I’m taking a hiatus from bequests to help you get IRA gifts for your year-end appeal. Passed on January 1, 2013, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 renewed charitable giving from individual retirement accounts (IRAs) for those 70-and-a-half or older. This gift opportunity ends on December 31 so the remaining months of the year …

How will the organization handle the revelation of Scout-on-Scout abuse records? The Boy Scouts of America is surely ramping up crisis management case study as it faces what could be another major blow to its reputation, with a Florida judge ordering the first known release of documentation regarding Scout-on-Scout abuse. The Sarasota Herald Tribune’s Elizabeth …

The World of Stories Human history and literature are replete with myths and stories—about the heavens, the earth, planting, the harvest, winter, summer, light, darkness, nations, war, peace, families, and individuals. All of these stories, our personal ones and our larger myths, are interconnected. Our individual stories are narratives we have told ourselves about our …

To Thy Own Self Be True While this phrase may be well know, living authentically- knowing and connecting your Inner and Outer Self- seems less common. I’ve had two job coaching clients in the last week talk about their struggle with their company norm to “Fake it ‘Til you Make It”. We talked through ways …

There comes a time when some non-profit development professionals begin thinking about saying goodbye to their organizations and hello to the world of fundraising consulting. They want to know what it takes to be a consultant, and how to find clients. Although the consulting profession may seem attractive, the leap into this hazardous arena requires …

Crisis Management Mistake: Pearl Izumi’s Misguided Advertising THINK before you communicate! [Editor’s note: Thank you to reader Kim May for bringing this case to our attention! If you see a topic you think would make for a good blog post, send it on over to erik@bernsteincrisismanagement.com] Would a picture of a dead dog with a …

A lead magnet solves a very big problem for your target audience. That makes sense, right? What do you do when you sit down at the Google search bar? Well, you type into it keywords for the problem you're trying to solve.

(By the way, I know some trainers use toys in icebreakers and throughout their training, but I’m not going to address that here. Maybe later.) Some trainers and some employers expect these toys: stacks of pre-packaged company-tested programs. Other trainers and employers expect a personalized, yet professional assessment and work experience, which may or may …

Although everyone knows that benefits are extremely important in government grant proposals for nonprofits, I am constantly astonished at how many proposals are all features and few, if any, benefits. This is a serious omission because the lack of explicit benefits almost always means that the proposal will be unpersuasive to reviewers. Everything in your …

Website Demo. People who do voiceovers–hereafter known as VO–come from a variety of places, wherever good voices are found. Think about how many products you use everyday that has a voice attached to it, for example, a customer service automated voice on the telephone, the voice on your Global Positioning System (GPS), and all the …