Our volunteer Board members have a variety of experience and skills, and they show up and bring it. We can call on them and they respond, time after time. Their diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise makes them stronger as a body, and for both the individual Board members and the group as a whole, we are extremely thankful.
We have excellent attendance at GNDH’s Steering Committee meetings, and everyone comes ready to participate in lively and productive discussions. They are our best example of community engagement, and are literally shaping the direction of our new programs. We’re proud to turn their recommendations into action.
We also have many advisors and volunteers who are not on formal committees, but provide guidance, advice, and technical assistance to us as we shape our programs and process. We call these exceptional participants our citizen allies: friends, leaders at other nonprofits, business owners, and contractors, many of whom probably don’t realize how significant their help is to us. When they take time out of their busy days to answer our questions, offer feedback on our plans, or assist in some other essential way, we really appreciate their generosity. Without them, we’d be far less effective, and less able to fulfill our mission.
We take the responsibility of employment very seriously, and though GNDH has not been in a position to hire permanent staff thus far, we’ve been working toward offering our personnel salaried positions. So far, we’ve relied on a dozen or so creative, dedicated independent contractors, without whom we’d be unable to do this work. They are crucial to our every area of focus: financial and administrative operations, development and grant writing, workforce development, engagement, and housing development. Many of these independent contractors work in more than one program area, and we’re grateful for their flexibility and creativity.
Our dedicated building crew has turned a bunch of raw building materials and a set of plans and specifications into our beautiful Evergreen Pilot Home, which is nearing completion. In some respects, the home they’ve been building mirrors our organization’s growth: Slow and steady progress with careful planning and execution at every stage will result in something beneficial and transformational for all who participate, and for the community as a whole.
And with this process, all of us, together, contribute to and share this example and experience in gratitude and abundance.