Collaborative Meetings. These meetings are designed to brainstorm together, to collectively create, to “bounce ideas off of each other.” The purpose of these meetings is to involve others in the idea formation process. Responsive Meetings. These meetings are designed to react to a proposal, to refine an idea, to improve a plan. The purpose of…
Category: Constituency Service
More and Less
Everyone expects “more.” Each year, our annual fund goal increases. Our new campaign will be the biggest ever. The goal for the number of donors next year will be more than this year’s goal. Getting to “more,” though, often means focusing on less. If our annual fund goal is increasing, who are the small subset…
Strolling vs. Scrolling
Humans are built to walk. Our walking ability not only provides us with the mobility to enjoy and govern our physical world in ways most other species can not, it also is a great form of exercise. Simply walking consistently produces a host of wonderful benefits including reducing body fat, enhancing memory, strengthening bones, lowering…
7 Degrees of Generosity
Here is a Human Generosity Scale I’ve been considering for some time. It’s still in a draft form, but I thought I’d share this version: The model posits that there are 2 types of people who are unwilling to give – the Consciously Ungenerous and the Unconsciously Ungenerous. The difference is that the Consciously Ungenerous…
Should Giving Be Easier?
A mere 25 years ago there wasn’t widespread adoption of email or internet technologies. Texting from mobile devices didn’t become popular until the early 2000s and smart mobile phones weren’t ubiquitous until later that decade. Email, the internet, texting, mobile devices. . . We have experienced tremendous technological advances over the last 25 years. And, as…
Just Go Play
My son plays high school basketball. During the fall of 2020, his freshman year, his high school made the difficult decision to cancel most of their season due to the pandemic. Because he would be missing a full year of his high school career, my son went to his coach and asked what drills he…
Feeling Questions
People feel the intent of the question, regardless of the word choice or content. “Can you help me understand the numbers?” can be an authentic, even humble question. Or, it can be a passive-aggressive bomb. “Were you invited to the meeting?” can be a question that elevates one’s sense of value. Or, it can be…
Hope and Indifference
Two socially transmitted doctrines. In one, we invite an authentic, joyful, heartening belief to overtake us: “Tomorrow will be better than today.” In the other, we give in to a cynical, misanthropic, resigning frame of mind and heart: “I’m not concerned about tomorrow.” There is no question that advancing our institutions is done best when…
From “How” To “Why?”
Yesterday, I used OpenAI’s artificial-intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, for the first time. I asked ChatGPT the following question: “How can I raise more money as a university development officer?” Here, in full, is the response I received in less than 10 seconds: “As a university development officer, your primary responsibility is to raise funds for your…
Believing What We Say
“We don’t believe what we hear. We believe what we say.” Social scientists have proved this old saying over and over again in a multitude of studies. For instance, and as Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long report in their book, “The Molecule of More,” if we talk with someone about the importance of honesty and…