The measure of a man (person or organization) comes down to moments, spread out like dots of pain on the canvas on life. Everything you were, everything you'll someday be, resides in the small, seemingly ordinary choices of everyday life.....Each decision seems as insignificant as a left turn on an unfamiliar road when you have no destination in mind. But the decisions accumulate until you realize one day that they've made you the man (person or organization) that you are.
-Kristin Hannah
Here we are in 2025. This is not exactly where I imagined Platform would be when I started it in 2018. Looking back, I actually can’t remember exactly what I expected… but knowing myself, very much ambitious and driven back then, these benchmarks are probably what I envisioned:
International outreach with a recognizable brand
Financially sustainable with a paid staff
Myself as a board member rather than running the day-to-day operations of the organization
What I had envisioned was from an executive perspective, one in which the success of a company was assessed based on how much money, how big of an outreach, and how independent it has become: tangible, practical assessment of success, comparable to how most foundations base their decision to support an organization. I don’t blame them or myself for holding these standards; we are all products of our capitalistic and materialistic culture. It is difficult to assess the potential or success of an organization without looking at their numbers if you don’t know intimately the history and the quality of the leadership team behind the organization.
If we used the metrics based on what I originally, vaguely envisioned, one can only surmise that we had failed miserably. We do not have a recognizable brand anywhere except among a small group of youth and women; we are not financially sustainable; we don’t have a paid staff; and I am still working to grow our organization. But have we really failed?! Even with the multiple rejections from grant applications and countless failures with our outreach, I don’t think we have failed. It isn’t because I am unwilling to admit failure. Trust me when I say that I know what failure looks like. I do not have a professional career that I had envisioned for myself in my early adulthood. So I am able to call failure for what it is, an ability to meet my own expectations. I have accepted my failure and have embraced a different, new path for myself. Thankfully, I am resilient and quite frankly, too old to care.
Then if we haven’t met any of the expectations I had envisioned for Platform, then why is it not a failure. Whereas I had to give up my professional trajectory, Platform is still living into its mission by growing leaders for our communities. As I age, I am slowly learning to redefine success by changing not the mission but the metrics of what makes an organization a success. What are our new plans:
Perceptible impact on the youth and women of Aurora
Tangible contributions to our communities
Growing the leadership of our team and board
We have been and will continue to make the necessary changes to benefit our community. I look back at the women and youth we have been able to help transform and there has been quite a few. Do I want to reach more people? Yes. If we foster more relationships, we would have a greater impact and also branding that would help with our fundraising and outreach, essentially a more effective community organizing. It is not just because of our pride or ego, but it would allow us to focus more on program development and invest in our relationships/partnerships with our community. It is all about re-directing our energy to areas that would help us find solutions to better and meet the needs of our communities. We want to become one of the many lifelines that can impact our growing city but it will take some time. We hope that 2025 will get us on our way.
Sam Joo
CEO and Founder
December 31, 2024