Organizational Development

Enchantment for Non-profits: A Book Review

Maureen Carruthers 6 Comments

The core purpose of this blog is teach Third Tribe style marketing techniques to nonprofit leaders so they can connect with their right people and change the world.  So you can imagine how exited I was to hear not only had Guy Kawasaki written a book subtitled:  “The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions” but also that he was sending me an advanced copy of the book to review on the blog.

I was not disappointed.

The book is an easy and engaging read, and while the examples lean heavily toward how to use enchantment techniques to build excitement and loyalty around products, the concepts absolutely translate to our realm.  For example: Continue reading →

How to increase demand for art

Maureen Carruthers 11 Comments
Discrete-supply-and-demand

I don't know what this chart says, I was just feeling left out of the hard-core elements of the conversation

The theatre arts world opened a giant can of worms last week at the #newplay convening hosted by Arena Stage.  Rocco Landesman, and Diane Ragsdale led a conversation directly addressing one of the nonprofit arts sector’s unmentionables:  the mismatch that currently exists between supply and demand for not-for-profit arts organizations in our country.  Rocco went on to assert this mismatch cannot be balanced by increasing demand–supply must also be addressed.

Thanks to the power of Twitter, the conversation moved outside the walls of Arena Stage and is being held in every corner of the theatre (and increasingly arts) world  with an Internet connection. Continue reading →

Dare to Dream

Maureen Carruthers 4 Comments
Judah's Bedtime Reading

Image by protoflux via Flickr

Many nonprofits are famous for doing their work with almost no resources.  It’s an impressive trick, especially in lean times, but this attitude can also negatively impact  long-term success.

Nonprofits working in this way often tell themselves this story:  Our community doesn’t understand or appreciate our work, so we can’t ask them for more support.  Therefore, we have no choice but to continue to do what we can with what we have.  Our best option is to scrape together the tiny bits of funding and support we have and cobble them together into something that sort of works.

So what’s wrong with this story? Continue reading →

3 Things Nonprofit Consultants Can’t Do

Maureen Carruthers 2 Comments
Moving truck

Image by TheMuuj via Flickr

Hiring a nonprofit consultant is like hiring movers. Once you’ve had the experience of high-quality, professional help, it is  impossible to imagine how you ever did all that heavy-lifting on your own.

And yet, just like movers don’t unpack for you–or come back two weeks later to unload the dishwasher, there are some kinds of work your consultant can’t do for you.

Here are three big ones: Continue reading →