many nonprofits simply cannot invest in professional coaching for their staff. That’s where The Coach Initiative plays a valuable role!

We link professional volunteer coaches with individual nonprofit leaders and provide pro bono coaching to organizations that better the human condition and uplift the human spirit.

We help Executive Directors, Board Members, Administrative Leaders and new and emerging leaders to become even more effective leaders and more successful in helping others.

More information.

Many employees that directly serve others can be characterized by difficult work environments, and long hours. High turnover rates, burnout and stress of these professionals led to the formation of The Coach Approach. Our hope is that individual coaching will provide significant support to help organizations retain key employees.

Coaching goals range from supporting and encouraging staff, working with a board of directors, dealing with issues with work carrying over into home, or motivating and finding the joy in work that can be stressful. We also hope that individuals, with the help of a coach can continue to work in their helping professions in a more productive and positive manner.

The Coach Approach has been designed to support and benefit those who have made the commitment to make a difference and to help others. We are designed to help keep and retain these very important individuals who have chosen a profession to make a difference in our world. It is our hope that through coaching, positive results will contribute to a more successful, productive individual and a better society for us all.

The Coaching services are free of charge to nonprofits.

The Coach Approach Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit Agency.

More information.

Coaching Kids programs and volunteer coaching services are available to families, educational institutions, and community organizations that work with kids and parents.

Specialized programs include coaching training in juvenile prisons, Daniel’s Fund College coaches, as well as the Women’s Commission of Maryland.

More information.

Professionally trained coaches volunteer their time and skills in coaching to clients for 26 weekly sessions over a 7-month period. One to One also supports our coaches by providing continuing educational training, mentoring, and community building opportunities.

More information.

See One to One video.