“There is always light.
Only if we are brave enough to see it.
There is always light.
Only if we are brave enough to be it.”
~ Amanda Gorman
“Feel the ground beneath your feet,” said my yoga teacher repeatedly in last week’s class. The theme of the class was turning inward, gathering strength, before emerging outward to face the world. In a world that often feels like it’s spinning faster by the day, Holly’s wisdom to stay grounded resonated deeply with me. Like a tree spreading its roots, our most meaningful impact often begins where we stand.
In almost every recent conversation — on Zoom calls, in client meetings, or on walks with friends — I hear variations of overwhelm and uncertainty. “There’s so much happening.” “Everything feels urgent.” “Where do we even begin?” While the impulse to reach far and wide is natural, I’m witnessing how transformative change often begins with deepening our presence right where we are.
What I’m Learning: Put on Your Oxygen Mask First
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent.
Caring for myself is an act of survival.”
– Audre Lorde
Lorde’s words feel particularly relevant in this moment of constant urgency. Like many, I’ve learned that showing up fully for others requires first showing up for ourselves. The flight attendant’s familiar instruction — secure your own oxygen mask before helping others — has become a powerful metaphor in my work and life. For me, this means Sunday morning yoga, where Holly’s gentle reminder becomes both literal practice and metaphor.
My own grounding rituals have become non-negotiable: daily walks with our dog, Reece (as many of you know, we said goodbye on February 3rd to our beloved Rosie at 14½), jotting down three things I’m grateful for each night, and those precious moments of quiet reflection before the day begins. These practices aren’t indulgences — they’re the foundation that enables sustainable engagement with the world around us. In times when everything feels urgent, we don’t need all the answers — just a place to begin. Starting with ourselves creates the resilience needed to face what comes next.
What I’m Practicing: Strengthening Family Bonds
The grounding practices that center us individually create ripples in our closest relationships. Recently, while working with a family struggling to align their giving with their values, I witnessed how slowing down to really listen to each other transformed their conversation. Instead of jumping to solutions, they shared stories of what mattered most to each generation. This deeper connection to their shared history and values helped them move from feeling overwhelmed by global issues to seeing opportunities for meaningful action together.
Meeting the moment within our closest circles often starts with simple practices: a regular family dinner where phones stay in another room, a monthly conversation about what matters most right now, or a shared volunteer commitment. These touchpoints create space for authentic connection and mutual support. When we listen deeply to what each person needs to feel supported, we build the trust necessary for tackling bigger challenges together.
I’m also practicing what I teach. In addition to establishing our modest donor-advised fund, we invited our adult children into the conversation about our shared philanthropic values. We are in the process of planning our first family philanthropy meeting and I look forward to using the tools that I have successfully used with other families to engage in the world around us. I expect that the conversations will become as meaningful as the giving itself.
What I’m Watching: Rethinking How We Support Change
Dan Pallotta’s TED Talk “The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong” has been on my mind lately. Pallotta challenges our traditional metrics for evaluating nonprofits, arguing that our obsession with low overhead prevents organizations from investing in growth, innovation, and infrastructure. He asks a profound question: What if we allowed mission-driven organizations the same tools to grow and succeed that we give to businesses?
This question transformed how one of my clients approached their giving. Instead of asking “What’s the minimum needed?” they began to ask “What would truly help this organization thrive and scale their impact?” This reframe led them to make a significant four-year commitment upfront to a key organization, providing stability and room for the kind of infrastructure investment Pallotta advocates — staff development, technology upgrades, and strategic planning — rather than perpetuating the year-to-year uncertainty that keeps so many nonprofits in survival mode.
For individual donors, this shift in thinking might mean considering multi-year pledges, even if modest, rather than one-time gifts. It might also mean reconsidering what “overhead” really means. When a client recently grew increasingly concerned about an organization serving refugees facing funding cuts, she didn’t just write a check. She asked what would truly help them succeed — applying Pallotta’s principles of investing in capacity. The organization needed both immediate support and broader visibility to sustain their work. She convened more than 25 friends and fellow funders for a call with the organization’s leader, creating a platform for them to share their vision and needs directly. Several participants have since stepped up with various forms of support — from funding to professional services to advocacy — creating impact that extends far beyond what her individual contribution could have achieved.
Meaningful community engagement grows through this kind of consistent presence and systems thinking. It starts with questioning our assumptions about how change happens and supporting organizations in ways that truly set them up for success, not just survival.
What I’m Reading: Better Questions, Broader Impact
In “A More Beautiful Question,” Warren Berger shows how the right questions can help us expand our impact meaningfully. The book explores how transformative questions follow a “Why-What If-How” progression: diagnosing the current reality, imagining possibilities, and then determining practical steps forward.
This questioning framework has transformed how I think about philanthropy itself. Why do we often limit our definition of contribution to financial giving? What if we expanded our understanding of what it means to give? How might we engage all our resources to create change?
These questions led me to the “5 Ts” framework that I now share with clients: Time, Talent, Treasure, Ties, and Testimony. Your time might look like two hours weekly at a food bank. Your talent could be offering marketing expertise to an under the radar nonprofit. Your treasure might be a modest but consistent monthly donation. Your ties — those relationships and connections you’ve built — might connect an organization to new supporters or resources they couldn’t access otherwise. And your testimony is sharing your story and advocating for the cause, in other words, bringing the issue into the light.
As Berger would suggest, the questions we ask shape the possibilities we see. By moving from “How much should I donate?” to “How can I engage all my resources?”, we open pathways for impact that might otherwise remain invisible. These contributions of human, social, and intellectual capital often create ripples far beyond what financial resources alone could accomplish.
When the world feels overwhelming, I return to Holly’s gentle reminder: “Feel the ground beneath your feet.” Our capacity for impact grows not from frantic activity but from grounded presence. Like a tree with deep roots, we can build outward in ever-widening circles: from self, to family, to community, to world. Each small action, each meaningful conversation, each conscious choice about how we show up — these accumulate into transformation.
As spring approaches, bringing its promise of renewal, I invite us to consider: Where do we feel most grounded? What conversations or actions in our immediate circles have we been hesitating to take? What small, consistent steps might help nurture the change we wish to see, starting right where we are?” We don’t need all the answers to begin — just the courage to take that first step, right where we stand.