Your BREAK THROUGH, Vol. 1, Post 39

I think sometimes our culture idealizes big: a big reach as a nonprofit, big buildings, big salaries, big stardom.  But often times, this obsession with size and growth displaces the value we might place instead on scaling our visions to what works for us, to what’s actually obtainable, and to how much more important the quality and finesse of our work is over quantity.  Yet more, more, more seems to be our daily manifesto.

One of my earlier posts asked the vision-defining question, “What do you want to happen?” Somehow though, I immediately disregarded my own philosophies and talked about big ideas and big dreams, even going so far as posting a picture of one of our biggest visionaries ever, Martin Luther King Jr.

Now, this is not to say that the next MLK Jr. isn’t out there, and that we shouldn’t all have our moments of dreaming big. The reality though is that for most of us, our greatest impact will be on a smaller scale. And this is not to demoralize us.  It should instead be an incredible motivation: we have the power to influence the part of the world that we walk through, (our families, our friends, our places of work, our communities), in profound, quality ways.

The Friends of ENCA Farm, a local nonprofit here in Denver, is a great example of this. Sherry Manning, a volunteer Executive Director, has recognized how important it is to help protect, preserve and advocate for this one indigenous family farm and plot of land in the Northern Philippines.

The mission of this nonprofit does not over-reach to protect indigenous farms across the world. Nor doe their main fundraiser, Nourish proclaim to raise tens of thousands of dollars in one swoop. But I believe that the scale of this work allows for a level of quality that will make a meaningful and important local/global impact.

How are you scaling your vision?