Less then a week ago, I blogged about a family in South Africa that I knew personally who were raising support to bring an Autism Therapist to their hometown. I’m happy to report today that they’ve raised above and beyond what they needed! Thanks to everyone who donated and contributed to the efforts.
The success of that small effort got me thinking about the power we can have when we collectively rally around something. Reminded me of the famous Margaret Mead quote:
“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has."
It does seem these days we are all inundated with email and online petitions to sign about every single cause under the sun. You could probably spend your whole day inside blogging about and signing petitions, and at the end of the day, I’m not sure what the result would be, or if you’d be happy with it. From the little I know about political engagement, a thousand signatures on an online petition doesn’t mean much, a few hundred basically form emails means a tiny bit more, but a small amount of personal hand-written and mailed letters, or intentional phone conversations can have a significant impact.
In the same way, a handful of committed folks taking specific actions could have an impact in many areas far beyond political.
I’d love to form a small group of bloggers and readers who committed to taking 5-10 minutes a week, or maybe a month to start, to take action on a specific action that we choose. The focus would be primarily on non-financial actions, ideally things that could be globally focused, but local specific actions as well.
I just think a committed group would have more motivation to take action on task then individually being inundated with facebook and email requests. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.
This is just an idea and a brainstorm. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know if your interested and what you think this could look like, or if you’ve had similar success in other areas.