After Eileen Farbman inherited a family foundation she describes as conservative, she, her husband, and their son set out to turn it into something different, something “outside of the harmful practices they had seen in philanthropy and giving at large.” They would go on to create the Kolibri Foundation, working alongside three leaders in movements at the intersections of gender, racial, and economic justice, who also became trustees.

With bylaws at the new entity requiring that family members always represent a minority on the board, two additional movement leaders joined the original three alongside the three Farbmans to comprise the governing board.But even before the Farbmans reached outside the family to work on the foundation, they looked inward, clarifying commitments to communicate openly; be mindful of their own intentions and emotions and those of others; and to be inspired, challenged, and grateful. The result, a two-page document hashed out over a weekend workshop with consultants, was a set of “Shared Agreements” that the family continues to revisit regularly.

Says Farbman: “We felt we could not minimize the importance of family dynamics before stepping into relationships across class and race.”

In addition to the family agreements, the full board created a separate set of “Shared Community Agreements,” which is read before every board meeting. One of the agreements, which is about honoring opinions “rooted in different vantage points,” tells board members to “not let fear of power dynamics prevent us from saying what we think must be said.”