Goal, Motivation, Conflict
How do you know if your nonprofit story is any good? Are you stuck with writing a story right now? How can you make it better? Well, first of all, Check out Goal, Motivation, Conflict. Does your story have all three of these things? If not, rewrite it. So, what’s a principle of Goal? A […]
How can screenwriting help you write your nonprofit story?
Why do people give us money? It could be because we asked them. Guilt, fear, hope, or even, possibly, because they want more meaning in their lives. But how do we help them find that meaning, through giving to our cause? “Stories are equipment for living.” -Kenneth Burke If Burke is right, then your […]
Book Review: It’s not just about the money
Recently I started reading Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifel’s new book about major gifts. It’s called “It’s Not Just About the Money.” You may have heard of their company, the Veritus Group. What are major gifts? Just the most successful way to fundraise, like ever. NBD. Do you have a major gifts program? If so, […]
How can you inspire generosity?
When I was back on the east coast for the holidays, I went to a radical bookstore with my parents in Brattleboro, Vermont. This bookstore was special. And before long, I was browsing around, and I found this book, Inspiring Generosity, and started to read it. It’s by Barbara Bonner, a fundraising consultant and nonprofit […]
Is your nonprofit fragile?
So in 2011 I wrote about a book called The Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb. good book. He now considers it an appendix to this 2012 book, called Antifragile. Who is Nassim Taleb? He’s someone who has spent his life in pursuit of knowledge, specifically about randomness. He spent 20 years working as a […]
How to build the future of your nonprofit
Recently I was reading a book called Zero to One by Pete Thiel. In it, Thiel writes about misconceptions of the tech bubble in the late nineties. He talks about how people wanted to bet on a sure thing, people didn’t want to plan, how they didn’t have to worry about competition, and that sales […]