Engage in Your Greatness
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I started reading The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist. I’ve really only just begun the book, so I cannot comment on it as a whole. So far, nothing she has said is radical or new, but she does have a lovely way of making what we know is true sound new. For The Soul of Money is the story of her journey of discovering these “truths.”
While I had wanted to stay away from the whole topic of fundraising, as it Read more
Twisted into Knots at Year-End
When things come together in a short period of time, I pay attention. So, this blog is my paying attention to this series of events that happened last week, all related to year-end fundraising anxieties.
So, the first event: a reporter called to ask me what was I hearing about people’s (meaning nonprofit staff and board) attitude towards philanthropic giving as we move into the frenzy of end of the year giving. So I decided to ask around, and heard a lot. I asked about 50 Read more
Freedom vs. Burden in Charitable Giving
It starts right about now: an increase in solicitations in your snail and email boxes, on your phone and via all forms of social media, asking for donations for what is hoped is your favorite charity. It continues with the news articles and radio and television stories on assessing where and how to give. It continues right up to the first note of Auld Lang Syne.
The tug of war has begun: charities that need your money versus the highly sought (and in high demand) donors Read more
What’s Normal About the New Normal?
I hate current hot phrases and this one is no exception: the new normal. If the current economic conditions—by which I don’t mean the level of unemployment, the number of home foreclosures on the books, the lack of agreement as to how we got where we are and hot to get out, but rather the reduction in credit availability, people’s fear of unemployment and their hesitancy to spend money on anything other than essentials, and more—are, in deed, the new normal, why haven’t nonprofits moved Read more
Find the Fraud
They are, if you will excuse me, a dime a dozen—or perhaps in these economic times, a penny a dozen. The headlines publicizing new found fraud at nonprofits. No doubt the stories are read, a shudder felt and then a huge sigh of relief and the thought: “Thank goodness it isn’t us!”
Or is it and it just hasn’t been discovered yet? The reality is that none of us is immune from this possibility. Thus, all of us should be doing everything we possibly can—even if Read more
Creative Genius from Hardship?
As the media begins to warm up to the end-of-the-year giving frenzy when we see the annual stories on what should a donor look for in judging a nonprofit, we can expect to see coverage of salaries of nonprofit leaders, questioning if certain executive directors make way too much. (Well, maybe, if nonprofit leaders full of themselves hadn’t decided they needed to be called CEO instead of Executive Director they would have flown more below the radar. What’s in a name, anyway?) I’ve stopped counting Read more
Idiot Says What?
It is time for a basic lesson in research and the creation of sound conclusions. Too many people are publicly exposing their stupid sides because they simply don’t understand the basics of how to draw conclusions.
So, let me give you a primer.
NUMBER ONE: We never, ever generalize our learning from one subject to the whole group into which that one subject might fall. In other words, experiencing the inefficiencies of one nonprofit does not allow us to generalize and conclude that all nonprofits are inefficient. Read more
When Boring is Better
Developing policies are a bore and a waste of precious time. At least that seems to be the thinking of most board members, as demonstrated by the amount of time and energy boards commit to their creation, reliance upon and monitoring. And yet, they are among the most important things a board should be doing as they provide for clarity, increased efficiency and, most importantly, allow the board to ensure that an organization’s values are both practiced and protected. Along the way, they do a Read more
Saving the Sector
This is a message for all executive directors, from one to another. If you don’t stop right now and look at your own performance, you run the risk of not only scaring off and pushing away all of the emerging leaders in your organization but in the sector as well.
For several years, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with and collecting data from emerging leaders from across the sector in terms of organizational mission, age, size, tenure of their executive director, etc. I Read more
Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?
The 13 September issue of Newsweek had a headline that grabbed—not merely caught—my attention: “Do fines EVER make corporations change?” And the answer, as you soon will learn, if you didn’t already know, was at this rate, how could they?
Newsweek provided data on three companies.
BP: 2007 was its worst year in the fines department, fined a total of $391 million dollars for such behavior as “illegally manipulating energy markets, breaking environmental laws, and anticompetitive practices.” In 2007, BP had revenue of $284 billion. Thus, its Read more
