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This week’s bit of wisdom…

Skipping the good days

Part of the luxury of living near the ocean or the mountains is that you can be picky. If the surf or the powder isn’t great, leave it for the tourists. Good is insufficient, wait for the great moments…

When we’re young, or the project is going really well, it’s easy to waste the good days. After all, there will be another one tomorrow.

What becomes clear, though, is that good days are precious. When you’re feeling even a little creative, don’t wait. Write it down, roll tape, speak up. When you’re feeling reasonably healthy, go for a walk.

They’re all good days, if we choose.

— Seth Godin

June is bustin’ out all over, and nature beckons. Don’t waste it!  And don’t waste your creative sparks when you feel them either.  If any of the content you unlock in this edition of the Clairity Click-it sparks your imagination, do something with it. Don’t tuck it aside to think about tomorrow. Too often, tomorrow never comes.

Set aside a little time to explore, and see what you find. What calls to you? Pick at least one thing to click on. What did you learn? What did it make you think about doing differently? Write it down and calendar a time to dig into it a bit more sometime next week.

As always, I’ve sorted everything by category, and included a broad spectrum of materials for a range of adult learning styles. A big thank you to my Click-it sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful to you. I’ve got a lot of great stuff for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Please scroll down to see all my Clairification School sponsors who enable me to offer enrollment in ‘Clairification School at an affordable price. For a modest $100/year you get all my new blog articles, monthly tips, bonus tips, templates and worksheets, course and product discounts, and access to archived posts, webinars, and podcasts. I am deeply appreciative for your support!  [If the enrollment fee is a hardship, please email me and we’ll work it out.]

This blew my mind:

Seth Godin wrote people are really making good use of the free AI on his blog – and so far, it’s pretty trustworthy. I gave it a try, and these were the results.

I asked “How do you choose a good vacation spot?”  After all, it’s that time of year! AI answered with:

When it comes to choosing a vacation spot, Seth Godin doesn’t directly provide a method or criteria, but he does emphasize the importance of the journey, destinations, and perceived risks in our lives in general in his post on Destinations, risks and journeys. He states that our everyday choices about destinations shape the journeys we take, and along those journeys, we experience both risks and an internal narrative about those risks. With this in mind, you could consider selecting a vacation spot that provides a meaningful or enjoyable journey, with a balance between the desired destination and the risks you are willing to take or encounter.

Remember, the destination isn’t the journey, and your perception of the risks is up to you. Consider a vacation spot that resonates with your interests, allows you to enjoy and learn from the journey, and includes risks or challenges that are within your comfort zone or that inspire growth.

It then gave me links to five blog posts if I wanted to know what Seth actually said.

Whew!  Such a great answer, and not at all superficial to my mind. In fact, it’s a good philosophy to apply to shaping donor journeys. And perhaps your personal career journey as well. I like the idea it should be meaningful, enjoyable and balanced.  Food for thought.

Speaking of food for thought, you’ll find plenty in this issue of the Clairity Click-it. Set aside a little time to explore, and see what you find. I’ve sorted everything by category, and included a broad spectrum of materials for a range of adult learning styles.

As always, a big thank you to my Click-it sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful to you. I’ve got a lot of great stuff for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Please scroll down to see all my Clairification School sponsors who enable me to offer enrollment in ‘Clairification School at an affordable price. For a modest $100/year you get all my new blog articles, monthly tips, bonus tips, templates and worksheets, course and product discounts, and access to archived posts, webinars, and podcasts. I am deeply appreciative for your support!  [If the enrollment fee is a hardship, please email me and we’ll work it out.]

This week’s borrowed wisdom:

The empathy device

It’s interesting to realize that mirrors weren’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Human beings spend a lot of time considering our own appearance and our own feelings and most of all, our own needs.

The market produces a shift. When it’s a fair and open exchange, the customer gains in power. As a result, the selfish merchant or producer loses market share until they figure out how to build empathy into their work.

It’s not for you, it’s for them.

And if you do a good job of making it for them, then you get your needs taken care of.

Big companies and monopolies and other institutions seek lock-in so they can go back to looking in the mirror instead of paying attention to what their customers and prospects need and want.

— Seth Godin

What a great philosophy to apply to nonprofit fundraising: Look out the window, not in the mirror. Lead from empathy, love and gratitude. The work you do isn’t for you, it’s for them – the clients, volunteers, donors and community who rely on you to help them make positive change happen.

My wish is this issue of the Clairity Click-it helps you find one or more resources to help you look out the window to create a better world. Set aside a little time to explore, and see what you find. I’ve sorted everything by category, and included a range of materials for a range of adult learning styles.

As always, a big thank you to my sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful to you. I’ve got a lot of great stuff for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Please consider getting access to all my blog articles, monthly tips, webinars, podcasts, bonuses and other content via enrollment in ‘Clairification School.’ I am deeply appreciative for your support!  

This week’s borrowed wisdom:

“Boundaries are levers

And assertions are maps.

Which means that:

Budgets

Timelines

Plans

Decision trees

and projections

are nothing to be afraid of. They’re a gift. They give us the chance to act as if, to describe a possible future and then to lean against them as we work to create the place we seek to be.”

— Seth Godin

My wish is this issue of the Clairity Click-it helps you find one or more resources to help you define some boundaries you can use as levers in your work to create a better world. Set aside a little time to explore, and see what you find. I’ve sorted everything by category, and included a range of materials for a range of adult learning styles.

As always, a big thank you to my sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful to you. I’ve got a lot of great stuff for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Please consider getting access to all my blog articles, monthly tips, webinars, podcasts, bonuses and other content via enrollment in ‘Clairification School.’ I am deeply appreciative for your support!  

This week’s borrowed wisdom:

“The Ukrainian army is a present-day example of the power of adaptability, creativity, and resilience. And the Ukraine war, one of the latest examples of the weaknesses of rigid leadership.

Russian decision-making is highly centralized. Commander’s intent is seldom revealed, and innovation and initiative are severely punished. They are paying the price.

Ukraine on the other hand is more decentralized, agile, and motivated. Zelensky is leading from the front, communicating transparently and frequently, conveying hope, and portraying, through visible and undeniable action, personal bravery.

The Ukrainian army embodies General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s sentiment that “what counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” And part of that fight comes from the ability to pivot creatively and consistently show up in the face of uncertainty.

As Bruce Lee guided, “Be water, my friend. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup…You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

This advice applies not only to martial arts or military maneuvers but to management and leadership too.

Everything is improv. The “what” and “how” are always shifting, hence the importance of conveying the “why.”

If the why is clear, teams of any kind (military or otherwise) can adapt to changing circumstances, achieving the intended outcome in surprising ways.”

–– Hugh MacLeod, Gaping Void

What’s your “why?”  It’s super important to distinguish it from your “what” and “how,” as it’s what current and potential supporters most care about.

The Clairity Click-it exists to bring you a range of borrowed wisdom from across the nonprofit world so you can resource, learn and digest at your own pace, and come up with new and better ways to adapt to changing circumstances and do your job of changing the world.

As always, a big thank you to my sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful to you. I’ve got a lot of great stuff for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Please consider getting access to all my blog articles, monthly tips, webinars, podcasts, bonuses and other content via enrollment in ‘Clairification School.’ I am deeply appreciative for your support!  

The Clairity Click-it exists to bring you a range of voices from across the nonprofit world so you can resource, learn and digest at your own pace, and come up with new and better ways to do your job of changing the world.

Seth Godin wants to help you too!

How to change the world

All successful cultural change (books, movies, public health), has a super-simple two-step loop:

AWARENESS
TENSION
–>Loop<–

It’s easy to focus on awareness. Get the word out. Hype. Promo.

I think that’s a mistake.

Because awareness without tension is useless.

The tension is like pulling back a rubber band.

WHY would someone who becomes aware take action?

Is the action to buy the book? To change one’s diet? To vote?

And then the third step, so important it’s often ignored, is:

Why would the person who became aware and then experienced the tension and release… tell someone else?

So, to recap:

• Tell 10 people.
• Create tension among the 10 so they take action.
• The action causes each of them to tell 10 people.

— Seth Godin

Spread your nonprofit’s word!

Create some tension that causes people to take action.

And use some of the wisdom gleaned in this weeks issue of Clairity Click-it to help you. As always, a big thank you to my sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful to you. I’ve got a lot of great stuff for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Please consider getting access to all my blog articles, monthly tips, webinars, podcasts, bonuses and other content via enrollment in ‘Clairification School.’ I am deeply appreciative for your support! 

P.P.S.  Scroll to the bottom for some post-storm photos I snapped. 

Daylight savings time begins this week-end where I live, and I’m pretty excited. I’m a night owl, so tacking on those extra hours of daylight when I’m awake is definitely a shot of dopamine.  Even if you feel differently, or don’t live someplace where we humans shift the hours back and forth at will, I hope I’ll save you some time by having collected the best resources from across the web and sharing them here.

The Clairity Click-it exists to bring you a range of voices from across the nonprofit world. Hopefully one or more of these will give you a shot of dopamine too — a boost of joyful energy that says, “Yes! I want to try this!”   As always, a big thank you to my Clairity Click-it sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful as you.

And, just for fun, here’s some interesting art from a recent studio opening in San Francisco. Can you believe these were in the same show, and the theme was “SKY?” It just shows we all perceive and interpret things differently. This is a good thing to keep in mind as you create and share your constituent communications. Generally, one size doesn’t fit all.

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Your support via enrollment in ‘Clairification School’ means a lot, and I am deeply appreciative. It is my honor to deliver original articles direct to your in-box every week, give you access to all my webinars, and offer up exclusive monthly tips, bonuses and more! 

It’s been pretty cold in my neck of the woods, so let’s warm up with a cup of cocoa, coffee or tea and some good reads. I’ve got a lot of great stuff for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

The Clairity Click-it exists to bring you a range of voices from across the nonprofit world so you can resource, learn and digest at your own pace, coming to your own decisions. My hope is some of the free resources I’ve collected and curated for you will energize and enthuse you as you work towards guiding others on the pathway to passionate philanthropy. As always, a big thank you to my Clairity Click-it sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful as you.

And here’s an inspiring photo from my recent walks around San Francisco. It’s a bit of Spring to counteract the frigid temps.

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Your support via enrollment in ‘Clairification School’ means a lot, and I am deeply appreciative. It is my honor to deliver original articles direct to your in-box every week, give you access to all my webinars, and offer up exclusive monthly tips, bonuses and more! 

You-Shaped Hole

Sometimes the world feels inhospitable.
You feel all the ways that you and it don’t fit.
You see what’s missing, how it all could be different.

You feel as if you weren’t meant for the world, or the world wasn’t meant for you,
as if the world is “the way it is” and your discomfort with it a problem.

So you get timid. You get quiet about what you see.

But what if this?

What if you are meant
to feel the world is inhospitable, unfriendly, off-track
in just the particular ways that you do?

The world has a you-shaped hole in it.
It is missing what you see.
It lacks what you know
and so you were called into being.
To see the gap, to feel the pain of it, and to fill it.

Filling it is speaking what is missing.
Filling it is stepping into the center of the crowd, into a clearing,
and saying, here, my friends, is the future.

You don’t have to do it all, but you do have to speak it.
You have to tell your slice of the truth.
You do have to walk toward it with your choices, with your own being.

Then allies and energies will come to you like fireflies swirling around a light.

The roughness of the world, the off-track-ness, the folly that you see,
these are the most precious gifts you will receive in this lifetime.

They are not here to distance you from the world,
but to guide you to your contribution to it.

The world was made with a you-shaped hole in it.
In that way you are important.
In that way you are here to make the world.
In that way you are called.

– Tara Mohr

I share this with you because I’ve been focused on exploring what our newest digital disruption – artificial intelligence — portends. As automation stares us in the eyes, it forces us to confront that which is authentically human. That for which there can be no substitution, however brilliant the programming.

The world has a you-shaped hole without your special gifts and contributions. And that’s what you can bring to your work of repairing the world.

I hope, in some small measure, the Clairity Click-it can help. It exists to bring you a range of voices from across the nonprofit world so you can resource, learn and digest at your own pace, arriving at your own conclusions and giving flight to your own voice. As always, a big thank you to my Clairity Click-it sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful as you.

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Your support via enrollment in ‘Clairification School’ means a lot, and I am deeply appreciative. It is my honor to deliver original articles direct to your in-box every week, give you access to all my webinars, and offer up exclusive monthly tips, bonuses and more! 

“Overconfidence and AI

Human beings are often more effective when we’re a bit self-effacing. “I think,” “Perhaps,” or “I might be missing something, but…” are fine ways to give our assertions a chance to be considered.

The solar-powered LED calculator we used in school did no such thing. 6 x 7 is 42, no ifs, ands or buts.

Part of the magic of Google search was that it was not only cocky, it was often correct. The combination of its confidence and its utility made it feel like a miracle.

Of course, Google was never completely correct. It rarely found exactly the right page every time. That was left to us. But the aura of omnipotence persisted–in fact, when Google failed, we were supposed to blame evil black-hat SEO hackers, not an imperfect algorithm and a greedy monopolist.

And now, ChatGPT shows up with fully articulated assertions about anything we ask it.

I’m not surprised that one of the biggest criticisms we’re hearing, even from insightful pundits, is that it is too confident. That it announces without qualification that biryani is part of a traditional South Indian tiffin, but it’s not.

Would it make a difference if every single response began, “I’m just a beta of a program that doesn’t actually understand anything, but human brains jump to the conclusion that I do, so take this with a grain of salt…”

In fact, that’s our job.

When a simple, convenient bit of data shows up on your computer screen, take it with a grain of salt.

Not all email is spam.

Not all offers are scams.

And not all GPT3 responses are incorrect.

But it can’t hurt to insert your own preface before you accept it as true.

Overconfidence isn’t the AI’s problem. There are lots of cultural and economic shifts that it will cause. Our gullibility is one of the things we ought to keep in mind.

— Seth Godin

I share this with you because we’re in an era of digital disruption. And I’m sure you’ve been hearing a lot about AI, ChatGPT, and what this all means for you and your nonprofit moving forward.  I published an article on this topic earlier this week, and I love what Seth Godin has to say here.

Whenever anyone says anything with utmost confidence, asserting to be truth that which may be decidedly the opposite, it is our job as discerning human beings to sort the wheat from the chaff. If you, like me, are tired of people parroting what they heard on their news media bubble, or their social media feed, or their next-door-neighbor, without even attempting to independently verify the information, you owe it to yourself to take it with at least a grain of salt. Until you can learn more, and confirm. [This is why my articles are generally undergirded by research, data, opinions for other experts and the like; it’s not just me pontificating.]

The Clairity Click-it exists to bring you a range of voices from across the nonprofit world so you can resource, learn and digest at your own pace, coming to your own decisions. My hope is some of the free resources I’ve collected and curated for you will energize and enthuse you as you work towards guiding others on the pathway to passionate philanthropy. As always, a big thank you to my Clairity Click-it sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful as you.

Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place,

Claire

claire@clairification.com

P.S. Your support via enrollment in ‘Clairification School’ means a lot, and I am deeply appreciative. It is my honor to deliver original articles direct to your in-box every week, give you access to all my webinars, and offer up exclusive monthly tips, bonuses and more!