The team at Volunteer Victoria has been musing on an idea for a couple of days now. After stumbling across a Fantasy Football League, we asked ourselves what would a Fantasy Non-Profit League in Victoria look like?

Of course, our Fantasy League might not  be called a ‘Non-Profit League” at all. There are many who advocate for a new name for our sector – a name that represents the quality of our outcomes and not the type of funding structure we work in. We think it might be fun to be called the “Fantasy Social Good League”, or the “Fantasy Making a Difference League”. If we are going to dream big we might even call ourselves the “Fantasy, We Always have the Resources we Need to Get the Job Done League,” but perhaps this is dreaming too big.

With 947 registered charities and several hundred more non-profits in Greater Victoria, the pool of potential Fantasy team members in the community is very large and very exciting. In a few short minutes we made a fantasy list of emerging and current managers and leaders who we think inspire our community to action and make real and sustained differences. There is no shortage of people or potential.

The pool includes current and recently retired Executive Directors, seasoned volunteer and program managers, financial management specialists, fundraisers, program and front line staff, and of course the central figures in all our organizations – our administrative colleagues. We also thought about our fantasy board members and volunteers – and the types of individuals we need to create a space and organizational culture where anything is possible and everything that needs to get done is achievable and manageable. In our Fantasy League we built a team who can create and sustain the conditions we need for individual, organizational, and community resiliency and good health- it was a blissful exercise.

Then we remembered the rules of the game – even though we may be able to create a Fantasy Team we cannot change the current and real-life conditions in which individuals and organizations work. Or can we? What can we do to reduce the risks in our environment and increase our successes and how can we commit to making the shifts that make a difference?

We probably won’t have much time in the fall to think about our Fantasy League, but we will be thinking about our reality league. While it is not all sunny days ahead, we think it remains the best league to play in.