Archives:

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! 

There is more than one way to beat a flood. And when the problem at hand is a flood of ideas, products, strategies and what-not, it helps to have a way to focus and make decisions.  And I know no better help-mate than the inimitable Seth Godin.

Staring at decisions

“Soap is 85 cents a bar or two for a dollar. Which should you buy?

It depends. It depends on how much space you have, whether you like this brand, how full your cart is and whether or not you’re sure if the person who sent you to the market wants you to buy two.

It’s easy to focus on these sorts of low-value decisions.

There are organizations that spend far more time discussing a new logo than analyzing where to place the new office. One is filled with emotion and no economic importance, the other is fuzzy, complicated and incredibly expensive.

Perhaps you’ve seen someone spend emotion and focus figuring out a tip to the penny, but impulsively use credit card debt to go on a fancy vacation.

Marketers have pushed us to spend as little time as possible thinking about things like long-term debt, the implications of going to a famous college or the lifetime emissions of buying a certain kind of car or house. But we end up spending countless cycles on the trivial choices that make us feel like we have control over the world around us.

We may believe that if one takes care of the little things, the big ones won’t matter. Or the opposite.

It turns out that staring at an uncomfortable big decision might pay for a thousand of the little ones.”

— Seth Godin

What big decisions are you avoiding right now? Maybe it’s because they seem too uncomplicated? Too labor intensive? Too costly? Too, too… something?

If this is you, why not find something in this biweekly newsletter to lift you out of your torpor? 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 navigate the pathway to passionate philanthropy.

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! 

How about taking a moment, as one year ends and a new one begins, to take a good hard look at yourself in the most favorable light possible? See the good. Dwell on the beautiful. Smile when you recognize the essential “youness” of you.

LOVE AFTER LOVE
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Here comes another feast of a sort: It’s biweekly newsletter time again! My hope is some of the free resources I’ve collected and curated for you will help you share your passions and guide 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 navigate the pathway to passionate philanthropy.

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! 

Here’s something to bring into your conversations with family, friends, colleagues and supporters as you navigate what can be a stressful time of year.

“In the Culture Code, Dan Coyle observes that good leaders learn how to listen in a specific way. Like a trampoline. Absorbing the message and then adding height and perspective to the conversation by asking questions, increasing our understanding.

Even if you learn nothing from listening except “this is what this person believes,” you still enhance your understanding of the world.

If you feel 100% comfortable discounting what someone is saying, listen anyway. Because you’ll learn something. You’ll learn how they think.

And if you learn a new piece of valuable insight, you win.” 

— Hugh MacLeod, The Gaping Void

Okay! It’s biweekly newsletter time again, and my hope is some of the free resources I’ve collected and curated for you will help you share your passions and guide 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 time hunting and gathering.

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! 

As we enter the season of light, and you move into full-steam-ahead year-end fundraising mode, there’s something I want to remind you about your messaging.

“Oh, by the way, it’s not about you.

The biggest mistake you can make is thinking your organization is the story.  People aren’t buying your organization.  When someone asks: “What do you do?” they’re not interested in your organization so much as what your organization accomplishes.

Imagine you’re at a dinner party and someone asks “What do you do?”  Are you going to tell them your entire life story?  Every aspect, from job to education to family to hobbies? No, of course not! You’ll tell them one thing about yourself.  Why?  Because they don’t know you. They’re not yet that interested in you. First, you have to intrigue them.

The same holds true with your nonprofit.  Whenever someone asks the “What do you do?” question, whether explicitly or implicitly, your job is simply this: tell them about ONE thing you accomplish.

“If you write what you yourself sincerely think and feel and are interested in,” Rachel Carson wrote as she contemplated the loneliness of creative work after her unexampled books about the sea made her one of the most beloved writers of her time, “you will interest other people.”

– Maria Popova, The Marginalian

Now is a good time to personally re-connect with your organization’s mission. What really jazzes you about the work your efforts make possible? If you’re not excited, don’t expect others to get excited. Philanthropy is a passion business!

Okay! It’s biweekly newsletter time again, and my hope is some of the free resources I’ve collected and curated for you will help you share your passions and guide 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 time hunting and gathering.

Thank you for doing your vital work, and helping make 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!