The 30% Principle: When Loss Is Part of the Design

By Josh Singleton | Founder, The Neighborhood Garden Project

Every gardener knows that some things will get eaten. Some seedlings will not make it. Some fruit will fall before it is ripe or be claimed by unseen hands. What if God lets some things fall to the ground so something deeper can take root?

Many of us have heard the wisdom to plant 30 percent more than we think we need, to account for wildlife, pests, or unpredictable weather. In the commercial world, farmers often follow a similar principle. They overplant by a percentage to ensure their profit margins hold steady in the face of loss. If 10 to 20 percent of the crop is damaged or eaten, they still make their numbers because they built it in on the front end. Their margin exists to protect their bottom line.

In contrast, we do not plant for the sake of profit. And the truth is, we do not even plant for the sake of harvest. We plant as an act of faith, and the harvest is entirely marginal. We do not weigh it. We do not track it. We do not assign it to the worthy. We live open-handedly with every single fruit, herb, and root that grows. That means 100 percent of what comes out of the soil is open for whoever needs it, whoever happens upon it, and whoever is moved by it. The food itself is not the goal—it is the overflow. We are not guarding produce. We are cultivating people.

In the garden, nature does not operate by efficiency. It operates by abundance. A tree does not drop a single acorn; it drops thousands. A sunflower head holds over a thousand seeds. A tomato plant gives far more than one household could consume. Built-in loss is part of the plan. It is what keeps the system alive and thriving.

So when we overplant, we are not being careless. We are cooperating with a truth older than any spreadsheet. Healthy systems have a margin. Healthy ecosystems can afford to give some away and still flourish. That is not a flaw in the system; it is its strength.

At the level of mission, this principle is just as vital. The Garden Project was never designed to be a machine for output. It was meant to be a living witness of how Kingdom flow operates. Growth does not come from pressure. It comes from peace.

That is why we are not shaken when doors close, when volunteers do not return, or when meetings lead to stillness rather than strategy. We have built in margin for that. The goal is not to convert everything into immediate fruit. The goal is to create a space for becoming.

Becoming requires room. It requires room to fail, to heal, to try again, to be pruned and still show back up. That is why we do not just budget for what is visible. We make space for the invisible. We fund the root system. We build our time, our people, and our calendars with enough flexibility that when a soul is ready, we can meet them without pressure. We plant extra time. We offer extra grace. That is what makes our mission resilient.

This is true for funding as well. The instinct in the nonprofit world is to fund tightly and raise just enough to survive. But that approach is rooted in scarcity. We are doing the opposite. We are building in funding that allows for overflow, not for luxury but for life. The goal is not to grow bigger. The goal is to stay faithful. When we ask for resources that create spiritual margin, we are not bloating the budget. We are aligning with Kingdom reality. That is how we sustain people without suffocating them. We are not chasing grants. We are inviting givers to become co-laborers in the margin. Because if there is no margin in the budget, there is no margin in the spirit. And when there is no margin in the spirit, we grow programs instead of people.

This principle lives in us as co-stewards, too. We cannot lead tightly wound lives, budgets, or schedules. If we are full of margin, then we do not flinch when pests show up. We do not spiral when something gets taken. We do not panic when pruning comes. We return to trust. Margin protects our spirit. It allows us to respond instead of react. It gives us space to remain aligned with God when the outcomes are unclear.

Margin is not waste. It is wisdom. It is not an absence of use. It is the presence of trust.

So what are we saying? We do not run this garden like a business or a traditional non-profit. We steward it like a parable. Every leaf, every bug, every bite that was not ours to harvest is still part of the story. We will continue planting more than we think we need because what we truly need is bigger than metrics. We are sowing for health, for beauty, for rest, and for a future.

The 30 percent we used to think of as margin is now just the beginning. Because in this garden, the entire harvest is open-handed. And what flows out of open hands always finds the ones who need it most.