My week with (a book about) Peter Drucker
Recently, I participated as a guest writer for my friend John Pearson’s year-long blogged journey through A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching… Read More »My week with (a book about) Peter Drucker
planning
Strategic planning is not a compound word
At a recent gathering of ministry CEOs and board members, eight of the nine organizations were identified as having just completed or in the process… Read More »Strategic planning is not a compound word
If it’s not broken, fix it anyway.
Change doesn’t come easy, even in the direst of organizational circumstances. We humans are expert at denying the obvious. Never mind that the ship is… Read More »If it’s not broken, fix it anyway.
Mice, life, and if the Lord wills
In the midst of preparing for a planning retreat with a seminary board, Mother Nature provided me with a real-time object lesson in the importance… Read More »Mice, life, and if the Lord wills
Money talks. Are you listening?
I heard about a ministry that was engaged in an ambitious planning process. Consultants had been hired and staff positions created. Advisory, implementation, and discernment… Read More »Money talks. Are you listening?
When we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
In today’s mail, I received a frantic letter from a ministry where just a year ago, the board was patting itself on the back about… Read More »When we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
Finding your organization’s future in its past
Clients are surprised by the advice, but before launching into a planning process I encourage telling stories about the organization’s past. Eager to grasp the… Read More »Finding your organization’s future in its past
As you plan in your endings, so shall it be in your beginnings.
If you’re among the thousands of nonprofit leaders staring into a June 30 fiscal year-end, you’re probably not thinking beyond the next two weeks. I see you out there – hanging on and hoping to finish out FY13 with your pride intact. Planning for the fiscal year to come is likely the last thing on your mind.Read More »As you plan in your endings, so shall it be in your beginnings.
Avoid the trap of “maybe gifts” and mission drift
I heard it again on my last trip out — a proposal to expand an organization’s mission packaged as a development strategy. “By launching X, we’ll open the organization to a whole new group of donors,” the executive director said with more conviction than evidence.
Never mind that the organization’s strategic plan included nary a hint of the proposed project. The siren song of potential new dollars (hinted at, but not confirmed by the ED) was too much for the cash-anxious board to resist. My bet? A year from now they’ll be singing a sadder (and more realistic) song.Read More »Avoid the trap of “maybe gifts” and mission drift
Move your fundraising beyond the insanity of the same-old, same-old
I gave up CNN or any other of the myriad news channels this past week. Not for Lent, but because the debacle unfolding in Washington, D.C. was simply too painful to watch. I’d like to think that the trauma of the last fiscal cliff experience would have knocked a little compromise (I stopped hoping for sense a long time ago) into our nation’s leaders.
But oh, no. There they went again, this time taking the nation with them over the edge. And here we are, all of us, clinging by our fingernails to the words of pundits who claim the fall won’t be so bad.Read More »Move your fundraising beyond the insanity of the same-old, same-old