Write to Know

How are the people in Oakridge, Oregon reinventing their community? Prepare to be inspired!

This batch of articles covers a wide range of topics, from foreign policy to an ultra-local battle over ownership of a longstanding event; from how the wealthy may disproportionately influence politics, to a pragmatic grassroots project to help the homeless. I also include an article from NPQ’s Editor-in-Chief, Ruth McCambridge. The Nonprofit Quarterly is based in Boston, just blocks from where the explosions occurred. In her article written in the raw hours right after the bombs, Ruth’s reflections are full of compassion, grief, and grace.

“Bringing Sexy Back” is the theme of my most recent article for Nonprofit Quarterly. Yes, it relates to nonprofits,and yes, there’s more!

We are just back from a wonderful trip to Europe, thanks to the magic of frequent flier miles. We visited Istanbul, Prague, and Lisbon, all for the first time, not knowing anything of the local languages except for “please” and “thank you”! We awoke to morning prayer calls rolling one over the other (at 6:16 [...]

The disconnect between being a citizen and acting like a citizen has troubling policy implications. That’s the message of a remarkable op-ed article today in The Oregonian by Sergio Cisneros, a young Latino college student.

What if you had a trusted nonprofit peer with whom to test new ideas, explore strategy options or troubleshoot challenges?

The three latest articles I’ve written for the Nonprofit Quarterly newswire all deal with assets related to the nonprofit sector: the rise of web-based philanthropy in China, the uniquely shared nature of nonprofit leadership, and business ventures as a source of nonprofit revenue.

Happy Labor Day weekend! This quiet weekend has me thinking about transitions—how we often know that they’re underway long before they’re official, and how such transitions pull us into a suspended state between wanting to appreciate what we have and wanting to move toward something new and less known.

Here’s a great example from the streets of Rio de Janeiro of a key mindset for nonprofit innovation: “flipping an idea”. It’s positively punchy!

My most recent contributions to Nonprofit Quarterly focus on three forces shaping public perception of nonprofit performance: outcome based payment models, financial health and transparency, and capacity for innovation.