This work is hard. What makes it worth it is you.

This past weekend, The Patterson Foundation’s Advancing Philanthropic Leadership initiative brought together past, present, and future fellows for a weekend of learning, discovery, and recentering. From Friday night dinner conversations to re-engage each other’s lives, to Saturday morning “cookie sharing” presentations that revealed both personal and professional vulnerabilities and insight, to afternoon Pizza at the Point with a multitude of TPFers (and heck, we even fit in a show at Florida Studio Theater), every moment allowed connective tissue to be strengthened and for TPF Isms to be on full display.

On Sunday, Fellows each hosted professional development sessions centered on remembering why we found ourselves in this work in the first place. By the end of the day, one thing was clear: TPF Beyond weekends aren’t just dates on a calendar. In fact, it’s a continued invitation to think, feel, wrestle, and remember what it means to lead from both the head and the heart.

One of the most striking things about our little group is the diversity of paths represented. Debra Jacobs, president and CEO of The Patterson Foundation, loves to use the “wandering path” metaphor when explaining one’s journey. I will be the first to tell you, you would be hard-pressed to find a more distinctly different group of paths than those represented in the TPF Fellows. Each of us comes to the table with different backgrounds and, quite frankly, career trajectories that couldn’t be more dissimilar from one another.

Yet, what binds us together, what binds all of us who have chosen to pursue this work, is a shared commitment to being change makers.

Not in the abstract. Not as a slogan. But in the messy, imperfect, deeply human reality of trying to imagine better futures for our organizations, our communities, and the people we serve.

Each Fellow carries a deep desire to see the world transformed.

This, of course, is all our aspirations; that’s why so many of you got into the “sector” or joined the movements or organizations you are with now. You want to see the world grow increasingly better.

But something that became so clear to me as I spent time with my friends and fellow Fellows is something I think we may all think and feel, but probably rarely say.

But I’ll sure as heck say it.

THE WORK WE’VE CHOSEN IS FREAKING HARD.

In a deep, existential, soul-stretching kind of way.

It’s the kind of work that presses your patience. That makes you wonder if the strategies you’ve spent years creating and refining are enough. That confronts you with systems that are constantly evolving and resistant to change. That makes you feel like you are, I don’t know, spinning your tires, banging your head against a wall, pulling teeth (kind of a choose your own adventure on the metaphor here).

We do work that makes you ask questions like

Why aren’t we moving forward faster?

Why aren’t we seeing the impact we thought we would?

When is the breakthrough coming?

I used to love this. Why do I still do this? (Uh-oh, feel close to home?)

These ponderings aren’t frivolous. They are honest, heavy… and deeply human.

And these TPF Fellows carry these questions not as burdens to hide, but as opportunities to wrestle with the complexities, together.

So, this is full-scale doom and gloom, right? The world stinks, the work is hard, and we should just quit.

Here is why I left the weekend encouraged.

The difficulty of this work, of my work, your work, the Fellows’ work, TPF’s work, doesn’t have to be a solitary burden.

I think, that one of the biggest fundamentals in this field that we overlook is this: our best days, our most impactful moments, our mountaintops, rarely happen in isolation.

They happen in community.

They happen when we find people who will laugh with us at the absurdity, listen to the uncertainty, hold space for the frustration, and remind us when we are stretched too thin, that this is all worth it.

The work doesn’t ever get any easier. But it becomes possible in new ways when we forgo doing it alone.

Deep connective tissue makes the difficult feel possible. The presence of others makes the tension not something to escape, but something to lean into, together.

The through line of the weekend to me was quite clear. We can measure progress in outcomes… but maybe we should be measuring it by the relationships we build while we pursue those outcomes.

My invitation is this. Find your people. Not just the ones who agree with you, not just the ones you like. Find people who challenge you, steady you, and carry the burden with you.

We cannot go far alone. But we can go further, faster, together.

And while we are doing our best to move communities forward, we are also building communities right where we stand.

I’m dang proud to be a part of the TPF Fellow’s community. Not just because of the ways we seek to change the world, but for who we are becoming alongside one another.