Creating more strategic, financially savvy, and confident nonprofit leaders and organizations.
2020 continues to uncover the many social problems we need to solve, and broken systems we need to reinvent. This is crystal clear most recently with the horrific wildfires that have demonstrated how desperate we are for a solution to climate change. 2020 has been crisis after crisis, but these crises are also incredible opportunities. […]
I have been feeling lately that we social changemakers are on the cusp of something really big and new. It is an opportunity — an opportunity we have likely been training for our entire lives — to remake the world in ways we could formerly only imagine. Social change leaders, who have for so long […]
It feels like right now we are surrounded by can’ts. We can’t be near most other humans, we can’t travel as we used to, many can’t find work, we can’t really plan for the future because things seem to change by the minute. The can’ts seem to be everywhere. The sadder part is that in […]
There is much discussion lately about the financial doom that this pandemic is unleashing on nonprofits. Cancelled galas, shrinking corporate donations, fearful foundation donors, disappearing government coffers. It seems that the entire way nonprofits and social change are funded might be crumbling before our eyes. It’s about time! That’s because how money flows to the […]
Last week Shari Graydon — editor at Informed Opinions, a Canadian nonprofit working to elevate women’s voices in the media — wrote a beautiful article about the opportunity that the pandemic is offering us. She argues that this crisis is an opportunity to decide what we want to take forward with us, and what we […]
I have said many times before that the social change system is broken. Because of deep historical, normative, and structural limits placed on social change leaders for decades, an overwhelming feeling of scarcity pervades the social change sector. Nonprofit leaders and funders alike believe that there simply is “never enough.” There is never enough money, […]
Note: I was asked by the Council on Foundations to blog about their “Leading Together Conference” last week. My post that follows originally appeared on their website here. I came away from the second day of the Council on Foundations’ Leading Together 2021 conference with an enormous amount of hope. Hope in humanity and in […]
If you are feeling — as we hit the middle of 2021, a year almost as difficult as 2020 — exhausted, overwhelmed, worn out, you are not alone. Because I see you. I see you hang up after a call with a discouraging funder and put your head in your hands. I see you reliving […]
There is a palpable sense that people are hitting a wall. 2020 has been exhausting. I think particularly for social change leaders, who have borne the brunt of the tremendous social upheaval this year has brought, there is a sense of looming burnout. So I beg you — take a vacation. Every summer I work […]
I’m excited to announce that this Thursday I’ll be participating in a Facebook Live conversation with BoardSource about how nonprofit leaders can lead us forward during these unprecedented times. As I’ve been writing on the blog over the last few months, this crisis offers a real opportunity for nonprofit leaders to step into their power […]
Despite the fact that we are in the midst of a global health and economic crisis, I still believe that abundance is possible. In fact, I believe that an abundance mindset is what is required to lead us beyond this very crisis. Let me explain this heresy. We are currently surrounded by — in fact […]
These are scary times, there is no doubt. But sometimes, surprisingly, the antidote to fear is looking it squarely in the eyes and moving forward anyway. Believe me, since mid-March I have woken up most mornings with a constant companion — worry — waving from the sidelines. But each of us has the power to […]
These are incredibly challenging times. I have often found myself — as I imagine you have as well — worn down, exhausted, overwhelmed, discouraged, depressed by the various blows this pandemic is dealing our world. While for the most part I have tried to stay positive (especially through the many kindnesses and amazing displays of […]
