Jordan, Raising Purpose Co-Founder: Everyone woke up on November 9th with a different outlook on the future and a different mindset of how to move forward. I woke up with sense of fear and anxiety, but my wife, Katie woke up with a desire to make a difference by bringing love and compassion to our community. We decided that Katie’s attitude was the best for our family, and set out thinking about how we could engage our children in that same desire to be light in a dark world. We needed a plan.
Katie, Raising Purpose Co-Founder: I texted Jordan as he was heading out on a trip for work and told him I wanted him to use the skills he uses everyday in the social service field with his own family. I wanted him to help us create a strategic plan to make our family more informed and motivated to create change, and help us to be intentional about how we help to make that change in our community
Jordan: Four days after the election, on a Friday evening, we gathered our 3 year old and our 6 year old at the kitchen table to create the Vernoy Family Strategic Plan.
We answered five questions:
- What is great about each of us?
- What are our values as a family?
- What do we have that we can share?
- What impact do we want to have on the community/country/world?
- What will we do, where can we give, and how will we grow as a family?
We talked. We laughed We got confused. We sorted it out. We were creative. We had a few melt downs. In the end, we came up with a plan that we think is pretty beautiful.
Katie: Our family’s purpose statement is: “To build a family that is focused on faith, love and compassion. A family that treats everyone with equal love and respect. A family that chooses to share the things we have to make the world a better place.”
Our son named it the Super Total Awesome Rad (STAR) Plan. It is complete with a big impact statement and monthly action items. We wanted a plan we could come back to on a daily and weekly basis to remind us of the values we want at the center of our family.
Jordan: After just a few days, we began to see the impact that the planning conversations had on our kids. Our six year old son decided to donate his birthday money to a community organization we talked about during the planning. He also told me it was hard to make that choice. I was proud of him for donating, and happy that we were building a family where we talk openly about the challenges and joys of helping.
Jordan: When friends began asking how we could help them make their own plan, we realized we needed to share this thing to make the world a better place, and the idea of Raising Purpose was born.
Our goal is to build a community of families who are facing the hard realities of the world head on. We’re launching Raising Purpose to help build families who refuse to believe that injustice in any form is simply a reality of the world we live in. We want to support families who want to change the world.
Families will be able to use a professionally designed strategy toolkit to guide them through the process of creating their own family strategic plans. Simple instructions and questions help families engage in meaningful conversations about the the type of impact they want to have in the world. Our design includes spaces and designs ready to color will help keep children of all ages be an active part of the process.
Raising Purpose 