Unlikely Dreams Take Time to Grow

Three independent schools share a common vision that made early observers skeptical.

Each wanted to start schools in communities ravaged by poverty and despair: places where human capital was being discarded like trash.

These schools would intentionally choose urban environments where independent, private schools typically do not operate. Operating brick-and-mortar schools is expensive, but it is less likely to succeed when the financial model requires you to raise 80–90% of your funding because families won’t be able to afford the full cost of tuition.

Each academy would operate as a Christ-centered school, in the Classical tradition of education, offering a high-quality education in a loving, familial environment to any family, regardless of religious affiliation, who desires an alternative for their child.

From the perspective of a sound business plan, there were many reasons to believe these schools would struggle to make it.

Yet, each school had a passion to tackle a problem that everyone said was unlikely to be solved.

In the language of Jim Collins’ Good to Great, these three schools understood their hedgehog concept.

This concept derives from an ancient Greek parable that contrasts the hedgehog and the fox. The fox tries to do many things to attack the hedgehog, which does one thing: rolls into an impenetrable, prickly ball to protect itself from attack.

As you strive to achieve Unlikely Good, it’s essential to understand your hedgehog. Collins pushes organizations to identify the intersection of three overlapping statements of identity:

What you are deeply passionate about: What vision of Unlikely Good drives and motivates you?

What can you be the best in the world at? How will you be uniquely effective at producing Unlikely Good with your given context, capabilities, and resources?

What drives your resource engine: How will you leverage financial capital, time and human capital, and brand capital to achieve Unlikely Good?

With a crystal-clear hedgehog concept in mind, each of these three schools launched in its respective community.

Logos Academy launched in 1998 in York. Also in 1998, a group of families launched The Oaks Academy in Indianapolis, Indiana, with fifty-three students across pre-kindergarten through fourth grade. Then, in 2000, Russ Gregg and Jeff Bird opened Hope Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with just thirty-five students in kindergarten through second grade.

With a promising and hopeful vision for Unlikely Good in hand, each of these schools moved from the dream to the deliver phase and began small.

Traci Foster told me that in the early days of Logos Academy, very few people believed they would be successful. Donors would put her off, telling her to come back after a few years of success.

Twenty-seven years later, each of these three schools is sustaining surprising success.

Logos Academy now has two independently operated campuses, serving over 300 students, and operates in two of Pennsylvania’s lowest-performing school districts: York and Harrisburg. The Oaks Academy serves over 1,100 students in grades K–8 across three campuses. Hope Academy serves over 690 students, with plans to expand to 1,200 students.

Each individual leader I know from these institutions marvels at the progress with deep gratitude to God. The journey for each school has not been easy.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “The best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago. The second-best time is now.”

How did each of these schools achieve Unlikely Good in their communities?

By maintaining a relentless focus on their hedgehog concept, they secured early wins and gradually built on those successes.

Success is not achieved overnight. It always starts small, almost unrecognizable. Don’t despise the small stuff God is doing in your work.

When my wife and I purchased our first home in 1998 in Raleigh, North Carolina, we planted tiny crape myrtles. When we pass by our old house today, those trees stand almost as tall as the two-story home we built.

Be patient. Stack up those early wins, and you will gain momentum.

Is there a dream stirring in you that everyone is suggesting you ignore? Understand this: it often takes years to see results.

What seems unlikely today just needs time to grow.