I’m writing out a few stories of the transformative moments around my journey at NeighborLink as a way to reflect, document, and share how NL has been such an integral part of life for me. I end my time as Executive Director on January 29th, 2021 after 13 years.
Today's journey down transformative memory lane is the role Team Neighborlink has played in my life and the life of NL.
Athletics has always been a part of my life and I first did an athletic event with a charitable bent just after college when I signed up to do my first half-marathon and raise money for Youth For Christ. I was asked to raise $100/mile and I remember buying into that challenge without much thought and pulling it off by asking friends/family. I don't even remember getting anything in return, just the knowledge that something I enjoyed doing and a personal challenge could incorporate and benefit something else that was important to me. From there, I did that a second time and discovered other charity runs/events that were more event-based and where my participation helped them raise money.
When I started at NL, I was still doing cycling and running events and beginning to evaluate the way orgs raised money, which reminded me of athletic events as fundraisers. As I participated in other events and was standing around hundreds and sometimes thousands of people, I began to think I should be putting NL logos on the gear I was purchasing. Missed marketing opportunities! I could be telling my story rather than the identity mark of some clothing maker.
I bought some shirts for a friend and me for the event challenges we had set that year. It then clicked after those events and the other athlete friends of mine asked me about the gear that we needed to create gear for our community at NL. I knew that volunteers don't only volunteer in their life and many are active. If I created a running shirt that looked great and was of good quality, would they consider buying it rather than a blank version of the same thing? The answer was a big yes and we sold a lot of running shirts the next year. I also asked the same question of my cycling friends after I began seeing how so many cycling teams had custom gear. I learned that it only took 10 people to buy 1 kit each to get started. I had 11 that first year.
Team NeighborLink was born. I was also learning that the charity 5k market was saturated and the amount of work it took to pull off an event was way more than it was worth for our small organization and if I was going to put that kind of time into it, I wanted to have more than just some dollars in our pockets. I wanted a community of people because that community of people is what is going to change things and have greater success over time. So, we took an alternative approach and tried to sell as many running shirts and cycling kits as we could and build a community that went to everyone else's events together and to raise awareness.
We've sold at least a thousand cycling kits all over the country, hundreds of running shirts, and all kinds of other merchandise. We've had competitive race teams winning major events and athletes tackle incredible personal feats in TNL gear all in an effort to help us raise money and awareness for the cause.
TNL really got transformative when I started to take those early lessons of crowdfunding experience and giving up my birthday to raise money. TNL members started doing the same thing and taking on big event challenges to raise money for us. We've raised over $100,000 together through fundraisers, sponsorships, events, and merchandise.
More importantly, TNL has connected me to some of my closest friends today, several co-workers over the years, dozens of really important connections, and expanded our network and mission to communities all over the country. If you choose to commit to long runs or bike rides with others, you cover a lot of ground in life-related conversations in a 2-3 hour time slot or several times a week. TNL has always been about relationships and community first, athletics secondly.
TNL is another example of how work-life integration is so fulfilling. It grew out of a simple gesture to screen print a logo on a shirt rather than leaving it blank to asking my friends to be a part of it and to sharing it with the world it became a significant part of our family's extracurricular activities. My kids love Night Moves and Hot Laps events and have their own TNL shirts/kits.
I may no longer be the ED of NeighborLink, but I'm a TNL member for life. I don't have any athletic gear that doesn't have a TNL logo on it!!