Episodes

Jan. 19, 2026

How to Find the Messaging Winners in a Sea of Details

There's a mistake that every Nonprofit leader makes from time to time. In fact, we all make this mistake, not just in our work, but in multiple aspects of our lives. And if we can be attentive enough and fix it, we can absolutely transform our results and massively reduce our level of frustration. …
Jan. 12, 2026

Are You Making Enough Mistakes?

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2026 is to make more mistakes. And I gotta tell you, it's been very interesting to see the reaction it gets when I tell people that. A few people get it and cheer me on. But a lot of folks look at me kind of funny and ask, why on earth would you wanna do that? T…
Jan. 5, 2026

What is Your Relationship with Power, and How is it Affecting Your Actions and Decisions?

As Nonprofit leaders, we all have a relationship with power. But it's not something that we tend to take a look at much. And I think perhaps the reason for that is what a lot of Nonprofit leaders tell me – that they're not super comfortable with the concept of power. Today I want to really dig into…
Dec. 22, 2025

A Totally Different Take on the Year-End Review

As we're coming right up on the close of 2025, I think it's always important to do a review and take stock of the year that's just gone by. And it might be more important than ever in this particular year, given what a wild ride it's been. There's a lot of different ways you can come at a year-end …
Dec. 15, 2025

Why is There So Much Dumb Public Policy and What Can We Do About It?

Why is there so much dumb public policy and what can we do about it? There's government money to address a service need in just about every arena, which is great. But the flip side of that is the rules that are attached to that money. The rules about who can be served, how they can be served, under…
Dec. 8, 2025

The 3 Biggest Messaging and Engagement Mistakes that Could be Costing You Influence and Results

I see three major mistakes that get made all the time among Nonprofit leaders when they're engaging decisionmakers. These mistakes will invariably cost you influence and results, especially funding results. Now more than ever, especially in this environment, you need both your existing funders and …
Dec. 2, 2025

The Two Most Essential Ingredients to Getting a Decisionmaker to Say Yes

What I suspect is true for you is what I'm hearing from a lot of my clients – there's just too much noise in the world. And more and more, we want to be able to focus on the essentials of what's going to work. When we're talking advocacy, there are two essential ingredients. If you don't have those…
Nov. 24, 2025

My Five Most Powerful Sources of Gratitude

At the beginning of this Thanksgiving week. I wanted to take just a few minutes to share with you my five greatest sources of gratitude right now, and a little bit about why they’re so significant. We're living in a time when...
Nov. 17, 2025

How to Handle a Curve Ball Like a Pro

I want to tackle a thing that we all come in contact with on a regular basis. My clients tell me it's one of the most unsettling things that can happen in a meeting with a decisionmaker. And that's when they throw you some kind of curve ball. Maybe it's a question. Maybe it's a totally out there st…
Nov. 10, 2025

Five Big Reasons I'm Feeling Optimistic, Plus About 100 Other Little Things

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a lot more optimistic than I was a week ago. In spite of daily news that can feel pretty daunting, I think we just got a lot of new information out of this past week's elections that gi...
Nov. 3, 2025

Four Simple Checks to Tell You if Your Message is Built for Maximum Impact

There is nothing more exciting than talking with a money or policy decisionmaker who's all in on the conversation. They're leaning in, they're asking good questions. Their gears are turning as they think about how you can work together. That's awesome when that happens. And then, there are the time…
Oct. 26, 2025

The X Factor that can Make or Break Your Message's Impact

It is no secret that engagement is the key to influence. It’s one of the biggest themes of my work with my clients. We also focus on how and why information and data are not engaging on their own. We know great messaging is e...
Oct. 21, 2025

How Each One of Us Can Help Prevent an Authoritarian Takeover

I'm super energized to have this conversation on the heels of the massive No Kings protests of October 18th. The greatest mass mobilization to date against authoritarianism in this country. At the same time, I also understand that it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed with all of the bad things comi…
Oct. 12, 2025

How to Use the Power of Vision to Help Decisionmakers Commit to You on a Greater Scale

There's a huge problem happening all over the Nonprofit universe and beyond right now, and that's fundamentally the problem of fear. In fairness, it's a pretty scary time. And fear is not unfounded for sure. There are genuine threats facing Nonprofits individually and the sector more broadly. And t…
Oct. 5, 2025

What's Standing in the Way Between You and the Advocacy Results You Want?

One of the sources of constant frustration that I hear from Nonprofit leaders is about not having the advocacy results they want. If that's you, you're in good company. A lot of Nonprofit leaders experience this problem. The ...
Sept. 28, 2025

A True Story that Just Might Change How You Talk to Decisionmakers

I want to share with you a story of something that happened to me that I think carries some powerful lessons for how we approach not just advocacy, but pretty much everything. But those lessons are only part of point. When yo...
Sept. 21, 2025

How to Claim Your Unique Value in the Marketplace

On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable are you in saying out loud that your organization's work and the results that you get are the best? The best. If you said 10, congratulations. You are in great shape on that front. But if your response was an 8 or below. Or if you didn't even answer, but inste…
Sept. 14, 2025

How Do You Decide What to Say Yes to?

Here's something I think we probably all would agree is true: Nonprofit leaders are great at saying yes. We say yes to opportunities. We say yes to those who need our help. It's kind of in our DNA. I know many Nonprofit leaders who see their readiness to say yes as a virtue. But what if some of the…
Sept. 7, 2025

How to Deal with Decisionmakers Who Say There's No Money Right Now

There is a thing going on out there that we have to talk about. It's making me crazy. I'm pretty sure it's making you crazy too. And that's this business of all these money decisionmakers, whether they're foundations or elected officials or government agencies, you name it. They're all singing the …
Aug. 31, 2025

Why More Information Rarely Results in Greater Understanding

I hear from Nonprofit leaders all the time about how frustrating it is that they've explained their work to decisionmakers a million times and they still don't get it. And you respond by going out and gathering even more convincing data and information, thinking surely this will make them see the l…
Aug. 24, 2025

How to Cultivate the Personal Power You Need Right Now

Just about everywhere I go, folks are having some version of the conversation about how we're all responding to the crazy (stuff) that is going on in our world. How we’re responding both as citizens of this country and as Nonprofit leaders in particular. And the impact that's having on us personall…
Aug. 17, 2025

How to Apply Pressure to Decisionmakers, Without it Blowing Up in Your Face

We are in a time where more and more, for a lot of decisionmakers, pressure is a necessary component to our advocacy. At the same time, we're operating in an environment where some decisionmakers, including some very high-pro...
Aug. 10, 2025

How to Establish Yourself as an Expert in the Eyes of Decisionmakers

Have you ever been frustrated by a decisionmaker who doesn't acknowledge your expertise and therefore doesn't take your advice? Or have you ever hesitated to brand yourself as an expert? These may seem like two separate problems, but they're actually related. And if you've ever experienced either o…
Aug. 3, 2025

The Hidden Trap in Tailoring Your Messaging to Decisionmakers’ Concerns

It's time to talk about a hidden flaw in one of the most common messaging strategies that we're all using. And that, if we're not aware of it, can really come back and bite us. Here's how that winds up happening. You've worked hard on tailoring your messaging. You've done your research, and taken a…