One evening about 10 years ago, around the time that most people are getting ready for bed, Kerry Brock checked her email from her mobile device. Hundreds of miles away, Ted Stephens III was partaking in the same evening ritual.
“You’ve got mail,” they noticed as they quickly scanned the emails that had come in after typical work hours. One particular subject line caught their attention: “Read this.”
It was an email with an attachment from Matt Ehlman. Matt had received an article from Fr. Pat Burns SJ, a Jesuit who worked most of his life at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
The attachment was a xeroxed copy of a series of articles that resonated with him…and he thought the article would do so with his colleagues as well.
The Economist had published a special centered around “The New Nomads”—a term coined to describe a generation of people who find ways to turn dreams into reality. Who work wherever they are, whether a sofa or a coffee shop or a boardroom or at the departure gate of an airport. They travel thousands of miles each year. Are socially minded. And socially conscious.
“That’s kind of like us,” he said at the beginning of a meeting a few weeks later—the three of them now together on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for a week on-site with Red Cloud Indian School. “We are the very people these articles are talking about—people who represent an idea, a philosophy…a new approach to community development and engagement.”
For years since, that new, nomadic idea was a point of pride… a realization that no matter where they are, no matter what they’re doing, they will always uncover new ways to support others to reach their fullest potential—to exceed their wildest imaginations. And that they would do it with vision and foresight as they chart new territory, lay new ground and build strong foundations.
Numad gets it's name by melding the words “New” and “Nomad”. Numads believe in bringing people together—from all backgrounds and walks of life—for the greater good.
good reading
Want to read the articles that first inspired the word "Numad"? Check them out here:
"Nomads at last," The Economist, 2008
"Labour movement," The Economist, 2008
"The new oases," The Economist, 2008
"Families ties," The Economist, 2008
"Location, location, location," The Economist, 2008
"A world of witnesses," The Economist, 2008
"Homo mobilis," The Economist, 2008