If you’ve ever launched a community engagement initiative—whether it’s a neighborhood cleanup program, a church food pantry, or a community dialogue series—you know the early days can be full of energy. People are excited. The vision is fresh. Then, at some point, the momentum seems to stall.
That’s the moment many leaders make their biggest mistake: they give up too soon.
Katie Bostick, who will be speaking at our upcoming workshop, put it perfectly:
“Sometimes it can feel like momentum stalls. . . our time may move linearly, but engagement, connection, growth, and spirit rarely do.”
Her words capture a core truth about relationship-based work: it is not linear. You don’t move neatly from step one to step ten. You move forward, then sideways, sometimes backward, then forward again.
When Good Intentions Meet Real Life
Consider Sarah, a program coordinator at a community nonprofit working to diversify its membership by engaging young professionals through monthly cultural events featuring local musicians. After a year of hosting dinners and concerts, she was ready to quit. Attendance had dropped from 50 to 12. The events were becoming more challenging to plan and fund. Board members were asking pointed questions about return on investment.
But Sarah had been building something invisible: trust. Two years later, when the organization’s Executive Director unexpectedly resigned, one of the musicians she’d been working with called her directly. “We heard about the transition,” he said. “How can we help?” Within two weeks, a respected community leader had volunteered to join the search committee, and younger people who had attended those small concerts began showing up at other organizational programs and volunteering for community service projects. The “stalled” momentum had been quietly growing underground through individual relationships.
Unlike launching a new website or implementing new software, community engagement follows the unpredictable rhythms of human connection. You might spend months building trust with one community leader, only to have them introduce you to five others in a single conversation. That’s not inefficiency—that’s how relationships work.
Three Keys to Staying the Course
Drawing on proven change management principles—and on lessons from my Harvard professor, John Kotter—here are three practical ways to persevere when the road gets bumpy:
- Keep Doing Something—Then Celebrate and Learn
Even small, consistent actions keep the vision alive. Host a small gathering. Connect with one new partner. Attend someone else’s community event. Then celebrate the win—no matter how small—and reflect on what worked. Success stories build credibility and confidence, both for your team and for potential community partners. - Remember: Relationships Aren’t Linear
That community leader who seemed uninterested in January might become your strongest advocate in June, not because your program changed, but because their circumstances did. The partnership that initially seemed promising might fade, but it could also lead to an unexpected connection months later. Honor the rhythm of relationships rather than fighting it. - Stay Flexible
Avoid locking yourself into rigid processes too early. Early-stage engagement needs space to adapt based on what you’re learning about your community’s actual needs and rhythms. The community might need evening meetings instead of morning ones, or informal conversations instead of structured forums. Flexibility is your friend when you’re still discovering what works.
Why This Matters
Change—especially change rooted in building trust and relationships—takes time. The temptation to quit is strongest right before you see the payoff.
If you can resist that temptation, you’ll often find that the connections you’ve been cultivating begin to bear fruit all at once. That’s when your initiative moves from “promising idea” to “lasting impact.”
So don’t give up too soon. Stay flexible with your methods but persistent with your presence. Keep taking the next step, even when the path isn’t clear. And when you do see the breakthrough, you’ll be glad you stayed the course.
The community is worth the wait.