We Have A Long Way To Go

That’s what the executive director of a group that’s been totally funded by government for the last 30 years said to me last week.

And amazingly enough, she said it cheerfully.

“We could be making so much more from our event – we make $25,000 and we don’t do a thing,” she explained. “We don’t even ask people – we have over 100 vendors and we don’t ask them for a thing.”

Once her eyes had been opened, she could see what a journey they could take – and the same can-do nature that enabled her to lead a nonprofit with over 100 social work staff kicked in to connect fundraising with her zest for the job.

It’s this can-do nature – so prevalent in the nonprofit universe – that makes change possible, and that, ultimately, leads to institutional resilience. We’re certainly not in it for the money; that same blind determination that leads some people to found nonprofits leads others to run institutions they haven’t founded, even in the face of adversity.

Somehow, we’re optimists – we believe we can make a difference, and that we will – that somehow it’s going to work out. Because it must.

Why else would we still be here, after the battering we’ve been taking for the last 24 months?

I myself am inspired by the fact that this ED saw the glass half-full – she saw where they could go, and how far they were from their destination – and instead of despair, she saw the opportunity for progress.

Now there’s a life lesson…