I wrote out what I wanted to say, but it was hard to read it through the mist that kept rising in my eyes. Anyway, this is what I tried to say at the wonderful goodbye lunch that my SCG colleagues put together for me this week, where they also gave me this weep-worthy album full of their farewell messages to put a decade of photos into. Thought I’d share it here because I’d love for you to see this fantastic organization through my eyes, this one last time:
I won’t talk for long because you don’t need my advice anymore. You already know everything I had in me to contribute to this wonderful organization, and you really don’t need what I have to give anymore. Now, you have the opportunity to have someone new come in and bring their gifts and experience and add that to what this team can keep doing so incredibly well without me, as they’ve already shown.
So what I want to do for a moment is just reflect you back to you, to make sure you know how much I appreciate you.
The story I’ve always told about SCG’s growth over the past 9 years – from about 100 member orgs and 10 staff to 300 members and 30 staff – has never started with me or even with our fearless leader Chris, who joined just a few months before me and brought me in.
Tuly was already here – Karen was already here – Kameron and Jan were already here. Chris came in and saw a need for me, yeah, but she also saw what was already here and basically got out of the way and let those brilliant people be the spark for everything that followed.
And all I had to do was just go around and talk with people and tell them what amazing stuff was happening here. That’s really all I’ve ever done. And gradually more and more of you joined the staff and there was more and more great work to tell people about and my fundraising team grew and there were more of us telling people what they could be part of or stay part of, and that’s really the whole story of our growth.
When you have incredibly impactful work like this week’s conference going on – it’s an easy sell. For the folks who are ready for it, anyway. Or the ones who are ready to get ready, at least.
And that was me – I wasn’t ready for the truth and brilliance that SCG brought into my life, but at least I was ready to be ready. The racial justice training we all went through together changed my life forever – but really it wasn’t the training, it was the conversations with each other during the process that were really transformational. It was the gifts of truth that many of you gave me from your lived experiences.
So I will literally always be grateful for the opportunity to start changing and learning about racial justice here, and to continue that over the years as you who are so much farther ahead have offered me that chance to do my best to come along.
And the other thing I need to say is that I will have lifelong gratitude for the way you all have held me in warmth and care and support over this past year of upheaval in my life. That’s not the kind of thing I could ever forget.
So please know I’ll always be pulling for you and for SCG, and I hope you will stay in touch. I’ll send around my contact info and I’d love to hear from y’all anytime.
Thank you again for everything. I always end my big reflective posts with the word Onwards, and that seems like the best way to wrap this up too. So, onwards. And big hugs always!
❤️🤗❤️🤗❤️🤗