What are you doing this for anyway? You're not going to be around forever. Sooner or later, you'll be turning over your job to someone else.

Maybe by then there won't be a need for your organization anymore. The cure will have been found for the disease you're combatting. There won't be anymore children needing permanent homes. Or no more homelessness. And, by then, perhaps all the arts will be fully funded. Whatever.

Even if the cause you're dedicated to does not dry up and go away, at some point, you'll move on.

I recommend approaching your work life with the following question: If I knew this was going to be my last year with my organization, what would I want to make happen before I felt I could turn over my job and walk away?

The legacy question. Ask it often. Live like this will be your last year with your organization. Accomplish that goal and then you can set the next one.

What's that one project or needed area you want to get up and running before you leave? The thing that would give the organization the stability you'd want it to have. The thing you may never be remembered for, yet, in your own mind, you'll always know it was the thing that was most needed and, without you dedicating yourself to making it happen, it wouldn't?

The one that stirs you in the middle of the night. It annoys you that no one else is doing anything about. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're the one that needs to tackle it? Especially if it looks impossible or scary. If you're passionate enough about why it's needed, that's the one to go for.

Getting a new building, a major program expansion, a broader base of support in the community, 100 more major donors, an endowment, a system for ongoing fundraising. Name it.

Then start talking it up. Start by telling the people who will support it. People who see the need. Ask for their input. Tell them it's your dream to accomplish this goal before you leave. What suggestions do they have?

Get into action with it. If you tell enough people, they'll remind you about it when you forget. They'll ask you how your project's going. They'll send you folks who can help.

Odds are, if you're not focused on making this happen, no one else is either. In other words, it's pretty much just a fantasy floating out there in the ozone. And when you leave the organization, it will still be hanging out there undone.

You see, this project of establishing a self-sustaining individual giving program, of turning this dream, this fantasy, into reality, requires a major commitment. Otherwise, at the first speed bump, you'll want to give up and default back to the old reality. That good old, familiar treadmill of grant requests, special events, the annual fund. That one.

It will buy you another year of existence but what does it build for the future? What kind of legacy will it leave 10, 20, 50 years down the road?

So what are you waiting for? You didn't go into the nonprofit world to maintain the status quo. You did it to make a difference. To leave a legacy of making the world a better place. So get going. Commit out loud and then jump in to design the programs you'll need to sustain the new reality. What if this were going to be your last year with this organization? Make that one thing happen so you could turn it over to others and walk away knowing that you had shifted the course of things, rather than just having inched them along in the same direction. Give it your all. It will make you happy.