Both funders and nonprofit organizations seek to understand the impact of their dollars and efforts, yet few are doing it. Why is that?
“How do we know if our philanthropic efforts have made a difference?” “What kind of difference have we made?” These are two common questions that foundation board members and business leaders ask their program staffs. Those leading funding and volunteer efforts often struggle to articulate their impact and tend toward defending their approach, their grantees, their staff, their
“Why haven’t you achieved higher outcomes through your services and the funding that fuels them?” This is a common question that many funders and board members ask nonprofits, and many of those nonprofits struggle to defend their programs, people, hard work, and budget usage. Sometimes they feel that their funders or boards just don’t understand what it takes to...
Do you believe that we are responsible for other people’s reactions to us? If others tell us we ‘hurt’ them, is it true? Can we really hurt others by simply being ourselves?
Most of us have learned that it’s our job to make sure others feel OK. It’s like a bargain we have made unconsciously with each other “I’ll make you feel OK if you make me feel OK”. A sure way to lose touch with our true responsibility and how we give our power away to others...
Who do we think is worthy of our trust? What is it that makes someone ‘trustworthy’ to us? What about the times that someone didn’t come through for us when we needed them to? How did we reconcile that disappointment? What do those experiences do to our level of ‘trust’ about others as the next situation arises? Can someone be completely ‘trustworthy’ to us?...