Uganda looks a little different since my first trip there in 2007 – when you had to find an internet café to send a message and you had an AT&T calling card with 20 numbers to punch in to call home for about $5 a minute. GLI also looks a little different since my first imaginings in 2007. We now employ over 40 highly qualified individuals in Uganda and Rwanda who support our best practices community development work through the lens of Listen. Think. Act.

The most recent series of immersion trips through our global classrooms included the following: an inspiring group of students and faculty from Spelman and Morehouse as we led one of our first Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) experiences in East Africa; a team of brilliant engineering students from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; and a White House delegation interested in learning more about how to provide international opportunities for students from underrepresented communities.

Grit is defined by courage, resolve and strength of character. But what exactly is it and how does it translate into the local languages of East Africa? More importantly, how exactly do you get grit? The way I see it, you can't just decide to have grit. Grit is earned and it takes a lot of work to achieve. A baby doesn't have grit, because it is just a little baby! You have to be around for a while before you earn the status of having grit!

The GLI has a story to tell in 2020 about murals we painted, youth we activated, and research we conducted on everything from gender-based violence to early childhood education. The stories are reminders that when we think differently and think big we can do our best community development work. During a year when it was at times hard to see the light and when it wasn't always easy to be brave, our team and our communities rose to the occasion. And we made great stories along the way.

Our 2019 Annual Report was under production as our world confronted COVID-19 and in some ways, this global pandemic changes everything. But it doesn’t change the passion we have to build a global community of scholars; it doesn’t change our commitment to building academic partnerships, investing in workforce development or using music as a tool to connect rural communities with access to good public health; and it doesn’t change the fact, that ten years later there has never been a more important time in history that we listen, think and act together with compassion, kindness and dignity.

As the Global Livingston Institute team rows together into our tenth year of Listening, Thinking, and Acting, we have similarly lofty ambitions that will require us to settle into a cadence and row hard. Our remarkable 2018 makes it clear: we are finding that “swing.” Mind you, our team might not be quite as fit or as nimble as the 1936 US Olympic rowing team, but we have found a cadence that is quickly taking our organization to the next level. Like the 1936 team, this team is hard to beat!

The Global Livingston Institute (GLI) is, in short, thriving. If we were a business, our shareholder dividends would be increasing and our shares would have more than quadrupled since 2009. And if this were an earnings report, our growth for the past year would have outpaced our expectations and our earnings forecast would be promising. Analysts would give us a “strong buy” rating, and we believe that you would be inclined to invest in us.

As we reflect on our past seven years - where we were in 2009 and where we are today - you might say that the Global Livingston Institute (GLI) was quite unexpected. We didn’t expect that on the first trip we ran in 2009 with a group of 18 students from the University of Denver, that over 500 scholars would follow.

As the Global Livingston Institute (GLI) grows each year, so do we as a team! We learned a lot this year, and there is no way that an annual report could adequately tell the stories or share the experiences of the countless people that we encountered along the way. And as we grow, we continue to wrestle with how to measure the many ways that GLI and its participants are impacting change both globally and in their own communities.