Friends,

A week ago I sent the first of these letters to a handful of people. Since then, many of you have asked to come along. Some of you I work with every day. Some of you I've known for years. Some of you I met over coffee and we talked longer than either of us planned. Thank you for being here.

The climb I've been writing about, ninety days in the Cascades and the Olympics in the fall of 2001, wasn't something I did alone. It was a group course, and the days I remember most are the ones where someone else carried part of the load.

I learned it again as a coach. Athletes came out for the team for all kinds of reasons. Some came because their friends were running, some because a parent told them to, and a few because they couldn't stop thinking about it. We welcomed every one of them and met each runner right where they were. By the end of the season, they had done something together that none of them could have done alone.

That is how I think about you. Some of you will read these and that's all, and that's plenty. Some of you will want to do more. None of this moves because one person builds something. It moves when many people each take a step. That's why this second letter is the first one I'm writing to a team.

Where the climb is

Not long after we started, the trail went into the trees and the summit disappeared.

The trees were so wide it took five people to reach around one. It rained for seven days straight. We woke up wet every morning, skin wrinkled like we had been in a long bath. You could walk all day and see nothing but trunks and moss and rain.

Nothing told you that you were climbing.

Nobody warns you about this part. Before a trip you look at the map and picture the top. Then you walk into the trees, and for days the only proof you are going up is in your legs. The view is gone, and so is the excitement of the start. What's left is the next step and the one after that.

Where the build is

That is where I am this week.

The plan is written. The asks are out. I've had conversations almost every day, with people who give, people who raise money, and people who advise both. I've asked a small group to help build something bigger than any one of us, and I'm waiting to hear back. I asked many of you whether you wanted these letters, and I'm grateful that so many of you said yes.

And still, there is very little I could point to and say, there, that moved.

I'll be honest about how that feels. Some days it feels like progress. Some days it feels like walking in the rain.

What I think happens in the middle

I've come to believe this is where most good intentions stall. Not at the start. The start is exciting. People stall in the middle, when the work is real and nothing confirms it is working.

I see the same thing in the work I care about most. A fund or foundation gets set up. The money goes in. It feels like a finish line. Then the months go by, nothing much happens, and it gets easy to decide that waiting is the responsible thing.

I don't think the people holding that money are careless. Most of the ones I know are thoughtful, generous and busy. They are in the trees. They can't see the top from where they stand, so they stop and wait for the view to come back.

The view doesn't come back to the people who wait. It comes back to the people who keep walking.

What I think the view looks like

I can't see it from here either. But I know what I'm climbing toward.

I picture a country where money that has already been set aside to do good actually moves. Where a family talks about its giving at the kitchen table the way it talks about anything else that matters. Where a donor knows what they care about and who will tell them whether it's working. Where a nonprofit leader isn't waiting a year for a gift that was decided long ago.

None of that needs more generosity. The generosity is already there. It needs movement.

Why I'm climbing

People ask me why I'm doing this now. My answer is the same one I gave athletes for years. You do hard things for who you become on the way up, and for the people you bring with you. I believe we are called to love our neighbors.

I've spent my career next to people at the moment they decided to give. It is one of the best things I know. I want more people to find that moment, and to find it sooner.

What I learned this week

Asking is harder than building. I can spend a day on a plan and feel productive. Sending one personal note asking someone to come along takes more out of me than the whole plan did.

And the answers matter more than the plan. Every yes this week came with a sentence or two, and those sentences told me more about where this is going than anything I wrote.

One small step for this week

Think of something you care about and have been meaning to support. Give to it. Any amount.

It won't get anyone to the top, but it is how you know you are climbing.

And if each of us takes that step this week, we'll have done something together that none of us could have done alone.

See you next Wednesday.

Chris