The Origin of the Jellyfish

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust convened the four (now five) statewide capacity building organizations in their five funding areas (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington). The original premise was to design, develop, and deploy an evaluation tool that sought to answer the theory that capacity-building services and resources improved the long-term stability of the missions the Trust invested in, as well as all the groups served by our organizations. While the initial and subsequent findings proved true, the unexpected additional result was the powerful network of support that was sparked by these early convenings. This network was so powerful in fact that it transcended the specific people and the timeline of the project to become an indispensable aspect of each of our organizations and our individual leadership efforts over the last two decades.

While many groups form based on an invitation and funding from a strong "backbone" entity and focus only on a specific outcome or project, our group has chosen, on our own, to stick together to celebrate our individuality, offer deep support, and find joint opportunities to deepen the capacity of the nonprofit sector when it makes sense to work collaboratively. As such, we see ourselves as a smack of jellyfish who are independent entities that don't have to swim together but choose to for the common good.