Getting the Cure on!

Tim and I were lucky enough to attend a breakfast this morning for the Denver affiliate of Susan G. Komen. The sea of pink napkins, dresses, and ties were delightful to see. The stories of the women and men who have won their fight with breast cancer were truly moving.

As I sat there, I thought about my close friend who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She caught it early enough that her outcomes look promising, but she still had to undergo radical surgery and chemotherapy. Her life and the lives of those who love her have been impacted tremendously. And she is one of the lucky ones-- she was educated on self-care and has insurance. Like many states, Colorado has had extreme budget cuts and preventative care for breast cancer has not escaped.

We hope you will join us in supporting this important cause -- by following the link above -- or participating in one of their upcoming events.

The Value of Perspective

I ran cross country in high school and the longer races on the track team. I was never competitive, I mostly enjoyed the team spirit and the challenge of completing a 3 or 5 mile run. I recall one meet where they needed another person to compete in the 3200 meter race or our star performer would not have a chance to qualify for the state competitions. I was fairly ill and had already done the 1600 but I figured I could walk it if I had to, the point was that someone from our team simply go around the track 8 times. By the 5th time around, I had already been lapped by a few of the front runners and I was seriously questioning my decision. Usually when I ran a long race, I would pace myself throughout and then put everything I had into the last 100 meters. I made the decision that I would not do that this time, as I made my way around the final curve of the track, since I was the only person left on the track by this point. But instinct won over and as I crossed the 100 meter line on the track, I automatically kicked it into high gear, which wasn't very high by that point. As I worked to correct this error and slow down, the crowd in the stands began to stand, cheer, and clap for me. My instinctive push had inspired them to cheer me on and their cheering inspired me to continue.

When I think about working in the nonprofit world, I often compare it to my experiences as a runner. Lasting social change is created through consistency, not sporadically applied passion. It's a marathon, not a mad dash to finish line, and if we want to be effective, we need to remember that. We often lose our strongest people because they burn themselves out trying to sprint the 26 miles of the marathon. Keeping that perspective, understanding that if we work ourselves so hard that we burn out we won't get where we want to go, is an invaluable part of what we do in the nonprofit sector.

PRIDE and Diversity Education

Sunday is Pridefest in Denver. The LGBTQIA community is once again gathering in the park to announce that they, that WE are not to be ignored. For those wondering about the alphabet soup acronym, it stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning, Intersexed, and Allied. Allied, that's most of you, hopefully. The people who are "in the social norm" but also interested in the rights of all people.

Being an activist I'm involved in a variety of social justice and equality projects. But around this time of the year, more than others I am reminded of how far we've come, and how far we still need to go. I've been teaching diversity education longer that I've called myself a trainer. In any company I worked for I was always the person that my manager could come to to ask questions about the queer community.

I've fielded questions about how to handle employees who transition from being one gender to another and stayed in the same job position. Other employees came to me to ask if I thought it would be safe for them to come out, which I always found rather funny since I was already out, thus I thought they would have already determined that. I figured out why later. In all of these situations I just gave them the best advice I could since I had no "formal" training. After I had formal training, I think things actually got worse.

Diversity education, didn't help teach people how to accept each other, it taught us how to be tolerant of each other.