Every competitor faces pressure, and it varies by industry, consumer/investor segment and geography. This applies to services, products, ideas, organizations, jobs… whenever there’s a choice and a market. The pressure might push you to be: Cheaper Simpler Dumber More short term Easier Coarse More convenient Hyped But it’s also possible to choose a marketplace that rewards: Durability Difficulty Elegant design Resilience Thoughtfulness Higher performance and efficiency Patience A real challenge is in trying to bring the desires of one segment to the other. That’s difficult indeed. Choose yo ..read more

“How do you get the word out?” I’ve heard this from presidential candidates, from small business leaders and nonprofits as well. It’s easy to believe that the goal of marketing is to shout, hype, hustle and otherwise promote. It’s tempting to focus on your story as the top of the pyramid, and decide that your work is to share that story to everyone downstream, downwind or near you. Hire a PR firm, run some ads, post more on social media and hype and hustle. After all, it’s important. But that’s not how the world works, and it hasn’t worked that way since network TV started to fade a few decade ..read more

[Relevant aside: If you get this blog by email, apologies for the glitches of the last few days caused by my provider. If you ever see a broken link or something that doesn’t render, you can visit the blog. It always has the latest version, typos fixed. It’s much easier to fix the blog over time than it is to re-send an email due to an error. The irony of ‘live’ in this post is not lost on me. Thanks for your patience.] Charity auctions are an odd hybrid. They take a lot of focus, and when done live, a lot of logistical support. It’s all of the charity’s best “customers” in a room, at the same ..read more

What kind of culture will we build? At work, in our community, online? Compliance Quality Inquiry Inclusion Consumption Possibility and/or Fear Each of us builds culture every time we interact with anyone else. Opting out isn’t possible, all we can do is decide what sort of impact and contribution we’re each going to make. It’s tempting to say, “they” build culture, and to see that some have far more leverage than others. But it’s actually a “we” thing ..read more

When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise funds and get it off the ground. After that, though, the purpose of the business is completely aligned with the idea of not running out of money. We run a business to make money, not to spend it. If done well, there’s no more fundraising after a startup period. On the other hand, nonprofits sign up to do at least two things. They’re here to solve a problem, to address trauma, to enrich the culture, to do the difficult work that we’re not always able to do on our own. And yet, at the same time, we ..read more

There are few sitcoms, thrillers or plays where the plot can tolerate the addition of a cell phone. Once the characters have the ability to connect and clear up misunderstandings at will, a lot of tension disappears. If Juliet had had a smartphone, she and Romeo would have ended up married, living in a house in the suburbs. And the ubiquitous meeting-in-person has a similarly long history. And yet they still happen with very few changes, with power getting the head of the table, traditionally privileged voices being the loudest and no accommodations for new information or asynchronous interact ..read more

Every internet success works because the network effect kicked in. There’s no other way for an idea to reliably and economically reach a big enough audience to be sustained. That’s why Super Bowl ads make so little sense in 2024. Ideas that spread win. I wrote a bestseller about this 20 years ago, and I still take the insight to heart.  One challenge with fundraising is that it’s awkward to share. Perhaps your friend isn’t ready to donate, or isn’t interested in the non profit… It simply doesn’t feel as easy or as fun as sharing a silly video or meme. Also, if you’re in an auction, you pr ..read more

That’s the first part of the confusion. It’s a group of people who can’t decide what the thing they do is supposed to be. Is it: Advertising Publicity Increasing retail distribution Direct and measured response SEO Making the logo pretty Wholesale and trade relationships Maintaining the status quo and not screwing up Keeping the website running Positioning Creating network effects Community engagement Strategy Listening hard to market desires Customer service Customer delight Quality metrics Mass market promotion Branding (whatever that is) And seven other things we could name and argue about ..read more

Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty team has been working on this for a year. I want to share the highlights along with some of the critical design choices we made along the way Each year, charities in the US raise about a billion dollars a day from individuals. That money goes to great use–for the arts, for healthcare, for education, for countless projects that benefit our communities. Because our society hasn’t built in a passive way for these organizations to get funded, they need to actively fundraise. It’s exhausting and frankl ..read more

The defenders of the status quo often demand certainty when facing decisions about the future. It sets up the conditions for doing nothing, because certainty never happens until the future arrives. It’s much more useful to look at probabilities. Flipping a fair coin has a 50% chance of coming up heads. That’s a risky bet. On the other hand, there’s more than a 95% chance that the sea levels in Miami will be significantly higher in ten years. Is that a bet you want to take the other side of? As soon as we can begin discussing probabilities, we can sit on the same side of the table and refine ou ..read more