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So, you work for a nonprofit your whole life, in the hopes that something will change from your efforts, that your cause will have made a dent in the problem. If you stay with a nonprofit long enough, you can start to see, with your own eyes, that your organization and the partnerships you've built
On Saturday I went into four different craft stores, and Halloween decorations were everywhere. "Boo!" said a banner. "SCARY SAVINGS!" screamed a poster. "Horrors!" yelled the candy packaging. Witches, vampires and Fairy princess costumes hung waiting for people to put them on. Horrors indeed. Anyone wanting some real life horrors, not some made up Hollywood horrors, should look no further than the Democratic Republic of Congo. Over the past 20 years, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped.
"I met Cassie several months ago through a mutual friend. When I met her, I found out that she has a fundraising consulting business, and specializes in major gifts and communications planning and coaching. You can hire her here. Recently, she produced of a Month Without Monsanto., a project highlighted on Alternetand in YES magazine,
You may have seen the GQ article about Rand Paul's excursion into violence during his time at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, when he forced a woman to take a bong hit, and then, tied her up, took her to a river, and then, made her get on her hands and knees, and pledge allegiance to "Aqua Buddha."
You've Got Answers! According to LinkedIn, I'm an expert in Nonprofit Fundraising, Philanthropy, Work-life Balance, Non-profit Management, Social Enterpreneurship, and Public Relations. Here are some questions where my answer got chosen as best answer: "Facebook - serious concerns regarding privacy, where would all the 'facebook' users go? Plenty of the industry voices are calling for
You've Got Advice! Yesterday, I asked YOU some questions about your career. Today, I'm answering reader questions. This question struck me as pretty common with the people I've met through running the job club. How do I get experience in doing a job, so that I can get hired for the job? If you want
Today's post is a bit of a departure. Often, I'm on this blog, telling you how it is, or finding other people to tell you how it is. Today, like Socrates, I've got questions for you. Lots of questions. Consider even one of these questions, and leave a comment. I would LOVE to know if
This is part three in my Young Nonprofit Leaders Series, where I ask different leaders who they are, what they do, what they think Gen Y is like, and what they see as the future of the sector. Read Part 1, an interview with Meredith Maples, here, and part 2, an interview with Larissa DeLuna, here.
This is part two of my Young Fabulous Nonprofit Leaders Interview Series! People write a lot about Gen Y, but what about asking Gen Y what WE think? What is this leadership crisis all about anyway? How can we manage Gen Y? Is there some defining characteristic managers need to be aware of? Let's get
I recently met up with Ana Ottman of Red Dress Studios, to talk about business mentorship. She had some wonderful advice, and through her, I found this map. It's a mind map of all entrepreneur resources in Austin. I love it, and I think you could make one too. Whether you're a domestic violence agency
In this last year, I've stepped away from fundraising full time and started to grow different businesses. And I've done fairly well, which makes me wonder, are fundraising and entrepreneurship similar? Could fundraising be the first step to starting your own business? Let's take a look. Fundraising: You learn how to market your nonprofit with
How can you empower your donors to make something new? How can you help turn your donors into entrepreneurs for your cause? What's more exciting than starting something new, and making it your own? George Stevens recently posted on R.E. Foundations, the Council on Foundation's blog, about entrepreneurial donors. He wrote, “...community foundations are a platform for the nonprofit ecosystem. Do we encourage donor innovation using our platform? Do we engage the entrepreneurial donors in our communities? To fail to do so is to be left behind in the recovery of the nonprofit sector.”
I don't usually go in for membership. I find that whatever the cost is, it's usually not followed up with enough concrete benefits. However, there is ONE organization that I am a member of, which exceeds all my expectations, and I think it would help you to tell you about it.
Whenever this downturn is getting you down, remember. YOU HAVE AN IMPACT. Whenever you think that no one understands your struggle, remember these statistics. 1 in 57 people works in the food service industry, while 1 in 10 people works in the nonprofit industry.
So on Friday, September 10th, I got my book, The Wild Woman's Guide to Fundraising, printed on the Espresso Book Machine! There's a reason I look so happy in that picture! This proof represents three years of work. The Beginning: I read Tim Ferriss's "The 4 Hour Workweek" in 2007, and I thought, "How can
Lately I've been talking with a few nonprofits, trying to figure out how to get them to expand their thinking around fundraising. A few nonprofits seem to think that fundraising is mainly grants, events, appeals, and major gifts. But it can be so much more! In addition to grants, appeals, events, major gifts, etc, what
Gen Y has been accused of a lot of things. Ego-centricity. Being not able to finish things. Needing a trophy for everything. I disagree with labeling people Gen Y. The challenge with classifying people according to arbitrary periods of time is that you will find that many people, perhaps too many, are exceptions to the rules you've laid out for a "generation."
Do you know what keeps your donors up at night? Do you know how they've tried to solve this issue in other ways? Do you know what their dream is? Do you know their ideal solution? Say you're a museum in a small city. Your donors may come to you because they fear they are
Perhaps this has happened to you. You're doing your work, and suddenly your boss comes over and starts screaming at you. Then they barge back into their office. You wonder what just happened. Perhaps you start to cry. Perhaps you yell back. Perhaps you start to search for another job. How can you prevent verbal attacks? How can you stop the verbal attacker in their tracks? How can you make them understand that they are not going to get the rise out of you that they want?
Five things can make people want to give to you, according to Robert Cialdini's book, Influence. Reciprocation This is also known as the give and take and take. If you give a donor a flower, they might feel more inclined to give money to your organization. This is also the way the free sample works,
There's a reason you've never seen a full picture of me on here! Yeah, I've got a long tail. It's kind of got a "Puff The Magic Dragon" vibe. But I roll with it. So, in the spirit of my long tail, here's what I learned from Chris Anderson's bestseller The Long Tail, and how this applies to your nonprofit!
Hi! Thanks for reading this series on how to manage and motivate others by discovering their strengths and helping them find tasks that they can excel in! These descriptions are taken from the book, "Now, Discover your Strengths" by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton, and I am indebted to them for their years of research
How can you discover your strengths? How do you manage people? Have you taken the Gallup assessment, which was given to over 2 million people, and provided insights on 34 types you might have to manage at work? This can be an invaluable tool as you help people discover their strengths, and focus on these
Have you ever wanted to lead a nonprofit or charity? What about starting one? Today we talked with Sue Thornton, former Executive Director for Texas Dentists for Healthy Smiles, and former Executive Director for Texas IMPACT. She managed three statewide organizations with strong legislative ties. She would advocate for issues for poor women and children,
How can you motivate others? In three words: Strengths based management. What are your strengths? This post should help you. Here's how it works. People naturally tend to want their autonomy, to want self-direction in their tasks, and to want to use their areas of greatest strength at work. This is based on surveys of
Let's start with vocabulary. What is a strength? A strength is something that you can visualize yourself doing repeatedly, happily, and successfully. Talents are naturally recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which make up your strengths. Skills are the steps of an activity, Knowledge is facts and lessons learned. You need a system to
Oh holy moly. World of Good got acquired by eBay and Greater Good! Now you can find World of Good at eBay. What is World of Good? World of Good was founded in 2004 by Priya Haji, MBA with the mission to help small artisan producers improve their livelihoods by providing them with access to mainstream retail markets.
Are you living on credit? Are you making MUCH less than you deserve? Do you wonder what you're going to do about retirement? About your health if you get sick? What if in this downturn, your nonprofit decides they can't afford you anymore? What's your plan B or plan C? You don't HAVE ONE? Why
I've got some good news for you! You can read these articles I've written. I've written a guest post last week for Sharp Skirts about how to ask for help, and how to find your magicians who help you here. I've written a guest post on how to manage volunteers for Vivanista.com! And thanks for
Why not come and find out? This July 27th, at 5:30pm at 2500 Exposition, Howson library in Austin, Texas, we'll be listening to Lisa Avra, Chief Development Officer, Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin. Ms. Avra graduated from Baylor University with a BA in Mass Communication and English. She then went on
So how she got her executive position was at first through just volunteering, and she said, "You would not believe how many people become executives through volunteering first" and it's definitely true in my experience as well. "Money makes the world go around. If you can raise the money, you can do the good works." -Lisa Avra
Here's some advice from Dr. Bernadine Healy, former President of the American Red Cross, who raised over $3 BILLION dollars for them before being fired. She did all of this, mind you, with a brain tumor. "Life isn't a straight upward trajectory, but I think you will win more than you lose if you stand for something."
Wow. I'm so happy! This week RJ Leaman of the Wild Apricot Blog posted my presentation about rankism in the workplace. Last week iGrad posted my article on how to get a nonprofit job for new graduates. And I also guest posted about how to overcome workaholism over on the Fundraising Ideas blog! And I
So FYI, if you haven't given to our kickstarter project yet, here are 3 good reasons why. Because: 1. You could help thousands, perhaps millions of people that you've never met! 2. Building the capacity of thousands of people to fundraise is not an opportunity that just comes along every day! 3. You can be the first in your city to have a game that teaches people in your organization how to fundraise. Imagine the edge you'll have when all of your volunteers know how to research grants for you, do a mailing, or run an event!