Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” For many of us, such dreams arose from a passion to dedicate our lives to making this planet a little more hospitable and just. As we look to 2012, reflecting on our individual stories offers a powerful reminder of why we became part of an impulse or a movement to repair and improve the world.
In the late 70s, a young English woman named Shirley McGreal was planning to become a college teacher when she witnessed two terrible events. The first occurred in the Bangkok Airport, where she saw dozens of wild baby monkeys -- whose mothers had been hunted down -- confined to cramped cages. The small monkeys reached their arms through the tight cages, as if asking any passersby to help them avoid their fate: scientific experimentation in unknown laboratories abroad. The second experience occurred when Shirley saw baby gibbons in the Sunday markets. Also jammed into cramped, dirty cages, the monkeys had been captured for Thailand’s domestic pet trade; it was common practice for many owners to discard the animals when they matured in a few years. Shirley was moved to action and eventually founded the International Primate Protection League, which has saved thousands of gibbons in its nearly 40 years of operations.
Not all stories are as life changing as Shirley’s. Barb and Jim Eldridge of Fountain Hills, Arizona lost their son to AIDS in 2004. He was 36 years old. For reasons that will never be fully known, Rychard chose not to tell his parents that he was HIV+. To honor his memory, his parents formed “Team Rychard” two years ago to raise money for AIDS Walk Phoenix, a 5-kilometer walk/run that received over $375,000 in donations last year. Barb and Jim’s dream of someday finding a cure for AIDs – and preventing other parents the sorrow they experienced – motivates them to continue supporting this worthy cause.
My story begins on a trip to Soweto, a large black township outside of Johannesburg, when I was about 10 years old. As our bus bumped along, I grew increasingly upset by the inhumane living conditions unfolding before my eyes: open sewage flowing in the streets; children in tattered clothes with no shoes; homes cobbled together from corrugated tin and mud. A single cold-water faucet served an entire neighborhood and there was no electricity and no sidewalks. I entered the home of one family and was told that 17 people slept in a room not much larger than a kitchen – that was when I promised myself to spend the rest of my life working to improve life for others and make this world a fairer place.
No doubt you have a story or a memory of what propelled you into this work – a deeply moving experience that ignited an enduring commitment to help others. Please share it with us, along with what motivates you to get out of bed every morning to toil in the fields of civic life or among the poor to make life better for all.
We’ll need your stories to inspire us in this difficult year ahead. Chief among the challenges we face are economic uncertainties coupled with jittery markets that have made donors more cautious in their philanthropy. All the while government support of nonprofits at the local-, state-, and federal-levels dipped and, in some cases, fell off completely. Delayed government reimbursements and tight lines of credit also made it difficult for organizations serving vulnerable people to fulfill their missions. While charitable giving ticked up slowly in 2011, many predict it will take years to reach pre-recession levels.
It is possible that such trends will persist over coming months but their degree and impact on our sector depend a good deal on the economy. Yet even if the recovery picks up steam, there will be a long lag before we return to pre-recession levels. In short, it is time to move on: we must draw the baseline and go forward from where we stand right now.
And the good news? Many organizations benefited from a windfall of donations at year’s end. In the long term, philanthropic giving has almost tripled over the last 3 decades and a global poll showed Americans ranked first among 152 countries in giving. There’s more good news: nonprofits have been hiring. We saw a 5 percent increase in employment from 2007 to 2010 (compared to an 8 percent drop in the for-profit sector over the same time horizon).
As we gear up for a new year, we can keep such momentum by remembering what inspired us on this journey. Obstacles will fall cross our path in 2012 and reflecting on our stories won’t remove them -- but it might renew our passion for a cause, our determination to make a difference, and our commitment to finding new ways to make life better. Emerson had it right: Don’t start 2012 laden down by problems; be uplifted by your dreams -- and allow others to share in them!
