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What Solo Entrepreneurs Get Wrong About Growth
In the world of leadership – especially in the nonprofit and social impact space, it’s easy to believe that growth means adding more people. That once you get the right team in place, everything will click. That chaos will settle, energy will return, and the vision will finally come to life. But that is not really the case. More hands won’t help if the direction isn’t clear. Hiring a team without clarity is like trying to run a relay without knowing the route. Everyone’s moving, but no one’s aligned. And when your vision is fuzzy, your systems reactive, and your priorities constantly shifting, adding people doesn’t ease the burden –…
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Operational Funding: Making the Case Without Apology
Hiding in the Shadows Is Not Beneficial – For Anyone I remember having to design the annual reports for an organization I worked with many years ago. I always had the same request: “We need to make the graphics look like the administrative costs are smaller than the program costs. It’s a visual thing for the donors and funders.” I wondered if funders and donors were not actually looking at the numbers in details, but in my role, I never put two and two together. I did not understand that cutting down costs (or looking like were were) actually contributed to our own staff burnout, inefficient systems and overwork. As…
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Words as Culture: Why Language Isn’t Just Communication, It’s Leadership
Every organization has a culture. Whether it’s vibrant or dysfunctional, inclusive or exclusive, intentional or accidental, it exists. Culture isn’t just your mission statement or your values poster in the breakroom. Culture lives in the daily actions, expectations, and conversations your team has, especially the unspoken ones. And one of the most powerful, overlooked tools that actively shapes culture? Language. The words we choose – how we frame feedback, communicate policies, greet colleagues, or write job descriptions – signal what we value. If strategy is what you plan to do, language is how you do it. And if your language doesn’t reflect the culture you’re trying to build, you’ve already…
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From Crisis to Culture: How to Lead Beyond Emergency Response
Disruption is no longer a hypothetical scenario. It’s a constant. Especially these days. Whether it’s global pandemics, economic downturns, leadership transitions, technological shifts, or public accountability movements, every organization today operates in a climate where the next challenge is not a matter of if, but when. Yet amid the reactive scramble for contingency plans and recovery strategies, a more critical question often gets sidelined: What kind of leader do you become after the crisis ends? Crisis isn’t just a test of endurance. It’s a revelation of identity. It uncovers the truths that were already present about your systems, culture, and values whether you were aware of them or not. As…