Pictured: Selby Foundation staff and board members, Selby Scholars, and community organizations celebrated the ways people and institutions can positively shape the lives of others when connections are based on deep care. Photo by Wendy Dewhurst.

If the idea of a challenging New Year’s resolution is daunting today, we offer this perspective from the Selby Foundation: focus on alignment.

Our work in the world is more meaningful when we define and focus on our most important values. Once we are clear about what really matters, we can use our values to make choices about our work and the way we lead.

Driving your car for many miles gets your tires misaligned. (It’s definitely what I get from driving from Parrish to downtown Sarasota every day.)

Consider the new year as an invitation to check your individual or organizational tires. You have put on a lot of miles over the past year. An alignment service can remind you of what you truly are about. Your values may have even shifted.

We often suggest that students consider what behaviors they wish to see in others. What does this tell them about their own values?

As young people consider the college experiences, careers, and places of employment they want, these questions offer a compass. They also guide the ways students build community in school, in sports, and in their endeavors to make change as they see their own leadership evolve.

And the same is true for us. We often talk with people seeking to transition from a corporate career into the nonprofit sector. Most say it’s “to give back.” I believe they are searching for work that is values-aligned. (Many small businesses and corporations in our region do offer such work.)

The values of today’s Selby Foundation were thoughtfully crafted to represent the intentional way Bill and Marie Selby lived and invested in students and organizations.

Above all, they recognized the importance of humanity and social responsibility in using their resources to give people access to opportunities.

Humility governed their giving. They did not seek recognition for their contributions. They recognized the privilege their education granted them, and they wanted education for others. Today, the Foundation does not accept awards, but we love to see the real heroes—students, nonprofits, and the people who power them—recognized for their contributions.

Stewardship was important to the Selbys. They lived below their means, working with local advisors to craft their legacy, endowing the foundation into perpetuity for annual grants and scholarships.

At the Selby Foundation, we learn the most about an organization through its commitment to results and the way it achieves these results, not through language on its website. We know the most about students through their actions, not what they write or talk about.

We are more likely to keep giving to an organization when it says it values trust and transparency and admits to challenging situations. When an organization’s people—its leadership, board members, fundraising team, and program staff—do the work in a way that is aligned with its values, it matters.

Let’s lean in to alignment in 2026. It’s a practice that adds purpose to our contributions and the way we make them.

Susie Bowie is the President and CEO of The William G. and Marie Selby Foundation.

Pictured: Selby Foundation staff and board members, Selby Scholars, and community organizations celebrated the ways people and institutions can positively shape the lives of others when connections are based on deep care. Photo by Wendy Dewhurst.