People often ask me, “Why is the organization named BECOME? Is it an acronym?”
From the very beginning, people have been curious about both the name and the work. But BECOME isn’t an acronym. It’s a word. A verb. A way of seeing the world.
The name came to me as a divine whisper.
At the time, I was standing at a difficult crossroads in my life. I had experienced a deep betrayal by someone I loved, and something I cared about deeply had been taken from me. I had a choice to make about who I was going to become in the midst of that pain.
For years, I had dreamed of starting a nonprofit that helped communities thrive, a place where communities could lead their own transformation, heal, and create the future they longed for. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to do it on my own or in that moment.
Then one afternoon, while sitting at BJ’s on 79th and Racine, a soul food restaurant on Chicago’s South Side, with two women discussing programming ideas, the whisper came.
BECOME.
I went home that evening and wrote the manifesto, sketched the logo, and completed the incorporation paperwork. On January 4, 2013, BECOME was born.
For me, becoming has always been a process of potential coming into reality. It is the unfolding of what is unseen into what is seen, what is spiritual into what is tangible, and what is possible into what is lived.
I often think about a rose. Within a tiny rose seed is the entire rose. We can’t see it yet, but we know it’s there. It simply needs the right conditions, healthy soil, water, sunlight, and nourishment, to grow into what it was always created to be.
The same is true for us. Each of us carries within us gifts, purpose, wisdom, and beauty waiting to unfold. But whether those possibilities flourish depends, in part, on the environment around us.
Our communities are the soil in which we grow.
That soil is made up of people and relationships. It includes our institutions, cultural norms, beliefs, and behaviors. It is shaped by our natural environment and our built environment, the homes we live in, the streets we walk, the parks where we gather, and even the vacant lots or neglected spaces that communicate what is valued and what is not.
All of these conditions either nourish human potential or constrain it. They can create environments where people flourish or where they struggle simply to survive.
That is why BECOME exists.
BECOME is about cultivating the conditions that allow all of us to thrive. It is about co creating communities where every person has the opportunity to realize their inherent potential and contribute their unique gifts.
To become is not to arrive. It is to continue unfolding. It is to become more fully ourselves, more deeply connected to one another, and more intentional about creating the conditions where everyone can flourish. Because when communities flourish, people flourish. And when people flourish, communities are transformed.
So, let’s become together.
