The junk drawer experiment

My house has a junk drawer, somewhere for keys and phone chargers and pens and post-its…and whatever other random things seem like they should be around but don’t have an obvious home.
For the last two years, it’s been almost impossible to close the drawer.
For a while I’d grudgingly clean it every few months, painstakingly sorting [...]

Kiva Customers Don’t Receive the Loans you Give

If I wanted to get your attention, that’s the headline I’d write.  Strictly speaking, it’s true.  And when you only have a minute to grab someone’s attention, isn’t it your job to grab their attention?
That in essence is what’s at the core of the conversation that’s swelled up over the last two weeks about Kiva.  [...]

The only guy I met

The other day I took about eight boxes of books and clothes to the Salvation Army, part of a (meant to be) biannual, you-ever-going-to-wear-this-again? ritual that I talked about here.
I have to admit, there’s so much inertia around getting this done that when I get enough momentum to go through my closet, pack up clothes, [...]

Wow! We did it.

Thanks to all of you and to friends around the world, today my birthday wish came true!
Goal: raise $720 for Acumen Fund online in 5 days
Result as of 2:49pm 11:59pm, Aug 28, 2009:   $810.72 $968.72 raised ($380 $538 on Facebook Causes; $430.72 directly to Acumen Fund)
Unexpected result: learning by doing; seeing what does and doesn’t [...]

Sales 101

Mea culpa.  I fell into the oldest trap in the sales book.  I did a good job of explaining a need, and then I asked my blog readers to give to Acumen Fund before this Friday.
But I let you all down, so I wanted to apologize.  I didn’t explain the most important thing.
This is about [...]

Real giving conversations

I had a fascinating, far-ranging conversation today with a friend about philanthropy, touching on giving, donor accountability, what an individual gift means in the context of larger pools of money, how people really make philanthropic decisions…the works. Out of the blue, he says, “this is highly emotional, this business of giving.”
In another conversation today, [...]

Delight in the unexpected

I just received a totally unexpected, perfect gift out of the blue from a friend for absolutely no reason.  It’s probably the most surprising gift I ever received.  It showed the person was paying attention and thinking of me; it was just what I wanted; and there was no good reason to give it to [...]

Let’s trade in these old stories

Roll the tape from my childhood TV screen: image of a 4 year old Ethiopian girl, ribs visible, distended belly, flies on her face, and a voice over, “For just 50 cents a day, you can feed this child.”
This story is  emotional, concrete, personal…and effective.  It accomplished its goal (getting people to donate).  But the [...]

Everybody wants something

The next time you sit down to talk to someone in a professional setting, remind yourself that that person wants something.  There’s a reason they are sitting across from you.  Their reason may even be that they want to help you. But they have their own separate motivations and agenda.
It’s so easy to get [...]

What do philanthropists care about?

Continuing a conversation from last week, I again have to acknowledge Seth Godin for understanding as well as anyone how REAL buying decisions (philanthropic, b2b software sales, you name it) are made.  You should read the full post, “The rational marketer (and the irrational customer).“  Here’s the punchline (Seth is talking about when you, the [...]