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Fundamentals for Effective Leadership By Mark Holbrook
Five Fundamentals for Effective Leadership After more than 30 years of experience in the CEO role, I am often asked about the fundamentals I have learned about effective leadership. Today I am sharing them here with you. Forget the learning curve It’s more like a slope or cliff, the kind you crawl up, slipping and sliding…
Avoiding College Debt By Gary Hoag
Stewardship and Avoiding College Debt In Managing God’s Money, Randy Alcorn reports startling statistics (165). “For many people, debt has become not the exception but the rule. The average American family devotes ¼ of its spendable income to outstanding debts. Since 1945, consumer debt in the United States has multiplied 31 times. The IRS calculates…
Titles Matter to Donors By John Curtis
What Titles Matter to Donors? Russell James, Ph.D. at Texas Tech University has recently completed a study of the Effectiveness of Fundraiser Job Titles. “His findings should give your Development Department reason to pause and, perhaps, move away from organization-centered titles to more gift-focused titles… his research shows that titles DO matter.” In the past,…
Strategic Alignment By Tom Okarma
The Significance of Strategic Alignment What does strategic alignment have to do with impact and outcomes? If you stop to think about it, leaders can significantly increase the impact of their nonprofit agencies without spending an extra dime. Say what? Let’s say your agency has: Experienced leadership-CHECK A clear and compelling strategic plan-CHECK The respect and support…
Stewards of Information By Mark L. Vincent
Let’s be better stewards of information! We all receive lots of information and grow tired of repeated phrases. In addition to the way overused “sit back and relax and enjoy the flight,” an overused one I hope remains retired is “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” With grave respect for the ways in which people pass away…
Big Picture Focus By Rick Dunham
The Challenge of Keeping the Big Picture in Focus One of the most important—yet hardest—things is to keep the big picture front and center. It’s just so easy to get sucked into the immediate… respond to the stuff that screams for our attention… and to be overwhelmed by the flood of things that come our…
The Impact of One Decision By Scott Rodin
The One Decision Leaders Make that Drives Everything They Do In my work as a consultant for not-for-profit organizations, I ask one question to start almost every consultation: “How do you define success?” I have found that this question more than any other helps define an organization’s mission, values, and motivations. The same is true…
Ready or Not, Here Comes Change! By Alan G. Weisenberger
Readiness for Change is up to you! Unless you’ve been asleep like Rip Van Winkle, you know that change is a constant in today’s world. But just because it’s constant doesn’t mean we’re good at it. It would be easier if we all viewed it the same way. But inevitably, while some are clamoring…
The Art of Strategic Thinking By William A. Horton
What is strategic thinking? In Becoming a Strategic Leader, the authors state that strategic thinking can be defined as, “The collection, interpretation, generation, and evaluation of information and ideas that shape an organization’s sustainable competitive advantage.” Similarly, T. Irene Sanders in Strategic Thinking and the New Science, says thinking strategically involves a combination of an…