(creative commons ariellefragrassi)
Well, the new year is upon us. This is, for me and I suspect many of you, a time when we reflect and ponder the past and look with a bright eye towards the future. A future that brings things like peace and harmony and health, instead of discord and bullshit and illness.
Usually we get a bit of both, cause that’s just how it all goes.
I’ve been pondering a lot about the year, and the past years, in between nibbling on Russian Tea Cakes and bingeing Schitt’s Creek episodes. I’ve tried to create as cozy of a holiday as can be mustered and I’m happy to say it’s been pretty nice. Well, despite the fact we’ve been dealing with Covid.
This is the predictable and nearly obligatory, “what I wrote this year.”
What I’m finding is that my “work” if you can call it that, is kind of meandering. I have a hard time settling into a niche, unless that niche is mostly essays on things that move me, which to be honest could be a lot of things. I don’t know if niche matters so much. Hell, I’m just happy to be writing consistently and (hopefully) coherently.
I can find the tendrils between almost anything. And I do! And I write about them. But honestly, it’s not the best brand to have. I should write more about my career, which is nonprofit arts administration, primarily development.
Dictionary.com says this which I think is very nice, “grow, progress, unfold, or evolve through a process of evolution, natural growth, differentiation, or a conducive environment.” And my career, development, is focused on growing resources and helping them become more mature so that organizations can keep on keeping on and in bigger and better ways.
It isn’t just “money” that gets developed though. I mean, I’m not a bank. It’s the people around the money that are cultivated and nurtured. It’s the staff in the organization that are led towards understanding (and creating that environment for growth), and it’s progressing the organization towards its own evolution (along with the other leadership who create the vision itself).
I think a lot of people believe “fundraising” is just sales. It isn’t. At least it shouldn’t be. People are funny about money, and I get it. Money is funny. We all want and need it, there never seems to be enough of it, we have trauma and shame around having too little, and even having too much. We live in a capitalist (unbridled and unrestrained) system and philanthropy’s trend towards the transactional is like…well, it gets my dander up. I’m reading The Price of Humanity, by Amy Schiller
Loosely, I’ve always developed. I’ve almost always been that kid that helped organize a show, or brought people together for events, or nurtured fellow artists. Some of my happiest memories are seeing people onstage that never thought they could get up there and do it, or knowing an organization is doing better because of things I helped implement. So why not write about it more? I think because so much of what I’ve done and experienced is all really associative and improvisational and interconnected, it doesn’t seem to be easily focused. Dunno.
It’s a goal for 2024. Gotta develop my development.
For now, here are some pieces I enjoyed writing and that I think others enjoyed as well.
What Is A Morning Meeting
Friday Happy Hour About Small Businesses: What’s Enough
Bringing The Unspoken Into The Light
Thanks for reading me this year and subscribing, and for writing. I appreciate it and I appreciate you.