Page 104 - ACTL_Win23
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FOUNDATION
UPDATE
WE ARE A SOCIETY THAT IS GENERALLY IN A HURRY. WE EVEN PREFER THAT OUR GRATIFICATION BE INSTANT. BUT, AS ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON SUGGESTS, OUR BEST ROUTE TO FINDING FULFILLMENT EACH DAY IS BY CONSIDERING THE POSITIVE FORCES THAT WE HAVE PUT IN PROCESS, OR, METAPHORICALLY, THE SEEDS THAT WE HAVE PLANTED.
In the realm of charitable grants, the day that the grant is made is one of gratitude for the grantee and of antic- ipation and promise for the grantor. For both, there is the proverbial sense of “planting the seed.” But, depend- ing upon what the grantor and the grantee are hoping to grow, the reaping of the harvest may take months or even years. That explains, in part, why my reports to you are frequently comprised of one or two year look-backs as to how the ACTL U.S. Foundation’s grants were put to use and whether those uses have yielded the desired harvest.
Today, I am looking back an entire decade; and my focus is not so much on what our own grant directly accomplished, but more on the role we played in helping to raise a partic- ular grantee’s charitable profile.
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JOURNAL
JUDGE EACH DAY NOT BY THE HARVEST YOU REAP BUT BY THE SEEDS YOU PLANT
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
