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[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,…
Read More Time to Put Up and Spend Down
[Note: A version of this post was published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on April 14, 2020.] The coronavirus pandemic has made us realize – very suddenly – how utterly ill-prepared…
Read More The Vision Thing
The past few months have seen a dozen or so would-be presidents appear in my community of Concord, New Hampshire. If you haven’t experienced the New Hampshire Primary, I can…
Read More So, Tell Me About Yourself!
A few months ago, by a fluke, I found myself sitting at the head table of a fundraising dinner next to the keynote speaker, National Public Radio’s legendary journalist Susan…
Read More Peak bagging
As someone who likes to be taken seriously, I probably shouldn’t begin this post by publishing such a goofy picture of myself. But here I go, happily sharing this photo,…
Read More Think Before You Endow
I was recently asked at a public forum why I don’t like endowments. I answered: “It’s not so much that I don’t like endowments. It’s that nonprofits and their donors…
Read More Scale, For Better or For Worse
Nonprofit trends – and their associated jargon – seem to come in waves. Given the disparate and atomized nature of the sector, it’s striking that new notions and terms fall…
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