Love is Active
A Giving Tuesday invitation from Tarah Carnahan, Executive Director and Co-Founder
On the Treetops Collective core team, many of us became adults in the age of social media, being connected through multiple platforms to stories and people outside our immediate community. This has given us eyes to see pain outside our purview, to wonder about distant cultures, to find out about new causes, and has reminded us again and again how we have a part to play in seeking justice for the poor and oppressed. This has indeed inspired action in seasons, but we also have been growing increasingly aware of how simply liking or sharing a post makes us feel like we have done something transformative. We can be deceived into believing that we are changing the world with two taps of our thumb.
But friends, real change is not so easy. Real change requires something of us. Discomfort and sacrifice are often inevitable when we actively engage in justice work, in lasting change. Transformation of all forms requires ongoing, perpetual investment.
Sharing information is essential to grassroots efforts and community engagement, but real change happens offline, and real work is done in our hearts, our homes, our communities.
As parents, my husband and I feel everyday the weighty responsibility of sharing our convictions with our kids and helping them understand why we make the decisions we do. This is one of the reasons we chose to start supporting Treetops through monthly giving last year. I know not only the gift that consistent investment is to a growing organization, I also know what a gift it is to our family as we navigate bringing to life the values we hold dear. As we teach our kids to love their neighbors, we get to remind them WHO our neighbors are and that it requires something of us.
Love is active.
Your priorities and values might look different than ours, and that’s an awesome thing - it means that the uniqueness of each of our stories, and what we feel pulled to engage with because of them, will result in a flourishing nonprofit community that is actively caring for and bringing opportunity to the marginalized.
But if you feel drawn to being a part of this cross-cultural movement of connecting with and investing in New American women leaders, then I invite you to join me as a member of our Cultivator’s Club - a steadfast community of monthly donors, showing up each month with gifts of $5-$500. Each member is just as valuable to this collective work that we are creatively striving for together.
For Giving Tuesday this year, I am personally matching the first gift made by any new monthly donor. If you start a monthly gift today, our family will joyfully double the impact of your gift.
I’m so excited for what we can do together. Your commitment allows us to boldly step into 2021 with confidence and hope knowing that you too are walking alongside us each step of the way.
