Leah Buzek

Honestly, it's two things working together: perseverance, and the people who believed in me when I was still figuring out how to believe in myself.

I started my bachelor's degree almost thirteen years ago. Life had other plans for a while; there were losses, hard seasons, circumstances that pulled me away and kept me away. When I finally got my footing back, I went back to school, changed my major more than once, and kept trying to figure out where I actually fit. The work that finally clicked for me was the space where an idea stops being an idea and becomes something real: structured, functional, sustainable. Taking something that exists only in someone's head and building the infrastructure around it until it actually works. 

But perseverance doesn't happen in a vacuum. I have a wonderful support system, with family and friends who truly believe in the work that I'm doing. And I'd be leaving out the most important part if I didn't talk about my husband. He's so practical, a take-it-apart-and-put-it-back-together kind of person, and I am very much conceptual and big picture. But he has been my number one fan through all of it. He has sacrificed for my growth without hesitation, cheered me on through every pivot and setback, and believed in what I'm building even when it was hard to explain. The work I do is ultimately about building a better future for our community; but it's also about building a better future for us. I don't take that lightly, and I don't take him for granted.

The best advice I ever received is simple: if it feels hard but manageable, you're headed in the right direction.

There's a version of that idea that gets passed around: the harder the obstacle, the more it must mean you're on the right path. And there's truth in it. But I've watched people stay in the wrong thing for years because they convinced themselves that suffering was confirmation. Difficulty isn't always a green light. Sometimes it's just difficulty.

The distinction that matters to me is manageable. Hard and manageable means you're being stretched. Hard and crushing means something else entirely. Learning to tell the difference is its own kind of career skill.

I think the best advice would be to find somewhere comfortable to grow. You want to be in an organization, or doing a kind of work where you feel psychologically safe enough in your work environment, but that still provides you enough friction that you challenge your ideas, and it makes you consider the way that things work. You start to look at the different processes in the work that you're doing. The safety allows you to find stability. It's in that friction where you really find what sets your soul on fire.

The nonprofit sector has a long memory. There can be a real "this is how we've always done it" culture in some corners of this field, and when you're someone who thinks expansively, pushes back on assumptions, and wants to see data driving decisions instead of tradition, that creates friction. I've had to learn, and I'm still learning, that being right isn't always enough. How you enter a room matters. Timing matters. Being a young woman in a field with established power structures means people will look through you before they look at you. I don't say that with bitterness; I say it because it's true, and because pretending otherwise doesn't help the next person coming up behind me. I came in opinionated and impatient, and some of the wisdom I could have absorbed early on, I missed because I wasn't ready to receive it yet. That's on me.

But the opportunity side of this field is genuinely exciting, and I think it lives in the same places women have historically been told to keep quiet: rooms full of ideas. Conferences, summits, symposiums, those spaces changed something for me. I've attended statewide convenings across Ohio, traveled to DC, and I'm heading back this summer. What I've found in those spaces is that the innovations people are afraid to say out loud in their own organizations are the ones that spark entire movements when they finally get aired. Women in this sector especially tend to keep their boldest ideas close — sharing them only with trusted friends, not expecting them to go anywhere. That has to change. The nonprofit sector doesn't have an innovation problem. It has a permission problem. And the opportunity right now is to keep building the spaces where people stop asking for permission. Stepping into places like conferences and summits, those spaces of ideas and collaborative idea development present such a huge opportunity to continue the innovation path, and to spark people to continue to do good work.

When I'm sitting at my desk, I have note cards where I've started collecting some of the really good sayings that people have said to me, or I've found them online. The one that sits directly in between my two computer screens, so I see it every single day, says, "You are not made for small mouths or shallow prayer." It's just a reminder that the work that I do, both in my personal life and in my professional life, it matters, and it means something. I don't need to put emphasis on people who say small things about me, or they don't understand the work that I do, or they think that it's not worth it. It's just a reminder to cast those things aside, because I'm made for bigger and better than what they're offering me.