

Instead of New Year Resolutions, choose a theme for your small nonprofit in 2018
You know, it seems you can't live with New Year resolutions and you can't live without them. On one hand, you know the importance of goals and habits to accomplishing anything worthwhile. On the other hand, you know that you'll end up abandoning your New Year resolutions by around January 3. So why bother? If you're an achiever (Type A) personality (like me), you're in double trouble. For a few years in my 20s, I recall making pages--pages!--of resolutions each December. You


Wishes for you this holiday season
As you live and work, I wish many things for you. Here are five for the holidays this year. I wish peace for you. I wish for distractions, little anxieties, and regrets to fade from your mind starting today. What is done is done. What will be will be. Over the next few days, however, the Holy Presence invites you to be wholly present. Give your senses and your thoughts completely to what is happening around you. Give yourself to the people in your life as they are, where they


What is on your donors' and volunteers' wish lists?
What is on your wish list this holiday season? A few years ago, I got into the habit of keeping running wish lists on Amazon and Evernote. It used to be that my mom would ask me for my Christmas wish list around mid-October. I could never think of anything on the spot. Now, I just point her to my Amazon wish list. Or, for things that she can't buy on Amazon, I send her some ideas from my Evernote list. My sisters are great about keeping their Amazon wish lists current and tha


Sometimes you need to get smaller to grow bigger
About three months ago, I became executive director for a little nonprofit called Voices for Earth Justice. After four years of contract project management for big nonprofits, I was eager to get back to the kind of high-impact local work a small nonprofit can do. Voices for Earth Justice formed in 2002 when two Catholic women, Patty and Sister Janet, saw that nobody was helping the faith community engage in environmental issues. Over the next 15 years, Patty and Sister Janet