Celebrating the Gift of Coaching

As the pandemic continues to impact leaders, organizations and coaches themselves, coaching through life’s challenges has been the main focus for many ICF Member coaches. Coaching continues to help individuals adapt to and overcome obstacles to achieve what is seemingly impossible. The ICF Foundation is excited to open the 2021 Gift of Coaching Collective to share how coaching is making a difference in our individual communities around the world. To submit your pro bono initiative for consideration in this year’s collective, apply here.

We’d like to share a few submissions from the 2020 Gift of Coaching Collective, highlighting the support they bring to their communities.

Coaching provided to organization leaders of the Akanksha Foundation

Akanksha is a foundation that Nidhi Arora, PCC has always been fond of at a personal level. This foundation commits to ensuring that children from not-so-privileged backgrounds experience the joy of learning and pursue at least a basic education.

Nidhi was honored when approached by the head of schools to support them in building an Akanksha model of coaching to bring the coaching mindset and philosophy to their engagement with each other, the benefits of which would trickle down to every child at Akanksha.

The efforts began with a small team of four who would be the torch bearers of this initiative. Each one of them has served through various roles at Akanksha, from being a volunteer to a teacher to a school leader and understood the context and culture of Akanksha. Bridging the gap between intention and action is where their current role lies as coaches.

The project introduced the aspect of coaching through a facilitator-led discussion, bi-monthly that supports contextualization. The coaches then take it to the ground and experiment with it in their conversations with the school leaders, principals, teachers and staff both on a one-on-one basis and in team meetings.

We are proud of the efforts and celebrate their wins in integrating the coaching mindset, the skills they are learning with us and the rich learning within the peer group as each shares their success stories building momentum and trust.

Read the post on the ICF Foundation website.

Coaching provided for frontline key workers

The Coaching with Conscience COVID-19 Coaching Initiative was initiated by Tracy Sinclair, Ltd as she began to recognize the enormity of the pandemic’s impact around the world.

Coaching with Conscience exists to have a positive impact on society and our environment through coaching. We believe that every organization should have access to high-quality coaching, and we specialize in offering coaching and coaching-related services in support of positive social impact and social progress.

The demand was significant. Within a week of this first conversation, the first coach-client match was made, and the following weeks were very busy, ensuring that all requests were met promptly. As the requests for coaching came in, it was satisfying and humbling to experience the rapid, positive and generous response from our coaching community to be in service of those who needed support.

Coaching with Conscience provided key workers access to a pro bono virtual coaching package to:

• provide support in safe and confidential conversations
• express and work through their own thoughts and feelings about their experience
• identify how their own needs could be met so that they can feel more resourceful and resilient in their roles
• gain perspective and clarity on how they want to be during this difficult time
• explore their own personal and/or professional goals so that they can be the best they can be for themselves and others
• feel supported and heard

Through the Coaching with Conscience COVID-19 Coaching Initiative, 31 coaches provided 98 clients with 380 hours of coaching. The coaching provided was in alignment with the definition, competencies and code of ethics of the International Coaching Federation.

We also offered each coach access to free coaching supervision. These services were provided pro bono by Hilary Oliver, MCC, who completed a total of eight two-hour virtual supervision sessions to give back to the coaches, underpin the integrity and quality of what was being offered to the clients and their organizations and gain useful/data about the value of this exercise.

Read the post on the ICF Foundation website.

Coaching provided to organization leaders of educational institution and organization

When 2020 lockdown was announced in our state, many organizations’ employees experienced distress, and it was particularly difficult on management and human resources staff. As part of the Potential Genesis coach training program, students offered pro bono “Stay @ Home – Learn @ Home” coaching to leaders of various educational institutes and organizations. The goal of the project was to pay back our clients who had supported us during normal times.

The team coaching covered leadership and communication with nearly 300 employees of different organizations. Each client was coached for 10 hours with review by the sponsor. The community is now working on offering further pro bono coaching later this year.

Through coaching, we saw employees gain confidence and the ability to socialize virtually as they worked from home. The organizations were very happy with the approach, and they gained respect for coaching as a field.

Read this post on the ICF Foundation website.