Who are we and why are we doing this?

Hello and welcome to the 11plus blog.

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a vehicle for telling stories from our team, clients and other friends around the world. It will be a place where individuals and families share how they are encountering some of the world's greatest challenges and the inspiring ways in which people get involved and take action. We hope you'll be one of those people.

Through the written stories and videos posted here, we not only intend to convey the actions and results of our work, but the everyday challenges and fails that we inevitably encounter in philanthropy. We hope it will inspire readers to think intentionally about the work of cross-cultural philanthropy in its broadest sense, recognizing that we each bring a unique perspective to the work and will frequently interface with those who have a significantly different outlook and background from ourselves. In this spirit, the blog will also focus on the practice of adaptive leadership in philanthropy -- a particularly important area of interest and expertise for our team.

To get things started, Sandy Dang and I will be sharing experiences from our upcoming trip to Vietnam where we'll be planning upcoming travel philanthropy programs in 2013.

To all my friends and colleagues out there, I'd like to thank you for supporting me in this new endeavor. I look forward to accompanying each other on our next giving adventure!