Our beliefs and attitudes determine how we interpret and respond to the world. This is no less true for how we define success and failure than it is for how we approach philanthropy. Our mindset can make all the difference in how we show up, interpret, and respond to challenges and opportunities. And how we foster — or inhibit — learning and growth.

Giving can conjure power imbalances, a one-sided transaction, ideas about the haves and have nots and shifting needed resources from one set of hands to another. There is a scarcity mentality that undergirds this way of giving. Moreover, giving through this lens rests on the premise of agency on the part of the giver — and the giver alone — in choosing to give or withhold. A co-creator mindset, however, shifts us out of scarcity and into abundance. It shifts giving from transactional to relational. A co-creator mindset asks not “how can this grant achieve desired results?” but rather, “what are the collection of resources necessary to achieve desired results?” and, “what’s my part to play here and what is someone else’s part to play?”

Four Guiding Principles of the Co-Creator Mindset

A co-creator mindset can be accessed through four principles. While listed separately, the principles, when applied in concert with one another, help us break out of old patterns that tend toward the transactional (i.e., giver as banker or accountability partner) as opposed to relational.

  1. Curiosity Over Knowing
  2. Interdependence Over Individuality
  3. Nonattachment Over Fixed Outcomes
  4. Connection Over Control

Moving to Action: The Co-Creator Mindset in Practice

Thought follows action. We can’t think our way into new behaviors, but we can behave our way into new mindsets. The practices below are designed to spur and sustain a co-creator mindset. These practices can catalyze new ways of thinking about your role, and they can serve as the habits and routines that integrate new approaches to work.

Read the full article about co-creating by Tracy L. McFerrin and Kathleen Boyle Dalen at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.