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Coca-Cola Ignores Crisis Management 101 and Pays the Price

Always ask, “who could be offended by this?” When launching a major promo for a product, it’s Crisis Management 101, it’s very important to do your homework to ensure that you won’t be creating an ugly situation in the process. After reading about Coca-Cola’s latest marketing #fail there should be no doubts as to why. …

The Process Made Easy

The Only Form of Problem-Solving What would you say if I were to say there are no secret processes to be had–just the basic process we can apply to every plan we have to make and every problem we have to solve? I hope you would be flabbergasted, but believe me when I say it …

Nonprofits: Businesslike, But Not Businesses

A Guest Post by Tony Poderis In my opinion, there are limits (compared to the business sector) for nonprofit organizations regarding the building of their markets, the percent return on activities, investment for the future, general operational efficiencies, and some business practices and tools. There are things nonprofit organizations simply cannot do, which are second …

Staying Centered through Stress at Work

Life keeps throwing us curve balls. Project Complications. Family Illness. Traffic Jams. Scheduling Conflicts. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and stressed. As you run from one commitment to another, trying not to let things fall through the cracks, worry and doubts creep in. The monkey mind chatter screams loudly in your head. ‘Will I be …

CFC Summer 2013 Action Planning – Part 4

CFC Special Events & Resources In my July 11th post I talked about what a “culture of philanthropy” is, and the value of establishing one in your non-profit. The point is that CFC workplace giving campaigns provide many opportunities that smart non-profits can use as a “practice field” for many aspects of professional development, including …

Social Media: Has Target Marketing Gone Awry?

Instead all of us feel targeted. We have a bullseye on our backs. I thought the “do-not-call-list” was bad enough to put telemarketers on notice to leave us alone. We can mark unwanted emails as spam. We can ignore ads on Facebook, MySpace, Google Plus and many more personal social networks. We can still see …

Five Ways to Become a Great Public Speaker

Maybe you have always dreaded public speaking. Maybe you have convinced yourself you are no good at it, and never will be. Maybe you have resigned yourself to suffering through a series of painful speaking experiences. Let’s stop right there. Because it doesn’t have to be that way. You can get better, maybe much better. …

Another Approach to Getting Bequests

Unlike all of the other planned giving mechanisms, a bequest program doesn’t require major technical expertise and specific financial instruments. It’s easy, it’s fast, it can pay off substantially, and the dollars from bequests comprise close to 90% of all planned gifts. Many non-profit organizations refuse to get into planned giving because of the perception …

What is a viable social enterprise?

Here’s a suggested framework from my colleague Jim Kucher (founder/managing director, Income for Outcomes). This reminds me of our earlier blog about social enterprise sound bites. That blog can be seen at: https://staging.management.org/blogs/social-enterprise/2013/04/18/top-10-social-enterprise-sound-bites/ Here’s what Jim wrote: A viable social enterprise must have: • A viable social change theory (what makes you think you can …

Would You Like Feces with Your Meal?

USDA and meat industry ignoring massive warning signs A pilot program meant to more rapidly identify contamination in the plants which process the meat we eat on a daily basis has been an utter failure, yet still may be implemented as the USDA standard. The Washington Post’s Kimberly Kindy explains: The program allows meat producers …