For years, Fools Mission has dragged its feet on incorporating as a nonprofit charity. Would our Spanish-speaking friends accept this? Would they help write our mission statement? Would rules against “self-dealing” prevent recipients of financial assistance from sitting on the board, thereby reinforcing power relationships that make us uncomfortable? Would corporate governance ruin the egalitarian nature of the consensus process we’ve worked so hard to create? Would we have to attend the same meetings as other County CBOs? How would that affect our capacity to speak truth to power when necessary? The experimental nature of our group and our own tendencies to drift back into power relationships that most people take for granted made these tough questions for us.

It took five years to develop deep relationships of trust and shared vision that convinced us the time was right. We took our time writing our mission statement together. Our Latino friends agreed to serve on our first board. We knew who we meant when we said “we.” Recognizing that expanding our programs required us to raise funds more deliberately, we decided to fly out on faith that we’d find a way to stay on mission and avoid putting ourselves in the thrall of money.

Fools gather to sign Articles of Incorporation. From left to right: Raul Velasquez, Eitan Fenson, Mirna Banegas Flores, Gene Thiers, David Vallerga, Kaye Bonney, Macrina Mota, Silvia Ramirez, and Thomas Atwood.

With new-found confidence, we gathered in the Social Hall for an informal signing ceremony—chalice, papers, and cake at the ready. But did you notice something amiss in that first picture? Trickster had arrived to have a final say in the proceedings.

Trickster capsizes the table, sending cake, candle wax, and papers to the floor.

Needless to say, Trickster arrives every day to disrupt our plans, our assumptions, and our attachments to our egos. Trickster arrives wherever there is a need to level the playing field, make room for chance, or have a good laugh at the absurdity of it all. Fools that we are, we seized the opportunity for a belly laugh as cake, candle wax, and papers tumbled to the floor.

The nose knows!

From left to right, the founding Board of Fools Mission : Gene Thiers, Eitan Fenson, Kaye Bonney, Macrina Mota, Silvia Ramirez, David Vallerga, and Thomas Atwood (not in picture).

Having appeased Trickster, we went ahead and signed anyway. Foolish is as foolish does!