Never Sacrifice the Gift
Photo: Larry Sharkey, Los Angeles Times / UCLA Library. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
One of the key signs that you have achieved legendary status is the use of a singular name. Ali, Madonna, Oprah, Elvis, Shakespeare, and Gandhi come to mind. Steve Prefontaine, known by just the syllable Pre, achieved that legendary status in the unexpected world of cross country running. He was an extraordinary runner that attracted global attention, who was tragically killed before he could have his likely most celebrated win at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. While his running was extraordinary, Pre achieved his place as a legend by being true to himself; envisioning better treatment and pay for amateur athletes; and going all out in every race he ran on and off the track.
Pre literally ran his own race his own way. His small stature eliminated basketball and football, so he began running. During the 1970’s, running was primarily a high school or collegiate sport with standout runners achieving status only at the Olympics but rarely from the daily track meets. With longish hair, a mustache, and an outspoken style of riling the mindset of his competitors with boasting before meets, Pre became a disruptor within the sport.
The best nonprofits, like Pre, are also disrupters in that they find solutions to problems that both the private sector and government cannot or will not solve. They disrupt society’s conditioned expectation of how things should operate. As people flee from disasters, the Red Cross personnel are often the first responders coordinating private sector and government help much better than either of the other sectors could. St. Jude is another example. As healthcare costs skyrocket and doctors are in limited supply, they provide immediate life saving measures to pediatric cancer patients at no cost to families, which is distinctly defiant of how US healthcare works. These nonprofits define how they will operate and do so regardless of the circumstances that surround them.
There are thousands of both amateur and professional athletes that are gifted in their sport that do not achieve the legacy status that Pre did. Legacy involves more than just exceling on the track or the field; it involves having a vision of how you can impact the sport or the world beyond yourself and your talent. Pre was the pioneer in advocating for compensation for amateur athletes long before the 2024 settlement with the NCAA. He highlighted the absurdity of companies willing to pay $200,000 to sponsor his athleticism even as that sponsorship would deny him eligibility to compete in the Olympics for the United States. His visibility in turning down those lucrative sponsorships in exchange for $3 per diem from the Amateur Athletic Union and a $5,000 salary as a national public relations person for Nike along with organizing athletes to compete in Europe, where they could be paid, paved the way for payments to collegiate athletes more than 50 years later.
Like Pre, Sesame Workshop had a clear and unexpected vision of educating young children in letters, numbers, and foundational concepts, with the foundational character being a sweet, naïve eight foot plus yellow bird. Sesame Workshop did not pioneer a radical new way of educating children; instead they used a modern tool — television — to fill a specific gap: reaching impoverished children who could likely view a screen but may not have had access to formal early childhood education. That clear vision forms the mission and inspires the relentless work that moves both the organization and society forward.
Beyond his authenticity and vision beyond the track, Pre was fully committed in how he ran. The prevailing sentiment in any kind of racing is to allow someone else to set the pace, conserve your energy, and then kickstart that pace near the end by running full out in the last few laps or minutes of the race. Pre would have none of that stating, “Somebody may beat me, but they are going to bleed to do it. I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.” Pre did not wait for someone else to set the race; he structured the race in his own favor by running full out for the entire race. This style of racing relies not only on physical conditioning but on a championship mindset that demands everything. Pre gave that, and those who watched him run knew it.
His style of racing exists in both the business world and nonprofit work, but too often we discount the conditioning that we don’t see to overnight success, when the breakthrough moment comes. Phil Knight, one of the co-founders of Nike and Pre’s friend, had this when he bluffed his way into distributing Japanese track shoes in the United States not once but twice. Within the nonprofit world, Michael J. Fox understands the principle. He has “run all out” in raising more than $3 billion for Parkinson’s Research since founding his nonprofit foundation in 2000. Mr. Fox has described how he sets his pace as, “The only thing that separates any one of us from excellence is fear — and the opposite of fear is faith. I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.” The faith precedes both the donations and the transformational outcomes.
While my capacity to run long distance races is far shorter than the time it would have taken Pre to tie his laces, he has long been a hero of mine for the way he lived his life and transcended the track. Pre is famously quoted as saying, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” It is a mantra for how Fullanthropy and I try to operate and inspired our rallying cry, Never Sacrifice The Gift! Being able to transform the lives of others and humanity either by securing funds to do so, operating the work to do so, or making the gift that ensures that operations happen is a tremendous gift and privilege that those privileged enough to experience it should never sacrifice.
Fullanthropy Perspective:
Steve Prefontaine built a legacy that transcended him. The nonprofits and philanthropists that do the same are those that run all out — with vision, authenticity, and a championship mindset. Is your organization built to outlast you? If so, Chart Your Impact™. If not, are you sacrificing the gift?