In Made to Stick brothers Chip and Dan Heath tell the story of Art Silverman with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a group that educates the public about nutrition issues. CSPI had discovered through lab testing that because of coconut oil the average bag of popcorn at a […]
By Tom Peterson Working as a nonprofit professional and wondering, What can I do to grow? Here are some ideas created by a couple dozen nonprofit folks in a twenty-minute exercise called “25/10 Crowd Sourcing.” (My changes were minimal.) They emerged from a workshop on Liberating Structures at the national conference of the […]
By Tom Peterson Around 1969 when I was a teenager living in Corpus Christi, Texas, I helped open the first Chick-fil-A west of the Mississippi River. I worked there several years, occasionally wandering the mall in a chicken suit passing out coupons for free ice cream. (You decide whether I’m bragging or looking […]
Focus on Your Square Liberal theologian Marcus Borg died Wednesday at the age of 72. Here’s what he said that helped me not feel overwhelmed about solving all the world’s problems: Asked how to avoid becoming overwhelmed, theologian Marcus Borg said, “It’s like being part of a quilter’s group. Don’t worry about the entire quilt; just […]
This post was written by a cool friend and colleague, Dave Patterson, and first appeared on Raise-funds.com. By David Patterson How the Smallest of Gifts Combined with the Impulse to Give Can Yield Real Results Micro-giving is most often thought of as the charitable donation of small increments of money from individual donors to a specific […]
By Hallie Shoffner You have a press conference, commemoration ceremony, community health/job fair, etc. coming up in a few days. You want to get your local TV stations involved. You’ve already got a stellar press release, but how do you get the reporters and cameras to cover the event? 1. Identify the assignment […]
Every so often some nonprofit hits the news because of a breakthrough supporter-driven campaign. With the Kony 2012 campaign-turned-phenomenon the organization Invisible Children asked its supporters to bring attention to war criminal Joseph Kony and thus aid in his capture. This summer’s ALS ice bucket challenge became a viral social media phenomenon as it quickly […]
“I saw something strange, it looked like a forest far in the distance. I began walking toward it. And when I reached it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had found a dense forest in the middle of a barren wasteland.” A master of tenacity, Jadav Payeng of India has been planting trees on his […]
I just got this email from a former student, Maggie Carroll. She graduated from the Clinton School of Public Service a couple of years ago and has since been busy with public radio and film work. She also wrote a post for Thunderhead Works on Participatory Media. Maggie is trying to bring to light the issue of […]
This month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival is all abut inspiration and Innovation. Read all of the posts for your own inspiration. I especially enjoyed these thoughts from Ann Goldman, who says the light of the summer is a good time to reflect on our work: Independence Day is a great time to remind […]
