PASQ at Six Months: Real Work, Real Lessons

I want to be honest with you about something.

The first six months of building PASQ has been the hardest and most freeing thing I have done in a long time. Hard because starting something new is always harder than it looks from the outside. Freeing because for the first time in years, I get to bring everything I know to the work, without apology and without limits.

Here is what that has looked like in practice.

I got to return to an organization I helped form years ago, a local mental health and support services nonprofit that was built from scratch by a community that refused to be left without resources after losing a national affiliate. They were the first organization to commit to Board Accelerator+ for a full year. They want to level up at exactly the moment their services are needed most. That felt like the right place to start.

Through my partnership with the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, I have logged hundreds of hours as a navigator for 23 nonprofit founders and organizations across the Sioux Empire. Conversations turned ideas into action with founders who need someone to help them think clearly before they move. That work has been an honor every single time.

I led strategic planning for the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault, helping them focus their energy on the places and people who need their members most: tribal nations, rural communities, and every organization working to sustain resources for survivors of sexual assault, trauma, human trafficking, and domestic violence regardless of their zip code.

Alongside my partner Rachelle Norberg, we completed filings for four nonprofit organizations in South Dakota and Minnesota. Four missions that now have legal standing and a foundation to build from. Communities in Burke, Worthington, Sioux Falls, and Aberdeen have organizations they did not have before.

And I have stretched into new territory! Coaching and advising organizations in places I have never been, like the 254 Teen Center in Gahanna, Ohio, and in places I know as well as anywhere, like the South Dakota Hall of Fame in Chamberlain. I am still figuring out what works and what does not in these engagements. But I know this: lived experience is not a credential you earn once. It is something you keep building, and it makes you more useful every time you use it.

I have also faced failures. Engagements have fallen through at the eleventh hour. We started moving with organizations that were not ready. There were connections I did not make fast enough. I am not going to pretend those did not happen. They did, and they made me sharper.

This is all from the first six months of earnestly building something new after nearly two decades building something else. It has been hard. It has also been exactly right.

I am ready for what comes next. If you know someone who needs a trusted partner in impact, I would be grateful for the introduction. If that person is you, take the step. Schedule some time. I will listen, give you support, and yes, buy the coffee.