"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm"
--Winston Churchill--
Last month, just before Thanksgiving, I was informed by my boss that she'd decided to eliminate my position. It didn't come as a surprise only because as a fundraiser for a community-based nonprofit, I knew what the measure of my success entailed: increasing revenue through growing our base of support.
A New Challenge
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| A proud biker, outside my Pioneer Square office, Spring 2014 |
After accepting the newly-created position of Development and Membership Manager with Bicycle Alliance of Washington in March 2012, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work, engaging former board members, donors, volunteers, and the membership. I knew challenges lay ahead with name recognition and an all-too-similar mission with Cascade Bike Club.
Yet we had a loyal core of supporters and donors. I made progress increasing unrestricted revenue. Major gifts, individual giving, specialty license plate sales, and GiveBIG donations--all grew over the course of 2012 and into 2013. Membership continued to remain flat and gradually began a month-by-month decline in 2014, with other revenue sources lagging behind compared to my first two years.
Trouble Ahead
By late September, my boss made it clear we were looking at a significant deficit. We would need to pull out all the stops at our annual November auction to surpass the record breaking years of 2012 and 2013. Early in the summer I began soliciting table captains and reaching out to past sponsors and in-kind donors so we were looking strong on this front. 320 guests attended the auction, the largest crowd we ever hosted. By all accounts a successful evening with engaged bidders and record attendance, at night's end gross earnings stood near $100 K, almost $50 K less than our projected goal. We came up short.
Two days later my boss and a board member sat down across the table from me and said they would need to cut my job out of the 2015 budget. Shock, embarrassment, shame that somehow I'd failed--all these feelings ran through my mind as she and I sat across from each other with glum expressions on our faces.
I'd forgotten the key to my office and suggested the board member follow me home on my bike so I could return it to them. He kindly offered to load my bike on the back of his SUV and drove me home. I gave my boss an awkward hug and thanked her for everything--they would provide November's salary and health care coverage through the end of the year, in addition to paying out my remaining vacation time. We agreed I'd return another day to clean out my desk and complete an exit interview.
At home, I retrieved the key and shook the hand of the board member who dropped me off. During the drive he'd asked if I had any insights about why membership continued to decline, and I shared with him my impressions that younger generations didn't buy into a membership model, especially without the clear benefits--early registration for popular rides and discounted classes--that our chief competitor Cascade Bike Club offered.
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| A Sistine Chapel Sky--Riding on my bike down 16th Ave. |
Laying the Groundwork
On that sunny fall morning, I began the process of laying the groundwork for my future. First I called my former professor, mentor and friend Hubert to schedule lunch and let him know of my predicament. He immediately offered to serve as a reference for me, as he had in the past. I logged onto the state unemployment website and filed a benefits claim.
Then a small voice whispered in my ear, "This is a sacred time." I paused for a moment and allowed the words to sink in. Grateful that I would receive a month's salary, vacation pay, and likely qualify for unemployment, I rested in the knowledge that everything would be okay. I'd completed a chapter in my life journey. Now the time had come to follow the next fork in the road toward something new, maybe even better.
Being Led
I opened the door to my living room closet and there hung my yellow tennis bag with my Wilson aluminum tennis racquet. A few minutes before noon I changed into a pair of shorts, t-shirt, and my favorite white Izod tennis sweater, and slid into my tennis shoes. My bike still parked in the building hallway, I threw the tennis bag on my shoulders and headed out to the street and Volunteer Park.
The sun shone above me, the blue sky lit like a Sistine Chapel overhead. The autumn leaves still clinging to trees formed an umbrella as I rode down 16th toward Volunteer Park.
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| Parked at Volunteer Park |
Arriving at the park, I passed the water tower, my favorite Black Sun sculpture by Noguchi and the glass-encased Conservatory. I could see the tennis courts in the distance and a smile spread across my face.
The green pavement, still damp with morning dew, glimmered in the light. I'd not visited here since spring time, why had I waited so long? Leaning my bike against the inside of the fence, I pulled out my racquet and a few used tennis balls from my bag. I had the place to myself.
"Now, you know the drill," I heard the small voice whisper again. I approached the pounding board and began hitting the tennis ball against the board, over and over again. I fell into a rhythm, almost hypnotic, that carried me back to my years in middle and high school growing up in suburban Cleveland and riding my bike to the Linden Park Tennis Courts.
The warmth of the fall day softened my neck and back muscles, and my legs pushed forward and back to the ricochet of the tennis ball bouncing from the board to my feet for another return.
I looked up to see the glistening orange, red, and yellow leaves clinging to the trees, a looming cloud covering the sun, and then evaporating, allowing brightness to reemerge.
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| An epiphany on the court |
The Special Voice
And then I realized the voice, the prodding, the call to return to the tennis court came from my mother. Mom had introduced me to tennis at the tender age of 5. Dad, she, and I played on-and-off as a family on Sunday mornings during the warm weather months usually from May through early October.
My mother derived such joy from the game that she wanted to share it with me, much like she taught me how to ice skate and at a later age, cross-country ski. These three sporting activities, like old friends, reside forever in my body, as natural as the earth, wind, and sky.
As I continued serving the ball and wielding the racquet with greater accuracy and force, I could hear her voice egging me, encouraging me, reminding me. "Let it out, Jack," she'd say when experiencing the typical frustrations of adolescence.
"Grab your racquet, bike to the court, and let it out." She regaled me with stories of her own youth and how when she felt down or upset about a life event, she'd march down to the tennis court with her racquet and hammer the pounding board. Here I was all these years later following my deceased mother's advice.
"I failed," I thought. And yet I didn't fail. I would never have known had I not tried. Maybe that realization was good enough to know.
From deep within, a resonant sigh emerged. Like a steady wind seeping from a cracked window, I allowed it to escape.
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| Grounded on the Tennis Court |
Pride and Joy
On this stunning autumn day I raised my head again toward the trees and blue sky and saw my mother, felt her presence, peering down on me with pride and joy. Her 51-year-old son concluding that losing his job would neither destroy him nor damage his life.
Over the past few weeks I've realized how losing a job, and applying for unemployment, feels like a death, a la Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. There are different stages--I first experienced acceptance before anger, denial, and depression reared their ugly heads. I'm still sorting through some of the more negative emotions.
The important lesson for this good Catholic son is to allow myself the chance to feel them.
Life and Love
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| Mom and me, Polaroid snapshot, August 1969 |
In the meantime, this past year I've returned to another childhood love, the theatre. Over the next two weekends I'll continue my performances in Monty Python's
Spamalot at Bainbridge Performing Arts. Singing, dancing, and walking on stilts as the persnickety Knight Who Says Ni has given me a purpose this holiday season plus great comfort and satisfaction during this time of life change.
Who knows what will happen next? What I do know is that as I mature and gain wisdom I'm less enamored with sitting in an office behind a desk.
On this sunny December day in Seattle I'm hoping to return to the tennis court soon, where I have a sneaky suspicion new directions will reveal themselves.
