A mentor is someone who can help shape your career by offering guidance, encouragement and the right nudge at the right time and help you avoid costly mistakes while unlocking your potential, so selecting the right person can be a key step in your professional growth. To select a mentor who can truly help […]| Lighthouse Counsel
In this episode of The Beacon Podcast, Lighthouse Counsel Content Coordinator Margaret Gardner talks with Alan Clayton about organizations that “get it” and excel at raising the money needed to make their mission a reality. In their conversation, the author of the book “Great Fundraising Organizations: Why and How The World’s Best Charities Excel at […] The post Great Fundraising Organizations — and How They Got That Way appeared first on Lighthouse Counsel.| Lighthouse Counsel
Ghosting – suddenly ending communication without explanation – has become an all-too-common phenomenon, not just in personal relationships but also in professional settings. While it might seem like an easy way to avoid uncomfortable conversations, ghosting is never a good leadership practice. The impact of ghosting in professional relationships When someone is ghosted in a […]| Lighthouse Counsel
“In a strategic plan, the goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. Smart goals are goals that are specific and measurable, goals that are attainable and that are responsive and relevant and goals that are timely.” Howard Cohen In this episode of The Beacon Podcast, Lighthouse Counsel Senior Consultant Karen Baldwin speaks with Howard Cohen, a senior […]| Lighthouse Counsel
In part 2 of our interview with entrepreneur and philanthropist Maxine Clark, special guest host Parker Middleton speaks with the founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop about: Click here to listen to part 1 of the interview, where Maxine shares about how her mother influenced her lifelong passion for entrepreneurship and problem solving; her community impact organization […]| Lighthouse Counsel
Lighthouse Counsel is a nonprofit consultant to respected organizations. We develop and implement strategies that increase mission awareness, organizational effectiveness, and philanthropic support.| Lighthouse Counsel
Lighthouse Counsel partners with respected nonprofits to develop and implement strategies that increase mission awareness, organizational effectiveness and philanthropic support.| Lighthouse Counsel
In this episode of The Beacon Podcast, special guest host Parker Middleton speaks with visionary entrepreneur and philanthropist Maxine Clark, founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop. In their discussion, Clark shares insights into her career, including: About Maxine Clark Maxine Clark is one of the true innovators in the retail industry. During her career, her ability to […]| Lighthouse Counsel
Communicating in the workplace is rarely a simple matter of giving and receiving information. The status of the communicators’ professional relationship to one another makes a difference (employer/employee, team member/team member, inside or outside a reporting structure, for examples) as does the urgency of the communication, the tone of its expression, the personal relationship of […]| Lighthouse Counsel
Authors: Chris Willis, Margaret Battistelli Gardner Artificial Intelligence has been around for a while but became more visible in everyday technology about a decade ago with the introduction of personal assistants like Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa; chatbots; and recommendation algorithms like Netflix and Spotify. While the for-profit sector has been utilizing AI for decades, […]| Lighthouse Counsel
In this episode of The Beacon Podcast, Lighthouse Counsel President Jeff Jowdy speaks with Dr. Russell James, author of “The Storytelling Fundraiser,” about storytelling and behavioral economics and how they affect fundraising. In their conversation, Russell addresses: About our guest Dr. Russell James is a professor in the School of Financial Planning at Texas Tech […]| Lighthouse Counsel
In this episode of The Beacon Podcast, Lighthouse Counsel President Jeff Jowdy talks with Texas Tech’s Russell James about getting inside the mind of the planned giving donor. During their conversation, James answers questions including: About our guest Russell James is a professor in the School of Financial Planning at Texas Tech University, where he […]| Lighthouse Counsel
Why do only a small percentage of your best long-time donors make a planned gift to your organization? There are a variety of reasons. Let’s examine some here, along with tips on breaking through those roadblocks. Lack of awareness that your organization accepts planned gifts Lighthouse Counsel often asks during a capital campaign readiness study […]| Lighthouse Counsel
Black History Month is a powerful reminder of the extraordinary contributions of African American leaders, artists, activists and scholars. But it’s also a time to shine a light on the rich legacy of Black philanthropy – a centuries-long tradition rooted in the values of mutual aid and community support. Long before the transatlantic slave trade, […]| Lighthouse Counsel
We hear often about “creating a culture” within your organization. In our sector, of course, it’s a culture of philanthropy. But it can be almost anything – a culture of innovation, a culture of joy, a culture of friendly competition. And too often, misguided leaders can inadvertently create a culture of stress, a culture of […]| Lighthouse Counsel
In Part 1 of “Chaos in the Nonprofit Organization,” we listed six things nonprofit boards or board members must avoid. Here is a quick summary: Now we turn the focus to six things that CEOs should avoid doing – and believe me, as a former CEO I was guilty of a few of these! My […]| Lighthouse Counsel
As a former nonprofit CEO and with personal experience as a board member, there are things that boards (and, yes, CEOs) could do to cause chaos in the organization. Part one of this two-part series is focused on boards; part 2 will focus on CEOs. Here are the top six things boards (and board members) […]| Lighthouse Counsel
Here is a question I often get (and one I had to deal with during my time as a nonprofit CEO): “Is it OK if my board members don’t give at a leadership level for annual campaigns?” The answer is “no” unless there is an unusual exception. For capital campaigns, it is a bit more […]| Lighthouse Counsel
A Dialogue Board chair [Susan, four years in position]: Good morning, Dan. Thanks for rearranging your schedule to meet me this morning. I’ll try to keep to our regularly scheduled time in the future, but I know you want to get started planning the year ahead. Executive director [Dan, new to the organization (a […]| Lighthouse Counsel
“Artificial intelligence is a machine’s ability to perform some cognitive functions we usually associate with human minds.” (Mckinsey) Want a better understanding of AI? Imagine talking with a toddler. They sometimes say silly and confusing things that reflect how they perceive the world with their limited experience. The same could be said for early adoption […]| Lighthouse Counsel