I have never been party to naming a child. I’ve given my
opinion many times but (usually) only when asked. So when Eveline told me we were going to
rename ACRJ I feel like I had the tiniest bit of understanding of how daunting
the task of naming can be. But we
weren’t naming a child. Maybe what we
have done is closer to the experience of many of my friends who have renamed themselves
over the years. We were renaming an
organization with a personality, a history, and expansive web relationships
crossing many communities and places. We
were the same organization but we wanted to be more “us.”
Yep, it was daunting.
First I felt excited and then overwhelmed by all the questions in my
head: How do you even pick a name? Are there any names left? Can you capture the
essence of an organization in a name?
Will people think my ideas are corny?
Can someone else just decide?
While I was not responsible for the final outcome, I was
responsible for managing the process. So
we did what anyone who doesn’t know what they are doing would do. We brought in professionals – Lightbox
Collaborative and Mission Minded – two firms that steadily guided us through
the morass of questions and anxieties. And
then we brought in friends. My favorite
moment in the naming process was sitting in a room with over 20 loving
supporters of ACRJ brainstorming over 200 possible options for a new name. It was a glorious explosion of ideas generated
from a circle of friends that truly wanted to help us become more us. Each one of them deserves a toast for their work
to help us see who we are.
Blog posts represent the opinion of the author, not necessarily Forward Together or Strong Families.