A Community Context for All Organizational Functions

We believe nonprofit / community benefit organizations have the power to transform their communities.

We therefore believe every function within that organization should have as its context the community the organization serves - whether that function is fund development or organizational values, and whether the community you serve is a neighborhood or the entire globe.

Unlimited Potential to Create the Future

We know we are building the future right now, whether we do so consciously or not. We also know that men like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi are proof of the creative, life-affirming feats we humans can accomplish when we consciously work to build the future we envision.

We therefore believe our job must be to teach individuals and organizations how to create actions today that will build the safe, healthy, vibrant, creative, nurturing, compassionate tomorrow they want for their children, and for their grandchildren’s grandchildren.

Systems vs. People

We believe that systems fail before people fail, and that, like a pebble tossed into a pond, it is often a single cause that has created a multitude of symptoms as its effects.

We therefore believe our job is to look past the people and past the symptoms, to help organizations determine the true root cause of their problems, and to further show them how to substitute different systems to create positive, proactive, preventative effects.

A Spirit of Generosity

We believe in being generous when times are good, and more generous when times are bad.

Interconnectedness and Interdependence

We know that no one organization, nor one community, exists in a vacuum. Because we are all interconnected and interdependent, the organizations that will accomplish the most for their communities are those who build upon that interconnectedness and make it the core of how they operate.

We therefore believe our job must be to help organizations understand and consciously incorporate that interconnectedness into every aspect of their organizational work, from their fundraising to their board’s focus to their program planning.

Sustainability vs. Short Term Fears

We know that an ongoing concern for short term survival will prevent organizations from focusing on the future they want to create.

We therefore know our job must be to help organizations create sustainability for their programs, to free them from short term fears, and free them to aim at creating long term improvement for the quality of life in their communities.

Tools Must be Practical and Must Show Results

And finally, we know people must be provided with practical tools for accomplishing these feats, or they will continue to think such a visionary future is a utopian pipe dream. The tools must be based on logic and reason, rather than emotion or tradition. They must be easy to use without requiring that people change their behaviors or be made uncomfortable in using them, even if the end result of using these tools is, in fact, a change in behaviors.

We know the idealistic sound of our beliefs and values has the potential to make us sound like airy fairy philosophers with our heads in the clouds, and that therefore, the programs we provide must be more practical and more effective than anything else around.

And they are.