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Great Managers Are Great Pioneers

Great leaders and entrepreneurs are not content merely to maintain the status quo. They are driven to see and seek out opportunities to make a big impact. Peter Drucker said, “Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems. All one can hope to get by solving problems is to restore normalcy.” This is …

Unleashing the Power of your Story: Creating a New Leadership Story

This post as a distillation from Chapter IV of my upcoming book: Unleashing the Power of Your Story smashwords, Winter, 2013. My last post focused on learning to see your current story. This entry is about creating a new one. You Can Change your Story Remember that we are exploring the story you have told …

Listening And Writing

You are gathering notes at a meeting for a group of documents that need to be produced. Are you listening to the individuals as they speak? Are you really hearing what they are saying? Not only that, are you writing down what they are saying? What is the meaning behind what they are saying? Are …

The Interim Between CEOs Is Important – Make the Most of It

All of this has made me think of how important this interim phase is to nonprofits – especially small and midsize organizations. This is a time of uncertainty and it can me marked by anxiety, impulsive change by temporary leaders, reduced fundraising, etc., etc.. Or it can be a time of understanding who you have been, who you are now, and what are your dreams of becoming. It should be a time of “renewing and reworking” your relationships with major funders and key supporters. And it should be a time of preparation for willingness to adapt to a new leader with a new approach, personality, style and goals.

Development Committee Membership: A Question of Ethics

An email raised this question: My organization is in the process of developing a Fundraising Committee. Three of our Board members are on this Committee and we are trying to determine other non-Board members who we could invite to join as well. We have one major gift donor who began to fund us at the …

How to Train Shy, Introverted People

Do we treat shy or introverted people any different from other trainees? We should. This relates back to my differentiated learning post. This will be a short blog–especially short for me. Everyone has encountered that person at work who doesn’t look at you, stays buried in paperwork or the computer, sneaks off to lunch and …

CFC Fundraising: Thoughts at Mid-Campaign

Thank you for what you do. If you’re reading this blog, I’m going to make the educated assumption that you’re probably involved (directly or indirectly) with non-profit fundraising. Regardless of the particular role you have, you make a difference in the lives of your non-profit’s beneficiaries whether they are called clients, members, students, citizens, or …

Customer Service: Don’t Train This…

Because it’s idiotic! Really, don’t make it worse than it already is. Customer service as we use to know it is getting to the point where we have to accept what we get, instead of a human-to-human exchange of what does us the best, and actually helps us. What’s idiotic? Making appointments for quality customer …

Ever Heard of NFIB? Instagram?

“Using Instagram, small business owners can instantly put a face to their businesses’ name—and watch their customer relationships and sales flourish as a result.”