why this can't keep running on contingency
I built Heart of Care because I really wanted to help people.
For a long time, I did almost all of this on a contingency basis — which is a polite word for free. Make that make sense. Make it make sense that I would build a full-spectrum community treatment service for the community on my own back.
I spent my retirement money to stand this up. I have been working a job for another company to fuel the money to keep my own company running. That is the truth of how this porch got built — not magic, not luck, not somebody else's grant. My retirement, my evenings, my back.
You cannot run a business on contingency. You cannot pour out of an empty cup forever. It is not fair to me as a human being, and it is not fair to keep giving back to a community that is not yet willing to give back to itself.
I am not a person who sits on her laurels. I have also watched people sit and do nothing and still expect to be hand-served. I will not hand-serve anyone who is not willing to do something for themselves. That is not bitterness — that is boundaries, and it's the same boundary I teach in every workbook on this site.