Making It Fun

Cause Effective hosted our “It’s A New Year” party last week. A few years ago my board members protested too loudly when we were setting the date for a December holiday get-together, and asked if we could push the annual gathering till January. I complied, and we’ve never looked back.

So here we all were at the lovely Pescatore Restaurant, on the Upper East Side. We invite staff, former staff, board, former board, spouses, and a few long-time organizational “friends” – about 25 were planning to come, when all was said and done. We create nametags, but really, it’s a gang of insiders, most of whom have known each other for years.

The food was delicious, the wine kept flowing, but I was struck, most of all, by the squeals of delight every time someone new walked into the room. The people at this party – board members, mostly – were really glad to see each other, and to see the staff. Spouses got to catch up with each other’s doings, people shared news about kids and jobs and the state of the world – it was a chance to let down our professional divisions and share our commonality as humans.

Three days later, I think we’re all still carrying the glow.

We spend every day doing good in the world, or trying, at least. The warmth in this room was testament to the fact that the human connection, the pleasure in each other’s company, is as important a factor in where we put our energy, in how we choose to do good, as any rationale based on political values about the world.

Congeniality, collegiality, cordiality – not just the “c” list in a thesaurus…

They’re the hidden gems, the glue that makes slogging through the hard times of nonprofit governance/management (and lord knows there’s been a lot of them these past few years!) worthwhile.