Excuse the self congratulations, but when I launched Generous Matters back on March 3, I wasn’t sure I would keep it up. Now here I am, six months as a blogger, with 89 posts to my credit, several waiting in the queue, and a slew more knocking around in my head. I am loving this [...]
Google says no to God
August 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Or more precisely, Google has said no to organizations that serve in God’s name. So reports the Nonprofit Newswire today and Christianity Today a few days ago. Google made the decision back in March to exclude churches and other faith-based nonprofits from access to free or discounted software and business products. That’s when the company [...]
Getting more from your digital development officer
August 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment
These days, it’s the rare nonprofit that doesn’t have a website. For better or for worse (I’m referring to the quality of the sites I’ve visited), CEOs and boards have gotten the message — a web presence is a must. However, too few organizations are making the most of the website’s development potential, and that’s [...]
Generosity in quotes
August 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As students stream on to college campuses across North America, consider the following advice. “Today’s young adults are increasingly looking for ‘tribes that make a difference’ — they want something more than just to belong to a ‘happy gang.’ The challenge for nonprofit organizations is to trust these young people to take the opportunities and [...]
Transformed for servant leadership
August 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In yesterday’s post, I referred readers to David Brooks’ lovely column titled “Rugged altruism.” Today, I point you to a blog entry from my friend Mark Vincent over at Design Group International where he writes on Romans 12: 1-2 and the connection between transformation through faith in God and the steward leader. Similar to Brooks’ [...]
Servant leadership and rugged altruism
August 24, 2011 By 1 Comment
Just when I thought servant leaders had gone the way of the dodo bird, three such extraordinary individuals showed up in a David Brooks New York Times column. In this gorgeous piece of writing, he differentiates the “many Americans who go to the developing world to serve others” from “the smaller percentage who actually end [...]
Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors. Where are the givers?
August 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Despite a whopping $290 billion in charitable giving in 2010, individual donors are no more generous now than when giving data was first collected some 40 years ago – a finding that has the U.S. nonprofit sector in a dither. Fortunately, our nation’s philanthropic intelligentsia are on the case. This past June, 36 nonprofit leaders, [...]
Generosity in quotes
August 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“When we realize what God has done, when we discover that Christ has bound himself to us so radically that nothing can separate us from him when we gratefully reciprocate by fastening our lives to his life, death, and resurrection in baptism, the Holy Spirit empowers us to consciously participate in the life of God. [...]
If you want to have them at hello
August 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The toughest part of a fundraising call isn’t the ask. It’s the tenuous moments after the potential donor opens the door. Knowing that a first impression could be your last can give even the most seasoned development officer a bad case of stage fright. So how do you make the most of “that pregnant series [...]
