The Growing Edge

Nine years ago, I was in my office at the PIMCO Foundation when I got a phone call from Sister Regina Fox, then the Executive Director of the Sisters of St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation. She invited me to join the Healthcare Foundation board. If I learned anything in my Catholic high school, it was that you don’t say no to a Sister. So I said yes to Sister Regina.

I’m really, really, really glad I did.

I was welcomed into a remarkable group of board members in 2017 — Sisters, other foundation leaders, community members. Back then, we reviewed paper grant proposals. (I know, I know.) A lot has changed.

I have loved watching the Healthcare Foundation grow and sharpen beautifully under Executive Director Barry Ross, who joined in 2022 (and who is a loyal reader of this newsletter…shout out to Barry!). Barry has amplified trust-based philanthropy, launched multi-year grants, initiated PRIs, and brought a clarity of focus to the work.

My third term is up, and Wednesday was my last board meeting with this wonderful group of smart, community-centered, not-afraid-to-debate people. Barry asked me to share the reflection; we always open board meetings with one. I chose a poem by Howard Thurman, an African American theologian, mystic, poet, and activist who co-founded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco in 1944 and was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rev. Thurman shared this poem in February 1949. It reads as if it were written for now:

Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge!

It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash.

The birth of the child—life's most dramatic answer to death—this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!

Wherever you are right now, whatever work you’re doing, or whatever you’re navigating, there’s a growing edge somewhere in it.

With love and appreciation,

Sarah

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📖A REALLY GOOD BOOK CLUB

How did I just recently find out about the Marguerite Casey Foundation Book Club?! It’s been going on since 2021 and I. Love. It. So. Much!

The MCF Book Club brings together authors, scholars, and organizers to examine the most pressing issues of our time. Events are free, typically virtual, and moderated by Dr. Carmen Rojas, MCF CEO.

For some events, the first 200 people who sign up receive a free copy of the book up for discussion.

Gosh, so many incredible books to read on this list.

📞A CALL WORTH ANSWERING

Nonprofit Quarterly is building something important around America’s 250th — and they want your voice in it.

Their #WeTheCivic: America 250 project is a narrative resistance movement that centers nonprofit workers, organizations, and movements that have kept democracy’s promises alive. NPQ is seeking essays, personal stories, visual art, and more to uplift through this initiative.

Learn all about #WeTheCivic and how you can participate here.

💐 LOOKING FOR A GIFT TO GIVE?

Looking for a unique and free gift to give someone? Allow me to introduce you to Link Bouquet.

Link Bouquet, created by a couple of guys who wanted to make the internet fun again, lets you create and share a curated collection of your favorite links (Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, etc). You assemble a digital bouquet by pasting URLs, then sharing it.

Just something fun. 🙂 

🧩 FROM WRITING TO DOING

Many of the ideas I share in this newsletter — about volunteering, philanthropy, social impact more broadly, etc. — also show up in my consulting work with companies, funders, and nonprofits. If you’d like to explore ways to work together, you can find more at Services - Mission Up.

💘 NONPROFIT LOVE

Mercy Corps is a global team of humanitarians working on the front lines of crisis, disaster, poverty, and climate change — and they’ve been at it since 1979. In more than 30 countries, 3,400+ team members work side by side with people living through poverty, disaster, violent conflict, and the impacts of climate change. 95% of their team members are from the countries where they work.

Their CEO, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, is phenomenal. Want to know what else is phenomenal? Mercy Corps Ventures, which was founded in 2015 as the impact investing arm of Mercy Corps. Aaaaand there’s a Crypto for Good Fund, which is managed by Mercy Corps Ventures and provides equity-free funding to launch and test innovative, impactful web3 products in emerging markets, with a focus on financial inclusion and climate resilience.

Last year, Mercy Corps had to sell its longtime Portland, OR HQ and cut significant programming as it navigated steep cuts to federal funding. If you want to help this incredible organization, consider contacting Congress, send a card, check out partnership opportunities, and more.