Typically no single source provides all of the information necessary for writing a good marketing plan for your business. This means gathering information from several sources. You may need to gather information on demographics, industry trends and competition, to name just a few.

Many Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) use the term “Major Gifts” to refer to those that are larger than the usual range of gifts that arrive in the mail. Typically, $1,000 is the magic number. But, unless an organization’s budget and/or the amount to be raised via the fundraising process is unusually small, gifts of $1,000 won’t …

This entry states that the bottom line objective of transformational leadership could be referred to as a leader’s efforts to align his or her goals, and the goals of team members, with the strategic goals of the organization. The questions that are addressed are whether this approach to leadership shows evidence of any positive outcomes, let alone the aforementioned grand objective.

We often generalize leadership and skills to be the same traits needed all the time and everywhere by all leaders. Is leadership really that simple? Let’s look at different domains of leadership and the different skills that are needed in each. Leading Yourself To effectively lead yourself, useful skills are, for example: physical fitness decision-making …

As a consultant, your perception of project “success” is the basis from which your client and you conclude, for example, whether the project is of high quality, that money paid to you was well spent, that you did a good job as a consultant, and whether you might be hired again (if you are an …

Understanding a Board’s System: Key of Improving Recent Breakthrough in Development: Systems Thinking One of the recent breakthroughs in organizational and management development is the ability to understand organizations and each of the various functions in them as a system. Each of the functions, such as Boards, planning, leadership, management, marketing, sales and finances is …

What Is an Organic Approach? Organization and management sciences today are placing a great deal of attention to naturalistic approaches to development. One of the most prominent approaches is called “self-organizing” systems. These are systems that develop primarily according to certain values, rather than according to specific procedures. Biological systems (people, plants, animals, etc.) are …

While reading Deepak Chopra’s book Creating Affluence: The A-Z Steps to a Richer Life, I thought it would be fun to write a series of blog posts using the same type of approach. Each week I’ll share the A-Z inspirations for bringing your spirituality to work. When I thought of what “A” would be many …

One of the nice things about writing a blog is getting comments. And now that the Free Management Library blogs are attracting more than 10,000 readers each week (wow!), we’re glad to hear what readers are thinking. Here are two particularly interesting recent comments: On whether the “social” in social enterprise is redundant, Andy Horsnell …

Does this bird look familiar? If not, let me introduce you to “Ono the Ostrich,” the long-time official mascot of my Crisis Manager email newsletter. Now, I’ve launched The Ono Awards to honor those whose public statements embody the image displayed by Ono. And the winner of the first Ono Award is…..here. Readers are encouraged …