Young feet running toward an empty stage

Heavily armed with vision and mission

Overflowing with words and stories

Testimonies

Strategies

Punctuated with rehearsed passion, perfectly-timed tears, and meaningful gestures that belie teflon greetings and stilted waves to the lesser ones on the way to stage left

To the onlookers and audience members

Market segments

Ones who do not rise to the level

Or who fell from grace

Who did not relish tasks

Who did not fit the mold

Who lost hold of the mission

Or perhaps with full knowledge and fuller vision rejected the plasticity

To acknowledge the real

To comfort the hurting

To embrace the disenfranchised

To give hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless

For whom there is no narrowly-defined, target-marketed nonprofit with shiny booth or four-color matte finish brochure or website with adequate white space

The hurt helping the hurting

Where they live

Ignoring walls of arrogance and revolving doors at establishments, conventions, conferences, and institutions

Like Christ

Adding color outside the lines