I've spent a surprising amount of my career thinking about one question:
How do you get people to believe they can accomplish more than they think they can?
How do you motivate a Board to become more engaged? How do you inspire hundreds of employees to keep reaching higher? How do you create an organization where people feel connected to something bigger than themselves? (OK - it's actually 5 or more questions I've spent a surprising amount of my career thinking about!).
And, perhaps most urgently at the moment:
How do I convince all of you to give me money?
Apparently, this summer I decided the answer to at least some of those questions involved hats.
Welcome to NuPath Board Summer Camp.
There were teams. There were games. There was laughter. And beneath all of it was something I care about deeply: creating opportunities for people to learn, grow, discover what they're capable of, and use those abilities in service to others.
Or, perhaps put more elegantly: helping to "make life's journey happier, healthier and more fulfilling for peopel living with disabilioties." That's NuPath's simple but profound mission.
Come to think of it, that's not just what we were doing with our Board.
That's what NuPath does every single day.
For nearly six decades, NuPath has helped people with disabilities discover possibilities, build independence, develop relationships, find meaningful work, contribute to their communities and create lives defined not by limitations—but by opportunity.
I've had the extraordinary privilege of helping lead this organization for many of those years.
And every Walktoberfest, I ask myself to do the same thing I ask of everybody else:
Step up.
Not because fundraising is particularly comfortable. Believe me, I'd much rather put you in a ridiculous hat and call it leadership development.
But because the money we raise matters.
It creates opportunities. It strengthens programs. It fuels innovation. And it gives the remarkable people we support more chances to determine for themselves what a meaningful life looks like.
So Camp Counselor Dan has another assignment.
Raise as much money as humanly possible.
And that's where you come in.
If you believe in what we're building at NuPath—or you believe in me—or you're simply willing to pay a modest amount of money to make me stop asking you...
I'll take it.
Every donation counts. Every donor becomes part of this work. And every dollar moves us a little closer to what we're really trying to accomplish.
Not winning Walktoberfest.
Not reaching the top of a leaderboard.
Changing lives.
Although, for the record, I wouldn't object to the leaderboard thing either.
So grab a virtual camp chair, throw another log on the fire, and help me get moving.
Counselor Dan has some catching up to do.
