I spent the last week working on Chances.org.
🌿 Your presence here is a gift. Thank you for visiting.
I did not intend to spend quite so much time on it, but creative projects have a way of pulling me in. One idea led to another, one improvement revealed another possibility, and before I knew it, Chances.org had begun growing into something even more hopeful, helpful, and fun.
Chances.org was created around one simple belief: everybody deserves a chance.
Sometimes we need a chance. Sometimes we are in a position to give one. Most of us will experience both sides many times throughout our lives.
A chance does not always have to be enormous. It might be sharing someone’s fundraiser, watching an artist’s video, offering advice, recommending a job seeker, signing a petition, supporting a classroom, mentoring someone, or simply giving another person a few words of encouragement.
Small actions can open surprisingly large doors.
Finding or Giving a Chance
The heart of the site is divided into two kinds of opportunities:
- Chances Wanted are posted by people who need help, encouragement, attention, resources, or an opportunity.
- Chances Offered are posted by people and organizations who have help, knowledge, resources, or opportunities to share.
Visitors can browse by category, but I also wanted the experience to contain a little surprise and serendipity. The new cards let visitors choose to Help Someone, Find a Chance, or select a Mystery Chance and leave the choice partly up to fate.
You never know what you might discover or whose life you might touch when you take a chance on something unexpected.
More Than Listings
While working on the site, I realized that a chance can also be something we give ourselves.
That is why the Chances.org library contains affirmations, journal prompts, meaningful quotes, meditations, inspiring videos, articles, and daily areas of focus. Sometimes the chance we need is permission to pause, reflect, try again, see something differently, or believe that change is still possible.
The site now has almost 1,000 self-help and inspirational resources. Visitors can explore them intentionally or allow a random selection to lead them somewhere new.
There is also a Kindness Wall, where people can share something kind they did or something kind another person did for them. I love the idea of collecting these moments. Kindness can seem small when it happens quietly, but when the stories are gathered together, they become evidence of how much good people are doing every day.
The site also includes Chance Challenges, which encourage people to take positive action, and Chance Champions, which recognize people who help create opportunities for others.
Meet Hope
One of the newest additions is an AI guide named Hope.
Hope can help visitors understand the site, decide whether something belongs under Chances Wanted or Chances Offered, choose a category, develop an idea, or write a clearer post. Someone who is not ready to post anything can simply ask Hope for ideas about what kind of chance they might give.
Hope can also guide visitors toward the self-help library, Kindness Wall, Chance Challenges, and other parts of the site.
I have been teaching Hope about Chances.org so she can become a thoughtful guide without taking away the human heart of the project. She may be powered by technology, but her purpose is very human: helping people find their next step.
A Different Kind of Creative Work
Although this project is different from making art, it still feels creative to me.
A website can be shaped much like a sculpture. You add something, step back, study it, remove what does not belong, and continue until the idea begins to reveal itself. Sometimes you know exactly what you are creating. Other times, you have to listen to the work and let it show you what it wants to become.
That is what happened during this past week.
Chances.org began as a way for people to ask for and offer opportunities. It is becoming a place to discover encouragement, share kindness, take positive action, and perhaps stumble across exactly what you or someone else needed that day.
Take a Chance
If you have a dream, project, cause, need, fundraiser, creative endeavor, or message that deserves to be seen, you can post a Chance.
If you have knowledge, encouragement, resources, time, talent, or an opportunity to share, you can offer a Chance.
Or you can simply visit, choose a card, and see where chance takes you.
Sometimes changing a life begins with something very small: a click, a share, a conversation, a kind word, or one person deciding to believe in another.
Without chances, there is no change. And everybody deserves a chance.
Visit Chances.org and discover what chance may be waiting for you. ❤️