This past week I spoke on a teleconference workshop about tools to engage boards to support fundraising auctions. Many of the 50+ organizations who signed up indicated that their board members are not fully engaged in outreach events and fundraising. Does this mean they have the wrong board members? Do they need to define roles […]
Amazon is known for efficiency. Zappos has built a customer-centered company. The marriage announced last week merges a $1 billion-a-year shoe-selling enterprise with a $20 billion behemoth online seller. Many industry watchers have been boo-hooing the deal, assuming that Amazon’s culture will subsume Zappos and, frankly, ruin it. But I have another take. When one […]
By now you have probably heard some of the more infamous stories of the brave new world of social media. From Jeff Jarvis’s famous “Dell Sucks” blog post in 2005 to the Motrin-Mommy-Blogger fiasco of late 2008. But what results—good and bad—can inform your own personal or corporate social media strategy? Here are some I […]
I know, I’ve really avoided launching any blog posts with the words “I hate.” But this one really gets me, for some reason. In our brave new age of social media, increased transparency, and communications efficiency, those little forms that you get when you click “Contact Us” really bug me. I recently went on a […]
I was recently reminded of how important it is to choose the right communications medium when I opened my office email after the July 4th holiday weekend. To my surprise, my in-box was chock full of emails—more than 200 of them. This seemed odd. Could there have been some massive event I wasn’t aware of? […]
In the last two weeks I’ve spoken with one VP of marketing whose job was completely eliminated at a major national nonprofit, and one marketing director at a mid-sized for-profit who confessed she had no time to do long-term strategic work since she was really functioning as communications director, and without any support staff. Who […]
Volunteers are the hard currency of nonprofit work. They are the grassroots organizers, the field operatives, the advocates in the community, the donors and board leaders. And yet they often get the least amount of training and support when it comes to communicating what you do and who you are. At the DC Cares Philanthropy […]
This week I’ve had four people ask me this question. Two are lawyers in large, successful practices. One is an executive looking for work. One is a nonprofit professional. All are mid-40’s to early 50’s. My answer is a resounding “yes!” to all of them, with varying reasons why. If you are already well-versed in […]
The Chronicle of Philanthropy just reported in its June 4th issue that the value of endowments held by all 229 organizations in its survey declined by a combined $29.1 billion from 2007 to 2008. This will come as no surprise to development directors. Many organizations don’t want to talk much about the big drops they’ve […]
As the school year draws to a close, it’s common for many organizations that run on this calendar to assess how they’ve done. Specifically, board and staff may do self-evaluations, and boards evaluate the executive, the one staff member for whom they are responsible. But these assessments are just part of the picture of how […]
