Greetings of Christmas Joy, New Year’s Hope, and all around Happy Holidays.
2021 has been a trying time for the many of the organizations and individuals that Aboundant serves. We feel the pain of lives lost, of missions diminished, of eroding trust in humankind, of “no end in sight.” Yet in the midst of that pain, we keep watch. We watch for hope, for inspiration, for a rekindling of imagination. We celebrate these prophetic dark spaces, the places of birth and resurrection, where damp soil produces strong roots.
Aboundant has not been idle during this great resignation. Indeed, we have resigned ourselves from scarcity thinking to live into our namesake of abundance. In turn, it has been a joy to serve so many people this year as they renew their online ministry, recommit to their mission, and realign their spirit and soul. A website is always more than a website. It’s a reflection of our best selves that we choose to put forward to the world.
We turned eight this year. The eighth year, like the eighth day, is the first day of a new era, after the dawn of creation. It’s the year of abundance. This year, we worked hard at developing a new, collective sense of self. As one of our faithful clients and partners, we’d like to share our updated values with you. This year we started applying these concepts as part of our short- and long-term strategy.
Abundance: Abundance is the idea that we already have everything we need to create a better world, if only everyone would come together and share of themselves and their resources. An abundance outlook calls us into creation and causes us to question the status quo. We don’t need to engage in overworking to make a difference, for all our work matters.
Collaboration: We bring people together around shared interests and visions, strengthening existing connections and building new ones. In technology collaboration means investing in and contributing to open source communities. Our business practices are relational. We seek input and build consensus from those most affected by our work.
Experimentation: We value efficient learning as an essential part of both internal and external growth. We iterate, pivot, or exit based on that learning. We explore new areas for growth. We maintain institutional memory around what we’ve learned. We draw insight directly from users. We’re not afraid to do things our own way, even after we understand how they are commonly done.
Solidarity: We work with and on behalf of marginalized communities and individuals. We hold each other accountable and ensure an equitable distribution of resources. We celebrate our diversity and allow it to shine. We support our whole selves, in the circumstances we find ourselves in. We align ourselves with the needs of creation through sustainable practices. We both offer and receive grace.
You taught us these values and we hope you will hold us accountable to them. Through our work with you and as a team, we clarified the type of organization we wanted to be, to become, to incarnate. For that we are grateful.
This year we had over 25 new consulting clients in addition to our long-term loyal partners and friends. We also had many more organizations join Aboundant.com, our website hosting network. We worked with small but mighty groups, along with large, global organizations. We launched a church copyright training seminar that we’ll be expanding in 2022. We created an amazing new theme for church websites, Chrysalis. It is now for sale on our new ecommerce platform, Community.Center.
In 2022, we will seek to better serve our partners and to develop systems and services that can contribute to the public good at larger scales.
With abundant grace, we express deepest gratitude for your choice to collaborate with us. Thank you for allowing us to help you bring warmth, hope, justice, and goodwill to the world.
Pe@ce,
Rev. Wil Ranney
Founder of Aboundant