Mary Baldwin College

www.mbc.edu
Staunton, Virginia
May 18, 2008
Musimbi Kanyoro, Kenyan theologian, director of the Population Program for the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, and former general secretary of the World YWCA:

“Now that you are successful, can you dare become significant? I want to suggest five ways that can guide you from success to significance:

  1. Think big and bold. The worthiness of today’s graduation will become significant only when your vision is bigger than your success.

  2. Become a peacemaker in a world divided. The problem is not the lack of money but which resources are given priority.

  3. Promote solutions and restrain from apathy. The combination of the simplicity of ideas mixed with the complexity of implementation is at the heart of what we [women] offer to the world.

  4. Become a fundraiser and a donor for worthy causes. Raising money and giving money requires four things: great passion, great story, great messaging, and a great deal of work.

  5. Make your leadership count. The vision must be to create a different world for generations to come; a world worth working for, worth developing the power and leadership to change, so that we might live to see a better future.”