Iteration

As a fan and advocate for our Sarasota Orchestra and Venice Symphony, I am always reminded of the power and beauty music conveys when it’s expertly performed and executed with precision.

Of course, it took years for the Orchestra’s and Symphony’s musicians to achieve this level of skill and finesse. Over the lifetime of each performer, they grew from fledgling young musicians to skilled and talented professional musicians. The music they produce today inspires, encourages and invigorates!

This makes me think of our mission and vision at the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. We approach our initiatives—from the 2Gen (or two-generation) approach to family well-being to the Suncoast Disaster Recovery Fund, and every grant cycle in between—with a thoughtful plan, executed with diligence.

The work doesn’t end with the conclusion of a grant cycle. Like an orchestra and symphony after a performance, we evaluate and analyze, then strive to do better next time. Through this iterative process of deliberation and analysis, solicitation of feedback, innovation and refinement, the charitable dollars that our generous donors entrust us with can be put to better and more informed use each passing year.

We just concluded our official fundraising for Season of Sharing on Jan. 31, and while the results are still being tallied, we do know that this year’s contributions have surpassed every year in its 25-year history in the amount of dollars raised. When it was first conceived, Season of Sharing was meant to help people facing an unexpected crisis that caused their month-to-month paycheck to unravel and all they’d worked for, threatening homelessness. This year, it was a ready and vital resource for people whose lives were upended from the historic hurricane season.

From an innovative and compassionate idea launched a quarter of a century ago, this campaign builds year-after-year, attracting more gifts from more compassionate and caring donors, creating more hope and community strength as the years go by.

As with any skill, the process of creating meaningful and relevant community impact takes practice. As Maya Angelou says, “When you know better, you do better.” We do, we learn, we do better, and we continue to strive to deliver the greatest results that bring us closer to becoming a community where all of us can reach our full potential.

This process—execution, reflection, refinement— is at the heart of our grantmaking and is the key to our steady progress and impact. And this perennial cycle doesn’t begin or end with initiatives and grants; perhaps most importantly it involves the caring and generous people past and present who have entrusted our foundation with their dream of a better future.

Listening and learning, evaluating and refining have always been a key part of our practice, a quiet resolve at the core of our community foundation since our founding 45 years ago. It is what powers the endurance of our longest-running initiatives as well as our ability to be flexible enough to respond to ever-changing community needs.

Each grant awarded, each scholarship given, each initiative embarked upon is an opportunity for us to do the best we can with what we have as well as learn how to do it yet better next time. It is, I suppose, our own symphony, our lifelong pursuit of harmony and unity, beauty and exaltation.