Tonight was my last Pathway board meeting, and a chance to reflect on my first meeting, in January 2103. It was horrendous. So bad that the agency had hired security for the meeting. After a discussion of ongoing problems, including threats to the long-term cash cow Head Start, we voted to fire the director. Board members, including the chair. claimed not to have seen the repeated warnings and extensive communications from the funder pointing out continuing deficiencies and threatening the loss of the grant. As a new board member I wondered what I was getting into. I wondered that a lot over the next several months, especially after Head Start was in fact lost, eliminating about 60% of agency revenue almost overnight. Thanks to City and County support and financial commitment, we survived.
Then at the end of that year I agreed to chair the board. Board chairmanship became a part-time unpaid job for me. With great hope, we hired a new director, but within a year he left under a cloud. We hired another new director. For several years I worked with her to make connections externally and, internally, to create a culture focused on the mission and the “customers” (I’ve always preferred “clients”) and their ever-growing needs. I got to know some of the younger board members and recruited my successor as board chair. Today the agency, according to its own self-assessment, is not yet thriving, but is safe or at least stable and improving. I’m pretty sure I helped. I know I learned a lot. I made new friends. I have no regrets about the many hours I spent as a Pathway board member. I have high hopes for the new board.
I’ve occasionally been described as (accused of?) trying to save the world. I’m not sure why that’s a problem, but in fact I only admit to trying to make the world a little better. I’ve already begun a new volunteer commitment. I couldn’t look in the mirror if I didn’t accept some civic responsibility.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands — one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” — Audrey Hepburn