A couple of weeks ago at the park by our house, our friends’ daughter put on a bake sale. All donations at the bake sale would go directly to their favorite charity, Animal Rescue League. This prompted our kids’ curiosity on the idea of fundraising for a charity. While my wife and I have our charities we are passionate in supporting, we realized there were more opportunities to educate our kids on the overall concept of why it’s important to support these not-for-profit organizations.

As discussions continued, my daughter became fixated on asking when they could put up a lemonade stand and sell cookies and lemonade. As the brainstorming continued, my son brought up the idea of following our friend’s course of fundraising for a charity. Now, the question became, what charity.

Recently, I wrote an excerpt on what true character looks like (What Character Looks Like – Be An Accelerator). Good friends of ours recently lost their 8-year-old boy. The most devastating thing you can think of as a parent. In dedication to our 8-year-old friend that we lost, my son suggested we dedicate all the proceeds towards the charity he supported, Des Moines Refugee Support Group.

This is what the power of accelerators (Be an Accelerator – Be An Accelerator) can look like. It starts with our friends putting on a bake sale for the ARL to showcase a model of making an impact in the community. Others around take notice and start to think about ways they can impact their community as well. An accelerator starts that first domino of making a positive difference to then create an impact to the next domino, then the next, and so on. Our friends became accelerators in the community by providing a model of making the world just a little bit of a better place.

Thanks to support from great friends, family, and neighbors, we were able to raise an amount that can help support the great work Des Moines Refugee Support Group will continue to do, propelling our community forward. All while reminding our family of the importance of being an accelerator in our community.

When we choose to put ourselves out into the world to try to make a positive difference, it takes work, vulnerability, perseverance, and a lot more. Often this freezes our good intentions because we’re unsure of what might come with putting ourselves out there. What we don’t invest enough time in realizing though is when we put ourselves out there as an accelerator for making a positive change, we can be a domino that creates an impact on so many others. There’s no one way to do it. We each have our own unique talents and methods to making this world a better place. What we do have in common though is it’s on each of us to be an accelerator and help propel others forward as we look for our better tomorrow.

Your next step: take time to reflect on where you’ve been hesitant to put yourself out there but know it could make a positive difference. Acknowledge the fear and hesitation that can come with putting yourself out there and then switch to investing time in focusing on the positive influence you can provide. Channel the focus of the impact you can make to allow yourself to be vulnerable and be the change you want to see.