The past month has been an astonishing litany of Sunday Assembly success. In the movie of the movement (moviement TM) 40 Dates and 40 Nights: The Roadshow will be an epic montage of smiley faces, clapping hands, early flights and Pippa and I meeting the nicest people in the world (that’s you guys).
The one thing it won’t have, is a manically whirling sign on our crowdfunding campaign as we whizz past our £500 000 target. This is a shame. Raising that money would definitely make the next two years A LOT easier. We could have concentrated on helping millions of people launch their own Assemblies, as opposed to worrying about running out of cash for the phone bills.
However, it was also an outrageously ambitious goal and missing outrageously ambitious goals is the sort of failure that we don’t mind at SA HQ. What is important is that we went for it. What’s even more important, is that we don’t feel afraid to keep on trying to be ambitious.
On top all that, this is the best looking failure we could imagine. Here’s why:
Because we launched a ton of Assemblies (because we were ambitious), it meant we got a ton of press for the roadshow, and, because of this, a squad of programmers, designers and developers have come forward and offered to build it for FREE. Say what? Yes. People offering their time for free to build it.
Obviously, progress will be a much slower and lumpier than having a team of three full-time coding monkeys giving it their all. The important thing is that we are still going to build a digital platform to allow millions of people to start their own Assemblies, it will just take a bit longer to build, and we can start the journey.
The cool thing is that we still have 12 days left of our campaign and we should make the most of it. In light of this, let’s aim for the more reachable £60k goal. From £60k we’ll have £48k left over after tax, fees and reward costs. This will allow us, Pippa and Sanderson, to continue working on this for one more year, to cover the costs, expenses and the time we commit to the project.
Doing it this way: the digital platform will continue to be built, we will continue to help the current crop of Assemblies, we’ll continue to learn how to build community, learn how to effectively help in the community and to build an organisation entirely dedicated to helping everyone live this one life as fully as possible.
Then, in September 2014, we’ll launch the next 100 Assemblies (see, we told you we wouldn’t quit with the ambitious goals).
ps. A note to people who have asked to start their own Assembly. Hiya! We have thousands of people who have asked to start their own Assembly and we will (as soon as we can), put you all in touch with other folk in your area. Now, I know September 2014 seems a long time away but the reason we’re waiting until September 2014 is that we’re finding that Assemblies with longest time to prepare for their first Assembly have the greatest chance of success. It gives you time to get things just right, it gives us time to bed in as an organisation.
pps. Thanks to everyone for their patience. You guys are great and you’re doing a wonderful thing!
