Recently, I broke a shoelace. I pulled the unbroken lace out of my other shoe and took a quick look at it to estimate its length. The lace looked like it was 16 to 18-inches long. That’s when I stopped myself. I knew my mind had played a trick on me. In the past, […]

    For the last 12 years, I have been helping organization’s construct messages using a simple formula. It goes like this: your message = your promise + the incentive – the barrier Here’s how it breaks down… Your Promise — Simply, this is the essence of your organization’s brand identity. It answers the question… […]

A few weeks back I ran a Ragnar. If you don’t know, a Ragnar is a 200-mile race that (in Minnesota) goes from Winona to the Twin Cities. There’s 12-people on a team and we travel in two vans, each taking a turn running three legs over 35-hours. This year, my first leg was six […]

An environmental group that believes land conservation policy should be rooted in the best science available builds a base of supporters that deeply trusts the organization’s point of view.   A social service organization that believes volunteers can play a key role in helping people out of poverty adds over 1,000 volunteers within three years. […]

Nonprofit branding is more than a name or a slick tag line. In the November 29, 2012 edition of The Chronicle of Philanthropy there was an article about how a chapter of Gilda’s Club changed its name to the Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin. The executive director’s rationale was that more and more young people were born […]