Finding Our Shared “Why”
In the early days of our food systems work, we spent a lot of time together without much to show for it. The meetings were full of energy, but not direction. People cared, but no one could say exactly what we were working toward. Without a shared sense of purpose, we stalled.
The turning point came when a grant opportunity crossed my inbox. It was for a regional food study that could look across twelve counties at what people were producing and consuming, and where the gaps were. Suddenly, we had something tangible to aim toward. When I shared it with others, the room that had once felt heavy with uncertainty began to move.
Purpose gave us momentum. It also gave us clarity. People knew why we were showing up, what we were working toward, and how their participation mattered.
But I also saw how fragile purpose can be. Around that same time, my own board of directors questioned why the Charlotte City Market should participate in a regional study. From the outside, the connection seemed obvious, but to them it wasn’t. Because I hadn’t taken the time to connect the dots with them, they saw misalignment. What looked like a strong shared purpose from one angle felt confusing from another.
That experience taught me two things. First, purpose needs to be co-created, not handed down. And second, it has to be tended to along the way. It isn’t enough to set it once and assume everyone is still aligned. People need to keep checking: Is this still where we’re headed? Does this still make sense?
I’ve found that purpose is strongest when it isn’t held too tightly. When people are invited to shape it, it has room to evolve. In Charlotte, the grant proposal ended up carrying dozens of different reasons for support, many of which I hadn’t thought of myself. That diversity of motivation made the purpose bigger, sturdier, and more creative than anything I could have written on my own.
For me, attending to purpose means slowing down enough to name what we’re aiming for, inviting others to bring their reasons into the mix, and holding it lightly enough that it can change as the work changes.
When we get this right, purpose doesn’t weigh us down. It pulls us forward.
