Hidden Seeds of Growth

As the cold of winter sets in and the barrenness of the trees outside my window becomes a little starker, it is easy to forget the powerful transformation nature is effecting beneath our feet, just out of view. The earth is rejuvenating through much needed rest, and seeds concealed within it are undergoing invisible preparation for what will appear to be a sudden miracle come springtime. The seemingly infertile freeze of winter masks what is actually the greatest breeding ground for quiet potential. Unseen processes can yield remarkable, life-giving growth.

And the same can be true in our offices.

“...we have the ability to make seemingly mundane procedural improvements that can potentiate radical improvement that will come to fruition in months and years to come. ”

The mad rush of year-end campaigns, budget planning and goal setting that typifies December in the philanthropic and nonprofit world is now behind us. We may be tempted to do a little digging out and then settle back into our old routines. But that would be tragic. The relative calm of this beginning is no time for business as usual.

The calendar’s fresh start holds endless potential. In the quiet of the new year, we have the ability to make seemingly mundane procedural improvements that can potentiate radical improvement that will come to fruition in months and years to come.

This powerful, hidden growth can sometimes be the most powerful kind of growth there is. We often hear about growth in numbers — numbers of dollars, numbers of meeting attendees, numbers of people affected by the programs we fund or run. But the subtler growth I’m talking about comes from the kind of internal stabilizing and strengthening that happens when nonprofit professionals reevaluate and adjust the systems and processes by which we perform our daily work. This nurtures our abilities and strengths in ways that may not be immediately obvious, but ultimately causes massive shifts enabling outcomes we may otherwise only dream of.

An ethos that guides our foundation is that we constantly strive to learn and grow. Though many of our annual goals are linked to measurable outputs, I am convinced that the most important goals we have are those that relate to ongoing internal process improvement. It is through these subtle, sometimes incremental, changes that we fulfill the wise words of my 9th grade science teacher, who wrote me a note on the last day of school saying “Leaps forward are made through little disciplined steps along the way.” And so it is with organizational growth: Our ultimate impact is governed not by our growth in numbers, but by our growth in capability.