What's In a Word?

The Meaning of "Opportunity." When we changed our name last year to Opportunity Finance Network, I made a case for the power of the word "opportunity" in my speech at our conference last Fall in Los Angeles. In my view, "opportunity" underlies "community development" both historically and philosophically, as I tried to reason in LA. Since the conference, though, I am constantly on the search for more visceral and succinct ways of communicating the power of "opportunity," and I heard a great one last week from Nancy Andrews, President & CEO of the Low Income Investment Fund. "Isn't our work all about improving people's life chances?" she asked in a meeting. That worked for me.