Most projects that matter begin with good intentions.
Someone sees a need. Someone cares. Someone wants to fix something, improve something, or protect something that feels important. The language at the beginning is usually sincere, hopeful, and often inspiring.
And very often, at the beginning, it’s enough.
The trouble is that systems do not live at the beginning. They live in time.
They live through staff changes, leadership changes, funding pressures, public attention, fatigue, growth, success, and occasionally crisis. They live through moments when the original purpose is inconvenient, expensive, or in tension with some new priority that also seems reasonable.
It is in those moments that intention alone stops being sufficient.
The problem is not bad people
When good systems drift, it is rarely because someone decided to corrupt them.
Much more often, drift happens because:
- Circumstances change
- Pressures accumulate
- Trade-offs appear
- Shortcuts start to feel reasonable
- Exceptions start to make sense
- And small reinterpretations feel harmless
No one has to be dishonest for a system to slowly become something other than what it was meant to be.
In fact, most drift is carried forward by people who still believe they are doing good.
Why authority and interpretation matter
Any respected source of authority — a mission statement, a policy document, a constitution, a founding charter, or a sacred text — has a particular property:
The larger and richer it is, the more ways it can be interpreted.
This is not a flaw. It is a natural consequence of complexity and longevity.
A large, meaningful body of guidance can support:
- Caution and action
- Patience and urgency
- Stability and change
- Restraint and expansion
Which interpretation is emphasized usually depends less on the text itself and more on the pressures of the moment.
This is why, over time, institutions don’t usually abandon their founding language.
They reinterpret it.
The quiet danger of reinterpretation
Reinterpretation is powerful because it feels continuous.
Nothing dramatic has to happen.
- The words stay the same.
- The story stays the same.
- The mission statement stays on the wall.
But the meaning shifts a little.
Then a little more.
Then, eventually, the system is doing something quite different — while still sincerely believing it is being faithful to its purpose.
This is how good intentions survive while outcomes change.
Why promises are not protection
At the beginning of almost every worthwhile project, someone says:
- “We’ll always do it this way.”
- “We’ll never let that happen.”
- “We’ll stay true to the mission.”
And in that moment, they mean it.
But promises are not mechanisms.
They do not constrain future trade-offs.
They do not survive personnel changes.
They do not resist financial pressure.
They do not enforce themselves when the world gets complicated.
Only structure does that.
The difference between intention and design
Intention is what you hope will happen.
Design is what still happens when conditions are no longer ideal.
Good system design assumes:
- People will be reasonable — and occasionally not
- Incentives will matter
- Short-term pressures will appear
- Convenience will compete with principle
- And interpretation will always be tempting
So instead of relying on virtue, it relies on:
- Clear separation of roles
- Visible flows of money and authority
- Explicit constraints
- Publicly inspectable rules
- And durable structural commitments
Not because people are untrustworthy — but because systems must remain trustworthy even when people change.
Why Canmore Legacy is built this way
Canmore Legacy exists to explain and document a funding model, not to operate it.
That separation is not cosmetic. It is structural.
It exists because:
- Operators should not be the ones explaining themselves
- Beneficiaries should not control the narrative
- And no single role should be able to quietly reinterpret the whole system
The model is designed so that:
- Money flows are visible
- Roles are separated
- Commitments are documented
- And the original purpose is harder to slowly bend without being noticed
This is not a statement about anyone’s character.
It is a statement about how systems behave over time.
The uncomfortable but necessary conclusion
If a system depends on people continuing to mean well, it will eventually fail.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Gradually.
Respectably.
Good intentions are a starting point. They are never a guarantee.
Only durable structure can do that.
A note to the reader
This is not a claim that Canmore Legacy — or any system — is immune to drift.
It is a claim that drift is real, predictable, and common enough that it must be designed against deliberately.
The purpose of explanation, separation, and visible structure is not to eliminate risk.
It is to make risk harder to hide and easier to see.