I am starting a non-profit with a group of girls. Our main focus is scholarships to help send individuals that have left polygamist groups to college. The founders consist of five of us that left the Kingston Group at various times over the last two decades. This is a venture I have wanted to begin since I graduated with my degree in 2007 and I feel like I finally found the right group of people to successfully run and manage it.

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https://steemitimages.com/DQmSYxVwLrdWhQar6r2decfEdU8HbH8z6NvQQcRJ4PFj6vd/IMG_1098.jpg </div>

*This is the logo we will likely go with. :-)*

We were approved as a foundation in September of 2017 and we received our tax-exempt status shortly before Christmas. This is awesome! The foundation I have dreamed of beginning for a decade now exists. We can publish our website, create our presence on social media, and start accepting donations so that we can hand out our first scholarships this March. 

Or can we… One of the founding members is a recent ex-polygamist. I don’t think she has been out two years. She is one of the strongest people I know. She is a single mom to four young kids, works full time, and is in college working on her degree. I don’t know how she fits all of this into her schedule. She took on the responsibility of designing and hosting the foundations website. 

Setting up this website has been like pulling teeth. It took the four of us at least an hour to convince this girl to let the rest of us see the site before it is published. Then it took another two meetings to convince her to add one of us as admin so that at least two of us can work on it to get it up and running. She finally added @jesschristensen (yes, I convinced one of our founders to begin a blog on steemit! Check her out. You will love her!) We found out this morning that she wasn’t actually added as admin, but added only as able to view. Frustrating! At this point, I’m wondering what is going on and what is up with this girl. She doesn’t seem like a controlling person but she is being that way when it comes to designing and posting content to this website. Why??

It all became clear this morning as a few of us were discussing things. We got a text from her saying, *“I appreciate you being willing to help out, I just want to make sure we trust each other.”* **What?!?** We all left the same polygamist group. We have all committed our time and energy into getting this non-profit up and running. What do you mean trust each other!?! Why would we take on an endeavor such as this if we didn’t trust each other?

![puzzle-2515123__480.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXifpDsPJV6kHhqivL4uKRfBU4WicicbHSq4QPrKsAews/puzzle-2515123__480.jpg)
*Image from pixaby.com

I had to remind myself of how recent she left the Kingston Group. It got me thinking about how little I trusted when I first left. We were all raised to not trust anyone outside of the group and it took some time and effort to break free of that. Four out of five of us have been out for at least a decade. This founding member, not only recently left but grew up hearing negative, made up stories about us; her four partners. When someone leaves this group they are talked about poorly in church meetings in hopes of keeping others from following in their footsteps. So… the person in charge of designing our foundations website is battling the normal trust issues we all do after leaving as well as trying to pick apart who her partners really are because of the stories she grew up hearing about us. 

This has brought a lot back to my mind about the first few years out of the cult. Trust was a huge issue to battle. I/we all (all of the members of this group) grew up learning that we do not trust “outsiders”, officials, doctors, and most especially anyone in the government. This was something that was taught at a very early age. We had it down by the time we started Kindergarten! They (group leaders) had to “trust” that we would not share any of the groups secrets before we ventured out into the “outside” world on our own. 

This is one of the many issues a member has to tackle after leaving. I remember my first year out. I wouldn’t ask for help from anyone or from any organization because I didn’t trust anyone. I made my first few years much more difficult than necessary because of my trust issues.

I think about the version of me 18 years earlier and compare that self to my current self. I am so glad that I have managed to work through so many of the things that I have; on my own, because I refused to ask for or accept help. Ha ha. I now live a much more fulfilling, freeing, and anxiety free life.

It’s been interesting “time traveling” today after realizing that trust has been the issue for this founding partner of ours. I’m glad that I can still remember how it felt after leaving so that I can help this girl navigate through some of the things she still needs to tackle and conquer. It will come in handy as we began serving scholarship recipients as well.

Our issues have been resolved since this morning and we are all working away at getting this website ready to publish. I’m thankful to be able to work with such compassionate and understanding women. I look forward to the future of this foundation. I especially look forward to publishing this website so we can start taking donations and handing out scholarships!