In this holiday week, I wanted to write a note of reflection and thanks to you, our colleagues and friends. We are nearing the end of a tumultuous year. It has been a hard year – a year marked by anger, grief, illness, and loss. It has been a year filled with events that have shown us the fragility of life and the fragility of the democratic institutions and norms that have safeguarded the nation for more than two centuries.

At the same time, this hardest year has also revealed achievements worth celebrating.

Your courageous work has shown the world what democracy looks like. Millions have strategized, organized, mobilized, and marched to call for racial justice, to expand equity, and to demand that each person be treated with fairness, dignity, and respect.

The causes of climate change, early childhood education, justice reform, and immigrant rights are a focus of attention now, because of your efforts. The importance of fundamental scientific research – and of listening to scientists – is clearer now than ever before. And building power in local communities has created change now and laid the foundation for broader change in the future.

You have forged partnerships with one another, and you have helped make this imperfect union a little more perfect.

On behalf of our staff and Board, we thank you for the work you have done. We know that the path forward is still steep and the road rocky, but we know, too, that you will continue the work on those issues of such importance to our nation. And we will be with you in 2021 and beyond.

In solidarity, in steady partnership, and with immense gratitude,
Deanna Gomby