YEAR-END REFLECTIONS

Into the Forest I Go, to Lose My Mind and Find My Soul

Watch your mailbox for the purple envelope from TJC this week. It’s the 23rd such letter. It doesn’t follow the formula that fundraising consultants say it should. Instead, it’s an old-style report to investors about our year, updating you our most faithful supporters, friends, and allies about what we’ve accomplished together. This year’s letter focuses on me gaining perspective running through a beautiful Pacific Northwest forest older than our country. And coming back to the TJC forest surrounded by the beauty of coworkers, volunteers, donors, clients, and partners who help me replenish my soul every single day.

Thank you for being a part of that forest with your gifts. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be updating you on some of the incredible members of TJC’s forest this year. One is the incredible, Jane Beasley, a finalist for the Center for Nonprofit Management and Erie Chapman Foundation’s prestigious Servant’s Heart Award. We now have a trademark app that bears her name (AskJane!) and is being beta tested to help tens of thousands of Tennesseans find health coverage. AskJane! will reduce uncompensated care and help pull Tennessee out of 1st place on medical bankruptcies for the nation.

But who Jane is and how she helps me find my soul is less about the tens of thousands and more about the mothers and daughters she listens to, supports, guides, and fights for (usually health care is dealt with by women across the class spectrum). These women call us when red tape keeps them or their loved ones from basic necessities, dignity, and opportunity. There have been 1,200 such calls this year.

Jane is a tireless advocate and expert who makes that work possible. Nita Guinn told us recently of the power of these calls for just one family. She called the years of Jane standing with her a miracle which produced a cherished gift–she was able to hold her son Lee as he went to heaven. It was thanks to TJC’s intervention that she was at home with him, not in an institution. What a sacred gift Jane gave to Nita that she never felt alone. Your gifts make this possible.

Our goal this year is $220,000 and 65 donors have already given $54,403. Join them today.