Still following the path
of wonder.

The conversation keeps going and, within the year, turns into a 501c3 non-profit organization called Kidnected World.

We decide that listening and learning is the most powerful way to show up in our intent—and we begin to connect with the people and patterns that will shape everything we do for years to come.

Through a growing word-of-mouth network, we begin finding remarkable young people in communities around the world. As we get to know them, we notice the qualities they embody, the challenges they face and the unique authentic influence they hold.

We show up as pure observers, learners and supporters, from Cambodia to Australia to Guatemala.

We begin to recognize that one of the most powerful common threads amongst these experiences and people is a sense of wonder—both an innate curiosity that drives them forward and the sense of awe when that inquiry creates new possibilities and brings people together.

The more we recognize wonder as a core human capacity and experience, the more we see how it spans and connects not just different communities but also different generations.

We decide to continue to focus our organizational lens in wonder and The Wonderment is born.

But wonder needs more than just philosophical reflections and awareness campaigns to grow: it needs tangible support and nurturing.

Along the way, we get more and more involved with the projects and communities we've met—giving microgrants, documenting stories and even pitching in some elbow grease here and there.

Over time we see how much need there is for a shared space and process where this capacity can be taught and grow to evoke inspired personal exploration and connect collective actions on a global level. So we build and launch the first version of the Wonderment platform.

We continue to meet amazing people around the world that make us want to keep showing up and working hard. We make progress with various projects and the platform gets some recognition. But we also run into some real challenges.

Traditional education spaces prove to be remarkably unconducive to the kind of inquiry-based, real-world collective creativity we want to support for kids. And, as we begin to get a better sense of what nuanced elements and engagement it takes—a full spectrum of needs and experiences that no org or digital platform or curriculum alone could hope to offer—we begin to wonder: is our dream simply too big to be realistic?  

Covid closes schools and upends every community and person we work with in unprecedented and unpredictable ways.

But the shakeup provides a pivotal moment for us to reflect— and realize that what was most valuable and transformative about all our work to this point was the people of all ages who had inspired us and the relationships around the world that we had made. The platform wasn't meant to replace that multifaceted mycelium network, it was to amplify and support it—and them.

We give a name to those who are operating like this in the world: small-scale visionaries. And we pour everything we have into learning how to truly show up for them and helping others do the same. The platform becomes a base camp for this growing global collective of visionaries and supporters on a personal, relational level.

We create a social investment fund to support these visionaries directly and structure a whole developmental process around them—integrating the platform, our global network and an incubator experience that helps them surface their visions and turn them into sustainable ongoing endeavors.

We bring it all together as The Wonderment Cooperative: a reflection of the collaborative gathering of all the people, steps and services coming together in a common goal of elevating and advancing small-scale visionaries around the world.