Episodes

A lot of us, especially Gen Xers, were taught a lot of things about how important it is to be modest. Don't brag about yourself. Heck, don't even talk about yourself. We were taught to regard modesty as a great virtue. But th...

We hear all the time about how important it is to tell client stories. But we seldom get much more guidance than that. And the truth is that number one, client stories are only a small part of the overall storytelling toolkit...

How many times have you dealt with a funding decisionmaker who is tempted by the low-cost alternative to your services? And how many times have you been challenged on your prices? This is a really common problem and it came u...

We're all witnessing some truly devastating and distressing actions against our immigrant neighbors. We may be watching this from afar, or we may be seeing it up close and personal. There are almost two reactions that happen at the same time. One is we are tempted to recoil in horror and push it aw…

As a Nonprofit leader/advocate, you already know that information alone doesn't engage. But here's what I see as a flashing red signal. AI is transforming the information ecosystem. It's now easier than ever to get just about any information you might want or need, in fairly complex form, just by a…

There's a mistake that every Nonprofit leader makes from time to time. In fact, we all make this mistake, not just in our work, but in multiple aspects of our lives. And if we can be attentive enough and fix it, we can absolutely transform our results and massively reduce our level of frustration. …

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2026 is to make more mistakes. And I gotta tell you, it's been very interesting to see the reaction it gets when I tell people that. A few people get it and cheer me on. But a lot of folks look at me kind of funny and ask, why on earth would you wanna do that? T…

As Nonprofit leaders, we all have a relationship with power. But it's not something that we tend to take a look at much. And I think perhaps the reason for that is what a lot of Nonprofit leaders tell me – that they're not super comfortable with the concept of power. Today I want to really dig into…

As we're coming right up on the close of 2025, I think it's always important to do a review and take stock of the year that's just gone by. And it might be more important than ever in this particular year, given what a wild ride it's been. There's a lot of different ways you can come at a year-end …

Why is there so much dumb public policy and what can we do about it? There's government money to address a service need in just about every arena, which is great. But the flip side of that is the rules that are attached to that money. The rules about who can be served, how they can be served, under…

I see three major mistakes that get made all the time among Nonprofit leaders when they're engaging decisionmakers. These mistakes will invariably cost you influence and results, especially funding results. Now more than ever, especially in this environment, you need both your existing funders and …

What I suspect is true for you is what I'm hearing from a lot of my clients – there's just too much noise in the world. And more and more, we want to be able to focus on the essentials of what's going to work. When we're talking advocacy, there are two essential ingredients. If you don't have those…

At the beginning of this Thanksgiving week. I wanted to take just a few minutes to share with you my five greatest sources of gratitude right now, and a little bit about why they’re so significant. We're living in a time when...

I want to tackle a thing that we all come in contact with on a regular basis. My clients tell me it's one of the most unsettling things that can happen in a meeting with a decisionmaker. And that's when they throw you some kind of curve ball. Maybe it's a question. Maybe it's a totally out there st…

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a lot more optimistic than I was a week ago. In spite of daily news that can feel pretty daunting, I think we just got a lot of new information out of this past week's elections that gi...

There is nothing more exciting than talking with a money or policy decisionmaker who's all in on the conversation. They're leaning in, they're asking good questions. Their gears are turning as they think about how you can work together. That's awesome when that happens. And then, there are the time…

It is no secret that engagement is the key to influence. It’s one of the biggest themes of my work with my clients. We also focus on how and why information and data are not engaging on their own. We know great messaging is e...

I'm super energized to have this conversation on the heels of the massive No Kings protests of October 18th. The greatest mass mobilization to date against authoritarianism in this country. At the same time, I also understand that it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed with all of the bad things comi…

There's a huge problem happening all over the Nonprofit universe and beyond right now, and that's fundamentally the problem of fear. In fairness, it's a pretty scary time. And fear is not unfounded for sure. There are genuine threats facing Nonprofits individually and the sector more broadly. And t…

One of the sources of constant frustration that I hear from Nonprofit leaders is about not having the advocacy results they want. If that's you, you're in good company. A lot of Nonprofit leaders experience this problem. The ...

I want to share with you a story of something that happened to me that I think carries some powerful lessons for how we approach not just advocacy, but pretty much everything. But those lessons are only part of point. When yo...

On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable are you in saying out loud that your organization's work and the results that you get are the best? The best. If you said 10, congratulations. You are in great shape on that front. But if your response was an 8 or below. Or if you didn't even answer, but inste…

Here's something I think we probably all would agree is true: Nonprofit leaders are great at saying yes. We say yes to opportunities. We say yes to those who need our help. It's kind of in our DNA. I know many Nonprofit leaders who see their readiness to say yes as a virtue. But what if some of the…

There is a thing going on out there that we have to talk about. It's making me crazy. I'm pretty sure it's making you crazy too. And that's this business of all these money decisionmakers, whether they're foundations or elected officials or government agencies, you name it. They're all singing the …