Wealth and Charity
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The rich are richer than ever before. We have to keep this in mind when we solicit charitable contributions. The level of wealth for the top one percent – and…
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Boom! Mackenzie Scott Brilliantly Disrupts the Philanthropic Status Quo
If you’re looking for one good thing to come out of 2020, I would nominate the remarkable philanthropy of Mackenzie Scott. Scott, a novelist, philanthropist, and former wife of Amazon…
Read More New Year’s Resolutions
Now that we’re well into December, can’t we just get 2020 over with? The new year won’t be any sort of picnic, but it has to be better than 2020.…
Read More Using Grants to Win Friends, Influence People, and Silence Critics
[This article was co-published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on October 21, 2020.] Grants from corporations inevitably keep the donors’ business interests in mind at recipient organizations. That’s certainly the…
Read More In a K-Shaped Recovery, Nonprofits Should Lean on Major Donors
[This article was published in full in Harvard Business Review on September 17, 2020] America’s nonprofits are under enormous pressure. More than six months into the pandemic, those that provide…
Read More Smoke and Mirrors
[Note: This post was co-published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on July 22, 2020.] A great magician relies on diversion. The eyes of the audience go where the magician is drawing…
Read More Missing Information
[This article was co-published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy on June 15, 2020.] Our access to information is instantaneous. While having breakfast at 8:00 we know that thunderstorms will be rolling…
Read More Yes, It’s Political
“What can technologists do to fix the problems facing the nonprofit world?” The question hung in the air for a while. The setting was a recent “hackathon,” an on-line, national…
Read More Not Bad! Not Bad at All!
I’m a people person, and I prefer my people… in person. I’m also not the most technologically adroit guy. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that most of…
Read More Soliciting Gifts, Gracefully, As the World Falls Apart
[Note: A version of this post was published in Harvard Business Review on April 15, 2020.] This is a time of dislocation, fear, and trauma. In the course of about four weeks,…
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