I’ll be speaking at the Social Media FTW conference on September 22 in Portland, Maine. The organizers have asked each of the presenters to do a quick video promoting why people should come to their session. Would you help me decide which video to send to the conference organizers? It would be great if you [...]

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The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported of a couple of $4 million gifts give to surprised nonprofits. According to the story, a Pasadena couple gave $4 million to each of their alma maters. As is typical in stories like this (and Richard Walters [$4 mill] and Jean Preston [$8 mill] and Helene Alley [$7.3 mill]), people [...]

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Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th has become an unofficial Star Wars holiday, given the pun on “May the Force be with you.” (Back in Catholic school, my friends and I would respond, “And also with you.” Being extra witty–in my own mind–I replied “This is a reading from the Gospel of Luke.”) So [...]

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Last week Good Day New York invited me to talk about career stress in light of Steven Slater’s quitting his job by jumping out of a JetBlue plane. The interview is below. But there was so much more that I sent to Good Day New York. The entire 5-page article is available here: Changing Careers [...]

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Earlier this week, I walked into an office here at Inland Hospital and saw this. After being a bit grossed out, I read that it was one way this office was collecting for our hospital’s United Way drive. Being the geek I am, I decided to run a photo caption contest by posting this picture [...]

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Do you remember Jean Preston, the unassuming librarian who’d amassed an $8 million estate? Or Helene Whitlock Alley, the $100 donor that bequethed $7.3 million to a diabetes group. Well here’s another entry in the never underestimate anyone category: Richard Walters. Perhaps you’ve heard his name on NPR: “Support for NPR comes from the estate [...]

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Apparently 2009 is going to be the year of learning to delay Alzheimer’s. In today’s news, work is apparently officially proven to delay Alzheimer’s. The equation? 1 year or work = 6 weeks of delay. Earlier this year, I read that drinking strong coffee may reduce the risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s by 65%! What [...]

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See’s Chocolates sent me a tin of chocolates they use for a chocolate fundraiser. I told them my blog doesn’t talk about fundraising sales, but they insisted and who am I to turn down free chocolate? The tin came yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised by both the assortment of chocolates in the tin and at [...]

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I sure love the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “Give & Take” roundup of nonprofit blogs. Today I found a gem from fundraising consultant Tom Belford on the Madoff ponzi scandal. Tom writes on a pretty obvious, but unspoken, double standard: every few years, nonprofits are called to account for their actions and donations but large players [...]

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Like many Americans, I’ve been inundated with news stories about the Big 3 automakers attempts to get a federal loan of billions of dollars. Yes, billions. So I started wondering, what if the Big 3 were to teach nonprofits how to fundraise? Some of the humorous answers included: Lose touch with your donor base: Ignore [...]

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