Volunteering on a local nonprofit board has changed my perspective on some things I used to say with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, and with a microphone. As an example: “The federated model is inefficient. All organizations are on the path to single corp, without exception.”

Here’s where the federated model works brilliantly. Because the national organization is protected by a separate 501c3, they don’t mess with us.

Ian Joyce showed up at Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation after a robust and distinguished career in corporate marketing and communications. He brought that mindset to his new work in social good. But he found there was a missing piece—a pipeline.  

To celebrate the upcoming release of Turnkey’s Katrina VanHuss & Otis Fulton, Ph.D.’s new book Social Fundraising: How to Mine the New Peer-to-Peer Landscape, we are giving you a sneak preview of one of our favorite topics; Recruiting (and Keeping) Volunteer Leaders & Fundraisers.

History is unfolding before us; it’s on C-SPAN and most cable news outlets. How can we use what we’re witnessing to help us in social good? Repeat to yourself... people respond to situations. Great marketing and program design create situations that trigger the types of attitudes and behaviors that we’re seeing as a result of the January 6th hearings.

In philanthropy, why do women dominate in number, but not in pay or filling significant roles? This surely devalues philanthropy as an industry, like every other industry where women are present in large numbers, yet are relegated to subordinate status.

I just didn’t see it coming. I didn’t see that attending the Amazon Web Services IMAGINE nonprofit conference would be meaningful in so many different ways.

There I am—sitting in another all-vendor meeting. I hear about all the exciting things the mission side of the house is up to. I feel more connected to the cause than ever before.

We recently wrote about the unfortunate results of “siloing” events and event participants. By doing so we prevent the participant from connecting to the mission, to make the mission a part of their identity.

We have defined “our community” as “the people on our email list” for a long time, but that’s not what community is all about. To our credit, we knew that they (people on our email list) cared about one thing—our mission.

It was addictive. I wanted to continue that feeling. It was such an incredible feeling. I wanted more and more. It became something that I loved.

In the past months, we’ve read a lot of “takeaways from the pandemic” articles. So many, in fact, that we thought adding one more to the conversation might be redundant. At the same time, we are still reading them, and it looks like you are too. So here is our take on what we learned.

I am the mother of a thirty-year-old with Down syndrome, autism, and type 1 diabetes. Like me, I'm sure you've been asked to help fundraise for an organization dedicated to helping your loved one. And you thought, “We have a really rare situation. Will anyone donate if this isn’t part of their life?”