This year asked a lot of us. As we celebrated the Murdock Trust’s 50th anniversary, we also navigated challenges that sharpened our focus on what matters most and where we are being called next.
The nonprofit sector is shifting all around us. For many, 2025 brought a level of complexity we have not seen in some time, and that some have never seen. In this final update of the year, I want to honor who we are as whole people, beyond our professional roles: parents and neighbors, friends and community members, each of us trying to show up faithfully in this moment. As we enter the holidays, I hope we all have a chance to both give and receive love — appropriate, kind, caring, dignity-affirming love. Love that is stronger than hate. Love that creates space to see and hear one another. Love that doesn’t recoil when troubles come, but leans in to say, “I am here. I am with you.”
In the Hebrew tradition, there is a word “hineni”, which means “here I am,” spoken in response to being called. It is not just an answer; it is a posture of presence and availability, a commitment to show up even when you do not know what comes next. This season, as my Christian faith tradition remembers Emmanuel —“God with us”— I am reminded that presence itself is a form of generosity. As a fellow human on this journey, sometimes falling short in my attempts to love well, I hope we all feel seen, heard, and deeply valued this holiday season. In our 50th anniversary year, I am reminded of something else essential: this work has always required both creativity and commitment when the path was not clear. When Jack Murdock’s three appointed Trustees established this Trust in 1975, they stepped into their own uncertain moment. They chose to trust in the power of community, in the capacity of the social sector, in the wisdom of organizational leaders, and in the possibility that one person’s generosity could create lasting, generational impact.
I celebrate what has been accomplished in this region over the last five decades. I am grateful to be part of a vision for flourishing that extends beyond any single generation — those early ripples have indeed become waves. This year we shared stories of the organizations and leaders who shaped this legacy. We gathered visionaries at our inaugural Innovation Symposium in August. We listened to nonprofit leaders across the region who were generous enough to share their insights, their challenges, and their hopes with us.
What struck me more than what has been accomplished is how it has been accomplished: through collaboration, through showing up honestly even when outcomes were not guaranteed, and through recognizing our interdependence rather than operating from isolation. This reveals something profound: sustainable change emerges not from any single entity’s strength, but from our collective commitment. And this is the spirit we are called to carry forward.
That spirit matters profoundly as we enter 2026. The challenges facing our partners are real, and we recognize that this moment calls for the Trust to lean in, not pull back. When support becomes harder to secure, our commitment to organizational capacity and resilience becomes more vital. Five decades have taught us that the nonprofit sector is strongest when we face reality together — not with fear, but with clear-eyed hope and faithful action. This is the legacy we’re honoring: not a monument to the past, but a living commitment to showing up for what comes next. Hineni. Here we are.
Thank you for being part of this work as we enter the next fifty years together.
-Romanita Hairston, CEO