Cool Little Things

...back in my days as a writing teacher, I'd say that the greatest enemy of good writing is high standards. If you know you have something Important to say, and it has to be said Just Right... you're never going to get anything done.

Obviously, I haven't written in a while, and I'm blaming this on my desire to want to write something usefully synoptic about the three presentations I've been to in close succession: Ben Cameron at Drexel, Dan Heath at the Philadelphia Theatre Company, and Andrew Zolli at the AFTA conference this past weekend. Three great speakers whose ideas all converge... but that's going to have to wait.

Until then, here's one awesome thing:

Stanford on iTunes U. [http://itunes.stanford.edu/] .

You're going to need iTunes for this, but it's a set of free recorded lectures and presentations from Stanford business school faculty, including Dan Heath's brother Chip, about nonprofit trends. Look under "Social Entrepreneurship," which is Stanford-speak for "nonprofit." I've been listening to them on my walk to work lately. Yesterday it was "Improve Your Nonprofit Operations in Less than Two Months" with Heather Carpenter and Jennifer Chien. Good advice on basic steps for new/small nonprofits, though in truth, they sound a little like Marcie & Peppermint Patty. If you listen to the Chip Heath presentation on Made to Stick, listen for the example he gives near the end of the presentation about the monastery.

...and another awesome thing: www.idealware.org --more excellent advice on software for nonprofits.

Losing Your Status

There have been two chilling stories in the news recently about organizations losing their non-profit status.

The first involves a Tennessee-based "religious charity" that lost its status basically because it spent such a small percentage of its budget on program. (Here's a story from the San Francisco Sentinel about it, another story from the Chronicle of Philanthropy.) It spent preposterously little on program, really, (less than1%!!) so it's hard to get worked up on their behalf. It sounds like a suspicious operation. But still, the principle that the IRS can pull your tax exempt status because of your program/administration/fundraising percentages is getting a lot of attention. The IRS has put non-profits on notice that it is keeping an eye on the efficiency and governance of non-profits. I've linked to recent talks given by Stephen T. Miller, one of the IRS commissioners in charge of nonprofits, about this issue and what he calls the "commensurate test."

The second case may hit closer to home--Monday's New York Times had a front page story about a Minnesota day-care center that had its nonprofit status revoked because, bascially, it didn't give anything away. The battleground for this organization is in the state courts, and the plaintiffs are local governments who want to collect property taxes. the courts could not find a meaningful distinction between the work of the non-profit day care (which didn't offer any discounts to low-income families or other discounted services) and for-profit day cares, which do pay corporate and real-estate taxes (if they own real estate). Every few years one hears similar murmurings about colleges and universities, especially Harvard, where the contrast between it's $35 billion endowment and its $0 property tax bill to the City of Cambridge is frequently invoked. (I believe Harvard does make a contribution to Cambridge in lieu of taxes, but still...).

Nerdy Productivity Books for Arts People

Getting Things Done by David Allen is exactly the kind of book I hate to get caught reading. It is a productivity book. Having it on your desk is an admission that you don't consider yourself to be productive enough. It also suggests to your coworkers that you think reading books about productivity is a good way to become productive... as opposed to just doing your work already.*

It's also one of the most helpful books about organizing your workday and yes, productivity, that I've ever read. It's description of the average modern workday is exceedingly familiar, and it's argument that we have never been trained to work in our present environments just seems right. And if you google the title, or even just GTD, you'll see that the book has what is often described as a "cult following," particularly among tech workers.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list, you should get it, and read it. It will help. End of commercial.

The Worst Word in Marketing

...or so Stanford says. Here's an article from the Stanford Social Innovation web site about the word you should never use when evaluating marketing materials.

You'll Never Do This

I can't imagine a non-profit ever doing this in a million years. That's just not how we can use cash. But it's a compelling testament to the importance of having & keeping highly motivated employees. If I had more time this morning, I'd bloviate a little bit about how nonprofit employees are paid, in part, in mission (instead of dollars), and how this is mostly a good thing (the lifeblood of organziations), but can also be a bad thing (people who are dedicated to mission, willing to be paid too little, and sometimes aren't the best at their jobs).

A little fascinating, a little appalling...

I'm always interested, despite myself, in business articles about generational dynamics in the workforce. Here's one from the Harvard Business Journal online. It's not the first article I've seen about the connection between the Boomers & Gen Y. I present it to you with the Gen Xers salute--a shrug and a weary sigh. Of course, the Boomers literally gave birth to Gen Y, so there's really not big news here, but it is perhaps another example of the Boomer trait of making everything that happens into a Trend. When your demo's that big, everything is a trend, so why not.

This morning's discoveries

...after coming across the third reference to tech business magazine Fast Company in as many days, I finally went to check it out. It's fascinating--Fortune Magazine for the Web 2.0 era. I feel like I just got in on an old secret, but that's no reason not to share.

Reading Fast Company introduced me to Ning -- critics of the Fast Company article say that it's shameless advertising posing as journalism, and they have a point. But Ning is a pretty cool company I had never heard of before, perhaps best described as "make your own Facebook." You can build your own social network.

You'll also find that Chip and Dan Heath have a regular column in Fast Company. We're bringing Dan to Philly on June 10 to talk about Made to Stick & its relevance for nonprofits. Register here!