Today marks a stark convergence – the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and the inauguration of Donald Trump. Some see this as a day of despair. I see it as a powerful reminder of how change actually happens.

The fashionable thing, naturally, would be to despair; it seems to be all the rage these days among so many of my friends and colleagues.

Instead  I find myself committing what to many seems to be an unforgivable social sin: remaining hopeful. It sounds terribly earnest, I know, but as Dr. King reminded us, “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” His words echo powerfully today, not just as inspiration but as a practical blueprint for the road ahead.

You see I’ve learned over the years that the thing more shocking than change is the persistence of those unfashionable souls who believe in it.

Change often appears suddenly, like mushrooms springing up after a rain. As Rebecca Solnit beautifully describes in “Hope in the Dark,” what we see as sudden breakthrough moments are actually the visible fruiting of vast underground networks of work and preparation. The Berlin Wall’s fall  and just last month the overthrow of Syrian dictator Assad seemed to happen overnight, but those events were preceded by decades of resistance, organizing, and hope kept alive through countless small acts of courage.

I’ve witnessed this pattern repeatedly over six decades of organizing and fundraising for  financing social change movements. When I first came to Washington in the mid 60s, the Potomac River was so polluted that “No Swimming” signs lined its banks. Women couldn’t get credit cards without a male cosigner. Airline companies routinely fired pregnant flight attendants. Abortion was illegal in every state. The hospice movement was condemned as radical. Gay rights activists met in secret. Medical and law schools had virtually no women students – fewer than 2%.

Today, these realities seem like artifacts from another world. Yet their transformation didn’t happen through singular dramatic moments. Like Solnit’s mushrooms, these changes grew from deep roots of persistent work by nonprofits and their supporters:

• Building awareness through education and outreach;
• Providing direct support to affected communities;
• Advancing policy changes through persistent advocacy;
• Creating alternative models that demonstrated better ways forward.

The seeming permanence –and to some hopelessness–of today’s challenges is an illusion. As writer Ursula Le Guin noted, “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” The immutable structures of today were yesterday’s radical dreams, brought into being through countless small acts of courage and persistence.

Consider the long arc of change: It took women 78 years – spanning 36 Congresses – to win the right to vote. The civil rights movement’s journey from slavery to voting rights spanned a century. Many who planted the seeds and the countless thousands who sacrificed to advance  these movements never lived to see their harvest. Yet they persisted, understanding that change requires both patience and urgency.

James Baldwin captured this when he wrote “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Our nonprofit sector’s role is precisely this – to face unflinchingly what must be changed, then work steadily toward that change through the aggregated power of individual actions: the donor who gives monthly to support a cause, the volunteer who shows up weekend after weekend, the activist who keeps speaking truth despite resistance.

The oligarchs and aoutocrats celebrating today should instead fear this kind of change – not because it comes through dramatic confrontation, but because it comes through the steady accretion of small actions that suddenly reach a tipping point. Like water wearing away stone, the accumulated impact of countless small actions eventually transforms what once seemed immovable.

As Dr. King noted, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” We in the nonprofit sector are the ones doing that essential bending work, day by day. Our work may seem small against the scale of challenges we face, but history shows us that persistent, collective effort ultimately prevails.

So today, rather than despair, let’s recognize the awesome power we hold collectively – not just in our organizations’ missions, but in the aggregated impact of our daily choices to keep showing up, to keep giving, to keep believing in and working toward positive change.

The road ahead may be long and the obstacles formidable. But we have something more powerful than any opposition – we have the sustaining force of hope combined with action, of vision married to persistence. We have each other, and we have the proven power of small actions to create seismic change.

As Dr. King said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Today, let’s celebrate our sector’s vital role in building those staircases to justice, opportunity and human dignity – one step at a time, one action at a time, until the path forward becomes clear for all.

The work continues. And that’s why today, of all days, I choose hope.

Roger