The Work Behind the Work

There's a version of building something where everything moves fast and clean and the path is obvious. That has not been my experience with Sacred Promise Institute, and I've come to believe that's not a bad thing.

The 1023, the federal application for tax-exempt status, is done. It took longer than I expected. There were revisions, conversations with people who knew more than I did, and moments where I had to sit with the paperwork long enough to understand what it was actually asking. That process made the organization sharper. I'm glad it wasn't easy.

The next step is BPPE registration, the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. This is the California authorization that allows a school to legally operate and enroll students. It's a meaningful milestone, the one that moves us from preparation into operation. The fee alone runs into the thousands of dollars, which is not a small thing for an organization that cannot yet accept tax-deductible donations.

I've already spent a comparable amount getting the school to this point. Curriculum development, regulatory compliance work, legal groundwork. None of it is recoverable if this doesn't move forward, and none of it was spent carelessly. I share that not to signal struggle but to be clear about what this kind of work actually costs and what it means that we're still here.

The slower pace has been useful. It gave me time to go back through the curriculum with a finer eye and catch things that mattered, details that would have created problems later. I don't think that happened by accident. I think there's an order to how things unfold, one given by a power that's bigger than any of us, when you're building something that's meant to last, and our job is to move it forward as deliberately and as quickly as we can without getting ahead of what's ready.

Sacred Promise Institute is moving. Not as fast as I'd like, but in the right direction, and for the right reasons.

If you want to follow along or support what we're doing, reach out. The community this school is built to serve is worth every step of this.

Dexter Founder & CEO, Sacred Promise Institute