Business & Strategy

If you\’re an inquisitive investor you probably turn on the television every once in a while to watch the stock performance of your favorite company. Green means good and red is bad. The color tells you something, but not everything. There is generally a story behind the movement of a stock. Maybe the earnings were […]

The state of our nation post-pandemic is not looking good. For awhile many of us have been tracking case numbers and vaccination rates. While these are important data points, combining multiple data points paints a more wholistic picture of the nation\’s health that is not very pretty. Reports using data from late 2020 and through […]

This is the latest section that has occupied my thinking of late. Comments are appreciated. In the course of researching and writing my manuscript titled:   The digital transformation of the non-profit sector: An inevitable and vital revolution to scale impact and solve the world\’s greatest challenges.  A number of new areas of intrigue have bubbled […]

The sport of triathlon requires the participant to complete three events in three separate disciplines, each back to back over a defined course. Shorter triathlons, known as \’sprints,\’ can usually be completed with little to no direct experience in the sport and perhaps cursory knowledge of one or two of the three disciplines. I\’ve been […]

“It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place.” – Andrew Carnegie If you want to invest your money in stocks, there is no shortage of companies, experts and advisors with opinions of how to invest your money. If you want to donate to a charity, there is a […]

Friction costs Let’s consider ways to reduce or eliminate donor friction costs.  ‘Friction costs’ are a common consideration in business transactions. Basically, ‘friction costs’ is a term used to describe the machinations or steps someone has to go through in order to complete a purchase. Businesses of all types think a lot about how to […]

Tech wearables are ubiquitous. More and more, they are even fashionable and used as status indicators. Many people wear eyeglasses. When we see someone wearing eyeglasses, the reason ‘why’ this person wears eyeglasses hardly registers. Granted, if you saw someone wearing Google’s AR glasses, which are currently in development, you may pause for a closer […]

Program Officers are responsible for identifying the best possible projects through a process involving fielding and analyzing requests. Inputs for this process are numerous and vary by foundation. The process is more art than science. And given the inexact science and room for subjectivity on behalf of the program officers, there is certainly room for […]

Simple phrases that instantly obliterate your chances of receiving grant funding and how to rephrase them to actually be helpful. As someone who has been working in philanthropy and managed ‘the funding side’ of the conversation for over 15 years, I’m often asked ‘what’s your favorite project?’ I never answer that question, even though I […]

After the global circumstances of the last two years, many foundations may just be trying to wrestle the steering wheel back into the old roadway grooves.  Mohamed El-Erian has always stood out to me as one of the most objective financial analysts out there. According to his latest article in Foreign Affairs, we are ‘on […]