10 Ways Your Brain Reacts to Uncertain Times

Volatility. Uncertainty. Complexity. Ambiguity. These four words (shorthanded to “VUCA”) describe the type of high-stress, high-demand scenarios that can rapidly degrade one of our most powerful and influential brain systems: our attention. Right now, during the COVID pandemic, we are all living in VUCA conditions. Compounding the constant health and economic concerns, we are facing […]

A Mental Trick to Help with Challenging Conversations

Imagine the colleague with whom you have a very challenging relationship, the person who makes the most innocuous conversation tense and uncomfortable. Now imagine the following scenario: You’re sitting at your desk working away when a message from that person pops up on your screen. You open the message and it reads: “I got the […]

Five For-Profit Practices That Philanthropy Should Avoid

Judy Park, Kavya Shankar and a group of Stanford MBA students interviewed millennial donors from the Silicon Valley startup world and these conservations showed a pattern of overreliance on certain for-profit principles in the nonprofit realm, despite potential flaws. One young tech executive in San Francisco said she wanted to maximize return on investment. The […]

Don’t Waste Your Time on Networking Events

Large, traditional business networking events are a time-honored institution. They have been a staple of aspiring and successful professionals for so long that most networking advice focuses not on whether you should attend, but on how to make the most of these events when you do attend. In theory, they’re one of the best ways […]

10 Ways to Reduce Interviewer Bias

Strangers often get a bad deal when it comes to being accurately assessed during interviews. While people who are known to the hiring manager are assessed on their past performance, strangers are judged on their motivation to get the job, a bunch of generic competencies, the depth of their technical knowledge and the quality of […]

5 Ways to Create Meaningful Connections in a Virtual World

This list was initially created by Dr Andrea Dinardo for students embarking on a new career during covid-19 but it is equally useful for fundraisers trying to make online connections with new supporters. It also includes EQ techniques helpful for everyone. Find out more here: https://drandreadinardo.com/2021/02/09/meaningful-online-connections/

How to Network with Powerful People

How do you get the attention of powerful people you want in your network, but are the least likely to respond? Senior executives are busy, see less value spending time with someone lower on the hierarchy, and are likely to miss or ignore requests through email or social media. Michael C. Wenderoth is an Associate […]

The Truth About High-Performing Major Gift Officers

CDOs are always looking for ways to monitor, evaluate, and improve MGO performance, but the absence of industry benchmarks makes this task challenging. To meet the growing demand for industry-wide MGO performance data, our Philanthropy Leadership Council experts asked 132 major gift officers from 40 institutions to tell us about their activities and performance. This […]

Top 10 ways to make better decisions

Decisions, decisions! Our lives are full of them, from the small and mundane, such as what to wear or eat, to the life-changing, such as whether to get married and to whom, what job to take and how to bring up our children. We jealously guard our right to choose. It is central to our […]

The Janitor Who Helped Put a Man on the Moon

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy visited NASA for the first time. During his tour of the facility, he met a janitor who was carrying a broom down the hallway. The President then casually asked the janitor what he did for NASA, and the janitor replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” Take […]