As we think about the future of Epic Change, I keep coming to ground in these words…

“What can turn us from this deserted future, back into the sphere of our being, the great dance that joins us to our home, to each other and to other creatures, to the dead and unborn? I think it is love. I am perforce aware how baldly and embarrassingly that word now lies on the page—for we have learned at once to overuse it, abuse it, and hold it in suspicion. But I do not mean any kind of abstract love (adolescent, romantic, or “religious”), which is probably a contradiction in terms, but particular love for particular things, places, creatures, and people, requiring stands, acts, showing its successes and failures in practical or tangible effects. And it implies a responsibility just as particular, not grim or merely dutiful, but rising out of generosity. I think that this sort of love defines the effective range of human intelligence, the range within its works can be dependably beneficent. Only the action that is moved by love for the good at hand has the hope of being responsible and generous. Desire for the future produces words that cannot be stood by. But love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows.”

Our own sense of self-aggrandizement feels that big, important problems need to have big, important – and most of all expensive – solutions attached to them. And yet what behavioral economics shows time after time after time is in human behavior and behavioral change there’s a very, very strong disproportionality at work – that actually what changes our behavior and what changes our attitude to things is not actually proportionate to the degree of expense entailed or the degree of force that’s applied. But everything about institutions makes them uncomfortable with that disproportionality. So what happens in an institution is the very person who has the power to solve the problem also has a very, very large budget. And once you have a very, very large budget, you actually look for expensive things to spend it on.

What is completely lacking is a class of people who have immense amounts of power but no money at all.

What would the world look like if people like Mama Lucy had power?  What kind of MacGyver educational system could they create with a paperclip & some string?

We restore power to those who remember how to do something with nothing.   In classrooms where kids share pencils, teachers share a piece of chalk between classrooms until it’s turned to dust, and every child values each piece of paper to the point that every last inch is covered before it’s tossed – in those classrooms, solutions will be born that don’t needlessly exploit the planet’s resources.  In those classrooms, solutions for all of us, not just the few, the lucky or the rich – but that are accessible for all of us – will be created.

This is why we amplify the voices & visibility of grassroots changemakers like Mama Lucy.  This is why we are predominately funded by donors who are able to invest immense love, but only a few dollars. (For more on that, read this.)

“It is easy to despair that you can’t create change; so my role is to provoke people to believe in their power” #AshokaFellow

— Ashoka (@Ashoka) May 21, 2012

We think those with the smallest bank accounts just might have the biggest ideas.

Special thanks to my friend John from the Florida StartupBus who shared this video with me.

Because I’ve been scared.

Scared that I couldn’t wed and do this work.  Scared that I’d never have a child because I’d chosen this path, that I’d never be healthy or well-rested or beautiful again. Scared that I’d never again have the time or money to take care of myself or my family. Scared that whatever I’d build would turn on me like a monster and devour me whole – and wreak havoc or harm rather than the good I’d intended.  I am wary of good intentions.  Even my own.

But I have decided to trust myself.  And to trust the universe.  And to trust love.

I’m letting go of the fear for now.  I do not yet know where that will lead. Or what Epic Change will become.

I cannot control the outcome.  But I choose now to invest my heart in whatever the universe has in store for me next.

(I still hope it comes with a baby.)

And so, an invocation for beginnings from Ze.  Beware.  He will cuss.  A lot. And you’re probably gonna like it.

PS:  This site may go quiet, or even go away.  I’m not sure yet where the road leads.  I just know I’m ready to travel.

As expected, by far, the most interesting responses were found in the open-ended sections of the questionnaire. We were incredibly moved and motivated by your heartfelt, thoughtful responses.  Here’s a few of the key findings:

SAMPLE SIZE:
Nearly 220 people responded to the survey.

MOTIVATIONS:
In response to the multiple-choice question “What motivated you to participate in Epic Change?”

The most highly rated responses were:

• “I believe in the power of positive emotions like love & gratitude.”
• “I appreciate their innovative use of social media & technology.”

The lowest rated responses were:

• “I feel specifically connected to a particular project because of its purpose or geography.”
• “I feel directly connected to the organization’s partners in Tanzania.”

When responding to the open-ended question “Share why you participate in and/or follow the work of Epic Change,” the most commonly provided response was a relationship to or respect for one or both of the organization’s founders.  Other often-cited themes appear in the wordle below.  Specific people, projects, and programs were excluded from this analysis, as well as categories that comprised less than 1% of the data set.  Word height is presented relative to the number of survey participants whose response was reflective of each theme.

IMPROVEMENTS & NEXT STEPS:
When asked about desired next steps and proposed improvements to Epic Change, respondents were somewhat divided.  Some wrote comments suggesting expansion and additional projects, like:

• “Expand beyond Tanzania programs,” and
• “Grow the organization.”

Many others, however, requested that Epic Change remain small & focused on our efforts in Tanzania, commenting:

• “Deliver and expand on the current projects rather than spreading thin;”
• “I’d keep the original consistency in place – don’t be a slave to the #techsoc sector’s misguided obsession with big scale;”
• “Keep a focus that continues to build on existing projects. Don’t look to expand too broad, both in terms of theme and geography;” and
• “I  personally enjoy the connection to Mama Lucy, the school, and the kids. I’d prefer to have the organization continue to work with them in various ways, rather than to see them branch out to other projects.”

Other than comments suggesting scale or focus, respondents most often suggested improvements to organizational communication, with comments like:

• “Better communication and follow up. I receive very little correspondence from them. Until receiving this survey, I kind of forgot about the organization and initially couldn’t even remember what Epic Change was.”

In addition, several respondents suggested improved focus on organizational sustainability, saying things like:

• “Find new ways to make money. Epic Change will not survive if it doesn’t take care of itself.”

OVERALL EXPERIENCE:
In response the question asking respondents to rate their overall experience as a member of the Epic Change community, the average rating was 5.66 (+/- 1.15) on a 7-point scale, where “7″ represented an “incredible” experience and 1 represented a “terrible” experience.  Nearly 33% rated their experience a perfect 7, and nearly 55% of respondents rated their overall experience with Epic Change a six or above.  Only 2 respondents rated their overall experience below average. Zero respondents rated Epic Change below 3 on the 7-point scale.

DEMOGRAPHICS:

• Nearly 99% of respondents reported completing at least some college-level coursework.  Over 86% reported completing a bachelor’s degree, nearly 40% reported completing a Master’s degree or higher, 5% reported receiving professional degrees, and 5.5% reported receiving PhDs.
• Approximately 75% of respondents were female, and 25% were male.
• 23.5% of respondents reported annual income under $50K, nearly 9% reported they were not in paid employment, over 30% reported annual income of over $90K, and 67% reported annual income of over $50K.
• Respondents were nearly evenly split 50/50 between those who were over & under 40 years of age.
• Nearly 50% of respondents reported that they worked in the social change sector.  (e.g., social change consultant, social entrepreneur, nonprofit employee, etc.)

Additional charts, aggregate data and anonymized responses to open-ended questions are available in this Google Doc.

Over the coming weeks and months, your thoughts and ideas will help create the future of Epic Change.  As you review this information, we hope you’ll let us know if any interesting insights or ideas emerge by commenting below.

We’re so grateful for your open, honest feedback.

Thanks!!!

Because of you.

Imagine the possibilities their education could represent for the world we share. Perhaps Gideon will go on to discover new planets. Maybe Leah will finally find a cure.

You created these possibilities.

By telling your mom you love her during To Mama With Love. By opening your heart, and your home, to friends from so very far away on a miraculous journey you made possible. By singing your little hearts out with LaLaLove. By simply giving Epic Thanks for what matters most.

By investing in the dreams of a woman audacious enough to believe that love would somehow be enough.

She was right.

Children have now started secondary school on a patch of land purchased with your love.

Never doubt your heart holds the power to create Epic Change.

Thanks so much. For everything.

With love & so much gratitude,
Stacey

It was the middle of the night, as it always is, because she’s got a full-time job changing lives in LA. And she’s an artist too. And a digital magazine publisher. And, oh so much more.

It’s always them, you know, the ones with so much to do you can’t see them fitting one more thing in. They manipulate the laws of time & space to make anything possible.

And so she did with LaLaLove. Ann said “yes” – because this is just what Ann says. Always.

It’s not as if she owes me a favor, not as if we go “way back” – though maybe our souls do, if we go all the way back to that place in the primordial soup where love came to life. In the universe we now see, though, we live on opposite coasts, come from different places, and had no reason at all to even know one another. Except that a synapse of the universe fired somewhere in the form of a tweet or a talk or a blog post and serendipity decided we would be in this love-the-world thing together.

She said “yes,” along with countless others. Like Robbie, who poured his heart in at a time when I’m sure he wondered if his heart had any more to give. And Lulu, whose art always breathes life, humanity, tenderness, love, resonance and connection into every site she touches. And Sanjay, who missed the school’s first graduation to stay home & stay up for a week with Ann to make sure, once again, that love had a platform on which to work it’s magic.

They said “yes” to LaLaLove and, in doing so, they said “yes” to creating a world in which it was possible for hundreds of children from 30 schools, churches and scout troops in 19 states to build a school out of love and music.

The yes they whispered to the wind traveled – on the radio waves of our partners at Kids Place Live on Sirius XM – to 30 music teachers, parents and scout leaders who sang back with all the love in their hearts, and all the kids in their care, “yes.”

One of those music teachers was Missy O’Keefe, at Sylvia Rosenauer elementary school in Jackson, NJ. She said “yes” too. Her yes sounded like the voices of 345 children singing the words “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Her “yes” looked like this:

To her, and to those 345 children, 148 people gave $5,700 to say “yes” to the wish carried by these tiny voices that their song would somehow be enough to build a secondary school for 500 children they haven’t yet met half the world away. As it had been for Ann, Robbie, Lulu, and Sanjay, “yes” was probably not an easy answer for Missy, nor for the people who gave their support. When they learned they’d raised the most of all the schools who participated, the vice president of her PTA wrote us this note:

My name is Jackie Capasso and I’m the vice president of the PTA at Rosenauer elementary school. We entered the LaLaLove contest and since then our school has not been the same. But first I must give you a little background of our school. We are the smallest elementary school in our area with about 345 kids from kindergarten to 5th. We are also considered to be of the lowest income in our area. We are like a family here and the fact that we have come so far in so many ways including this contest is amazing. Our children are so excited they watch their video and sing it all day long. They know what it’s like to go without and the fact that they know they are helping to build another school in Tanzania just gives them such pride.

Students at their local high school said “yes” by holding a bake sale to support them. A local yoga teacher said “yes” with a benefit yoga class. To these children who “know what it’s like to go without,” who raised their voices to ask the universe for a gift to give away, the universe said “yes.” You shall be heard.

During LaLaLove, 697 people gave $27,740 to say a resounding “yes” to hundreds of children who raised their voices in love in hopes that they could build a school out of song.

And now, in a tiny Tanzanian village, that school is being built. Out of music. Out of gratitude. Out of love.

View photos of the secondary school under construction.

Each brick will echo the song of hundreds of children singing “I love you.”

Each child who enters will faintly hear their voices filling the walls with music and love.

All because Ann and so many others said “yes” – when “no” would have been a whole lot easier.

Their voices all echo and amplify one remarkable woman who dared to say “yes” to the dream of building a school that would transform her village, and her country. Even when she had only chickens to build it.

This is what happens when we dare to say “yes” – even (especially) when yes seems impossible.

Yes begets yes.

No begets nothing.

This November, during LaLaLove and Epic Thanks, so many people said “yes” to Mama Lucy’s dream of building a secondary school that we are able to invest over $65,000 USD – and the school will be open in January so that Leah, Gideon & their classmates can continue their education without interruption.

Thank you for saying “yes.”

Instead of spending the day seeking more, I decided to simply be present & thankful for every miracle that has already found it’s way into this little life of mine. And to relish every moment of a rare day spent in the company of my family from both sides of the world.

And this is what happened.

On ThanksGiving Day, I received a totally unexpected email from someone we’d last reached out to nearly a year ago. The first words in the email were: “Dear Stacey, Happy Thanksgiving!” The email went on to grant us over $10,000 for “the construction of the school in Tanzania.”

I swear I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

This November, we raised over $60,000 through the Epic Thanks tour, Epic Thanks online, LaLaLove, and this miraculous ThanksGiving Day gift. (Epic Thanks tour & online: $31K+ | LaLaLove: $20K+ (so far!) | Miracle ThanksGiving Grant: $10K+)

Perhaps the money has not come in exactly the way I’d expected or planned.

But it came just the same.

Maybe it’s just that the universe thinks surprises are much more fun. In truth, I do too.

This is what I believe with my whole heart: you raised that money in my inbox. The energy you created in the universe with your love, your creativity, your hope & your gratitude – it was an inescapable magnet that drew the resources we needed in our direction.

Together, we’ve raised enough to get the secondary school up with at least four classrooms, restrooms, a well, solar power, a science lab, a kindle library/technology lab, a kitchen, enough beds for the school’s first class and more.

This exceeds any goal I could have possibly imagined. And LalaLove is still going strong. There may be more classrooms yet in store for us.

And that is only what we can see most directly. What we cannot measure is how the love and gratitude we and others have shared will transform our own lives, the lives of those whom we encounter, and those who witness it. Those miracles may be even greater and more far-flung.

So, so grateful for every ounce of love you’ve poured in,
Stacey

Then, in 48 hours, we raised over $11,000 USD from hundreds of people across the globe we’d never met. Since then, the celebration has raised more than $60,000 that has been invested in changemakers in Nepal, Tanzania and the US who have built classrooms, a library, a children’s technology lab, a temporary home for disabled veterans and more. We’ve modeled other social media events after that first experiment, and have raised over $60,000 more so far in investments of love from across the globe during To Mama With Love and LaLaLove.

Never doubt that anything is possible. Anything.

In the past, I have dedicated Epic Thanks and TweetsGiving to Mama Lucy. This year, I dedicate this celebration to her and to the many of you who, inspired by her, have dared to believe that you are enough. That your chickens – whatever they may be – will somehow be enough to create radical new possibilities in the world we share. That your gratitude is enough. And that your love is enough.

Because it is.

It always is.

This year, I’m grateful for those of you (you know who you are) who believe in the deepest parts of yourselves that love will always be enough. And especially for those of you, like Sanjay, who have enough hope to do it anyway – even when doubt creeps in.

Last month, I wrote a post wishing for Leah & Gideon to visit us all here in the US. In it, I wrote:

“I want to give them this gift so they grow up with hearts that dare to hope for ridiculous, unimaginable possibilities. For themselves, their community, their country and the world we share. I want them to know, beyond any doubt, that even their wildest dreams just might come true.”

The truth is that this wish was for me, and for all of us, as much as (or even more than) it was for Leah & Gideon.

I wanted you & I to know, beyond any doubt, that our wildest dreams just might come true. And you made sure I knew – that we all knew – by making it so.

I wanted you & I to have hearts that dare to hope for ridiculous, unimaginable possibilities. For ourselves, our communities, our countries and the world we share. And by creating this possibility for Leah, Gideon & Mama Lucy, you made it safer – more fathomable – to hope.

This Epic Thanks, I give my thanks to those who have dared to believe that somehow our love and gratitude would be enough.  And who have made sure, every time, that it has been.

You are the creators of hope, you who dare to believe in possibilities before they are born.  And today, I am beyond grateful for the light you shine into the future of us all.

In honor of those who create radical possibilities in your life, and in our world, I hope you’ll celebrate Epic Thanks with us.

This Epic Thanks, we aim to build a secondary school for kids like Leah & Gideon in whose young souls so many possibilities live.  So far, through our cross-country tour & our children’s music project at LaLaLove.org, we’ve raised over $35,000.  Our hope is to raise $15K this week to reach $50,000 by ThanksGiving Day in the US.   By doing so, we’ll be able to get the new school up & running by January 2012 when next term begins.

Join us now by investing your gratitude at www.EpicThanks.org.

Want to join us for the rest of the journey?

They arrived last Thursday.

A five-hour bus ride to Nairobi. Six hours to Istanbul. Another ten to JFK. And here they were.

It’s funny now as I type the word “they,” I realize the imprecision of such pronouns. They are not they anymore. They have become we. Children I’ve loved for five years are now sleeping soundly in my very own home after I tucked them in bed with a sweet “lala salama.” Tomorrow, they’ll go trick-or-treating in my neighborhood, with boys and girls just like them in so many ways – except geography and circumstance.

We are together.

It’s a strange and, in some ways, a strained life I’ve created. My very best friends in the world live a twenty-hour plane ride away, and though we’re always together in spirit, it’s so much better to have them here in person. I can hardly believe it.

I can’t tell you for how long I’ve wanted to invite them, and how many times I’ve said to myself: it’s impractical, Stacey. It’s unrealistic. What little money you have, you should save for building classrooms, not a trip to America. Besides, they can’t all come. You couldn’t choose only one or two. Your wish could simply never come true. Your community will think it’s frivolous. No one would contribute to bring them. It’s silly, Stacey. Silly. Stop dreaming.

But sure enough, when I dared whisper my wish into the universe, the money appeared like a miracle in just two days. And sure enough, a month later, here they are sleeping in the next room. Except Gideon. He never sleeps. The internet & plentiful electricity are a distraction from such basic human necessities as rest.

We’ll be sharing photos from the journey on instagram as we travel, and Leah & Gideon will be blogging on tumblr. Trust me, if yesterday & today were any indication, you won’t want to miss even a moment.

Especially moments like this one:

Tonight my niece Zoe, and three of her friends had dinner with Leah & Gideon. At the table I asked about the stereotypes they had about African children before meeting Leah & Gideon. They responded with trepidation. Isaac said: “I thought they had good morals and were close to their families.” Jackie said: “I didn’t know what to expect.” They were careful not to say anything that might offend Leah; already they’d become fast friends.

But then I rephrased my question and instead asked: “What do most American children think about African children?” Then, with less hesitation, they answered in turn. Isaac said, “They come from a bad economic situation. They’re poor.” Zoe said, “They’re vulnerable in some way. They’re weak. Or sick.” Jackie said, “They’re tribal.”

Across from them sat Leah, intently listening. To her I asked, “How does it feel to know some may think this about children from your country?” She replied:

“It makes me sad. But this is why I’m here, you know. To show them how great we can be.“

And, in those moments, it was as crystal clear to my rational mind as it has been to my heart all along. This trip is anything but frivolous. And as important as anything we’ve yet done. Perhaps more.

Friendship changes everything. It changes “they” into “we”. What happens when Leah is no longer some distant “other” but instead a girl just like me? What happens when our children realize Gideon’s good at video games, and Leah’s just as smart and strong and full of possibility as they are?

What happens when we get close enough to find ourselves in one another?

Do we still tolerate one of “us” having less access to education, water, food, basic healthcare, sanitation and electricity?

When “they” become “we,” will something radical shift in this beautiful, broken universe of ours?

I’m willing to bet it just might.

And I’m hoping you’ll join us on the journey.