To 501(c)(3) or not, that is the question.

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart,

and try to love the questions themselves...

The point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps, then, you will gradually,

without even noticing it,

live your way into the answer."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

We are on the eve of something new in CLP: I have researched and discovered the path by which we can incorporate as a Non-Profit in California, and then become tax-exempt as a 501(c)(3) organization. This process, however, takes anywhere between $700-$1200, and I am beginning to realize that my physical, mental, and emotional investment in this project will be represented within this moment of financial need.

Where will this project go with 501(c)(3)? This project will go for grants to continue its work. This program would find a little office somewhere, or it would be the main source of income for a little apartment that belongs to Samantha Wilson (while she simultaneously does something else in order to live). This program would raise the money so that those individuals who can't afford to go to India CAN afford to go to India. This program would expand to Mali or Nigeria. This program would develop internships with the UC system to host university students to work at these schools across the globe. This program would bring international awareness into US classrooms. This program would develop a scholarship fund for its international participants.

This program would invest its life into relationships of mutuality and respect. This program is an "investment" program-- it are no concrete, measurable short-term effects, nor does it seek to achieve any.

CLP Short-Term Effects:
- Students are engaged with local and international peers through art, academia, and service
- International relationships and organizational partnerships and exchanges is established
- New ideas are discussed and new modes of learning are practiced by both parties
- Hope for the future is encouraged and given importance and legitimacy

Long term? We are developing a program that invests in everyone it comes into contact with. A program that writes letters to its student, that sends thank-you notes to its sponsors, that works diligently to place real directional power into the hands of those citizens it is trying to invest in. This program invests in its relationships. This program is about people in relationship with one another. This program is about whole-humanity and honoring all that is human within other individuals. I want a program that doesn't feel like a machine. I want a program that feels like a group of individuals working on behalf of the better good, in relationships of real exchange, of humility, of eagerness to serve human beings in their entirety.

Wholeness. Relationships. Investment.

THAT is social change.

And THAT is the Child Leader Project.

And thats why we're going after 501c3.

***Note: Italicized words are ideas that will be elaborated on later.