On the brokenness of things. And hope. A letter to our members.

Happy new year, Pillar members.

It’s not the fresh start it was cracked up to be, but all of us at Pillar want to take a moment, when many of us celebrate new beginnings, to imagine a better year. For us all.

We try not to talk about silver linings; the cloud is too thick with grief for that. But we can still have hope. Leonard Cohen famously sang that, “there is a crack…in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” We have seen the brokenness of things. Doing our best work, together, we can be the light.

In the coming days, Pillar will be launching a new strategic plan. It commits us even more fully to action on equity, on change, and on recovery. It is informed by your guidance as we continue to learn from our network.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be reaching out again for your wisdom in a member survey. It was about this time last year, new to my role, that I reached out and asked for your feedback through our member survey. Your responses helped our decision-making about everything from the strategic plan to our pandemic response to the introduction of new onboarding calls. The best time to have influence on anything is at the beginning and the next best time is now. I don’t know if ‘survey fatigue’ is really a thing or not, but I hope you will be as generous again with your time this year.

We also need to hear your stories. Variously ascribed, it’s been said that “the shortest distance between two people is a story.” While we are physically more isolated and experience the effects of cascading crises, we will do our best to keep the network connected through stories of your projects and missions. Pillar will be relaunching a version of our Member Moments feature this year to capture some of this, but please feel free to reach out to me any time to tell me what’s going on.

Some of those stories will be about changing and emerging leadership, something we’re experiencing at Pillar and seeing elsewhere in the community. I expect that the greater the supports we give to new leaders, the greater the supports they will give back to all of us. We remain committed to lead when it is our place, but to follow and walk alongside leadership where it emerges.

And we will continue to provide the best resources we can, guided by your feedback and data about what resources you are using. Our weekly Member Mail will resume next week, and our team remains committed to finding, curating, and delivering the information you need to strengthen your work and increase your impact.

In the meantime, truly, happy new year.

And best always,

Paul Seale, Membership Engagement Manager


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