We’re working to build an organization for the long haul

We have to make some hard decisions as a society about what kind of lives we want to live, what kind of world we want to leave our children and future generations.

My parents are immigrants. They moved here from South Korea in the late 1950s, after the war. They came here, like so many immigrants do, to build a better life for themselves and their families back home, and for their future children.

They always raised me to think about facts and the truth, and to pursue the truth, whether that’s cold, hard numbers in science or math, or the way I’m doing it today, which is looking at our world and our society.

They taught me to work hard. They taught me to do real, substantial work and not frivolous, superfluous work. And they taught me to be sort of brutally honest with myself about what my strengths and weaknesses are.

One of the main reasons I have continued to stay with The Public Interest Network is that that’s how we run the organization and how we do our work.

Whenever we complete a project, whether it’s an entire campaign or it’s just my first time knocking on a door and asking someone to join as a member and give us money, we always stop and ask ourselves, “What did I do well?” — but more important for me, “What can I do better? How do I get better at this?”

One of the things we’re working to do is to build an organization for the long haul. Because we’re not going to solve all of these problems in my lifetime. So, we need to build an organization full of people who have the training, and the political analysis, and the strategic sense, so we can leave this Network in their hands. And hopefully they’ll develop the next generation of leaders to hand it off to them, too.