From Our Brains to Yours

June 9th, 2010

Measuring Advocacy is Hard

A more rigorous approach to measuring advocacy could produce more effective, efficient, and strategic advocacy programs. At the PdF10 conference, I presented on an approach to measuring advocacy.

Read More »

June 3rd, 2010

Superpower… Engaged!

To make the most difference in this imperfect world, your organization needs an engagement superpower. Here are three bits of guidance as you identify your organization’s superpower and use it for good.

Read More »

May 27th, 2010

Owning Your Work – Part II

Last week we offered up three tips to get a handle on “owning” a piece of work. This week, we’re following up with three tips to make you an effective owner, and thereby a more effective manager.

Read More »

May 12th, 2010

Measuring Down the Wrong Path

measuring the wrong things has led very good people doing incredibly good work down wrong paths… paths that ultimately veer off from their goals.

Read More »

April 6th, 2010

Inspire Awe to Inspire Action

Last month, the NYT wrote about a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania that studied the most emailed articles from the Times over the previous 6 months. Turns out the findings were quite interesting…and we think they could have an impact on how we communicate our calls to action.

Read More »

March 30th, 2010

Bigger and Better Thinking About Success Online

The barriers to entry are low enough and expertise widespread enough that we need a new story to guide how we’ll succeed using the opportunities presented in our wired, connected world.

Read More »

February 18th, 2010

Refocus to Change the World

Why do big online organizing efforts so often fail to win the day? A trio of ideas to guide the way toward more effective online advocacy.

Read More »

December 3rd, 2009

Measure More than Inputs

What should organizations, coalitions, and the sector at large measure in the context of unrelenting complexity, widely dispersed responsibility, and, often, a virtual blackout when it comes to timely, reliable data?

Read More »

October 5th, 2009

Reflections on the Web of Change Conference

A couple of weeks ago, I took a plane, train, rental car, ferry, water taxi, and sea plane (no kidding) getting to and from Cortes Island in beautiful British Columbia.  I ran that transportation gauntlet to attend the Web of Change conference at Hollyhock, a one-of-a-kind convening of great minds committed to social change, held [...]

Read More »

September 21st, 2009

How political should your nonprofit be?

On Friday, a federal appeals court struck down a limitation on non-profit money in politics that felt to many of us in this business, as one of my colleagues put it, like “a fact of life, like gravity.” Boiled down, the ruling cleared the way for non-profits to raise and spend unlimited money in support [...]

Read More »