As January came to a close last week, the Aileron team has been reflecting on the ways our community came together to perpetuate Clay’s dream during Founder’s Day in January — and we are in awe.
Late last year, our team had a vision for a way our community could come together to perpetuate what Clay started when he founded Aileron. We wanted to create time and space for our community to:
- Advance Clay’s legacy
- Come together to learn with and from one another
- Contribute to Aileron’s vision
- Engage in the learning-doing-giving cycle — a three-part rhythm Clay saw as a way to build a meaningful life, organization, and community and one he himself leveraged in his own career as a lifelong learner, entrepreneur, and philanthropist
Organically (and quickly), Founder’s Day was shaped, and we never could have imagined the support, participation, and energy we’ve received from our community during January.
This year, our community-wide month-long celebration centered around a cornerstone of Clay’s life and his personal mantra: “Dream no little dreams.” During January, our community came together to realize the power of creating, sharing, manifesting, and realizing dreams, both as an individual and within a business.
In total, more than 200 people participated in our dream-themed Founder’s Day activities, including:
- 189 individuals advanced their personal dreams in our Personal Vision Workshop, a guided experience that helped participants clarify their dreams and contemplate ways to move them forward. Demand for the service was so high, we ended up offering four different times.
- Some workshop participants documented their visions on Aileron’s Vision Wall beside the Cafe.
- Community members donated $15,840 to Aileron’s Forever Fund, Aileron’s investment portfolio that bolsters our long-term financial sustainability.
- Individuals purchased and wore specially printed “Dream No Little Dreams” t-shirts. (Those shirts, as well as other Aileron gear, are available for you to order here.)
- Visitors to Campus participated in our specially installed Dream Tour: a self-guided reflection path designed to help individuals further explore their dreams with thought-provoking prompts stationed around the building.
- Community members read Clay’s Founder’s Intent for Aileron and his memoir, “Dream No Little Dreams,” to learn from his own stories, experiences, and dreams.
Even more exciting than the numbers above was the verbal feedback we heard from community members; people were so expressive about their excitement to be on Campus and surrounded by like-minded and like-hearted peers. Community members said they felt motivated by starting the year with a clear vision for the future and energized by the clarity and confidence it provided.
One Personal Vision Workshop participant even went so far as to say the day and its activities were transformative:
“Today was a life-changing day for me.”
We invite you to mark your calendars for Founder’s Day 2025, which will take place next year on January 9; our team is already underway shaping next year’s Founder’s Day into an equally impactful period of learning, doing, and giving.
Click below to visit our Founder’s Day webpage where you can download a calendar invitation to save the date for next year’s events and sign up to receive updates as the details of next year’s Founder’s Day unfold.
