Hal's Blog - Results 1st

Don’t Feed the Zombies

May 10, 2023

Hal’s Blog- This heading sits on top of an article by Kevin Starr in the March 28 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review. Kevin leads the Mulago Foundation, and he is singing our Results1st song. I have worked with about 100 foundations—as large as the Gates Foundation and as small as $10 million in assets. My core theme is fundamental: shift from funding programs to investing in results. The first is the business of distributing money. The second is the business of securing the highest human gain for the dollars available. Zombies gets to that bedrock in a hurry.

Optimism, kindness, knowledge and homogenous

March 23, 2023

Hal’s Blog- I just read The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. It is a fable in which a fig tree does most of the talking. Four passages in this intriguing book each reflects a new way to think about one of the words in the title. Each takes on new possibilities for me. See what you think.

Trust and change…and how to arrange your bookshelf

March 8, 2023

Hal’s Blog- Don’t bother to put the two parts of the title together. All they have in common is being the subject of passages I read last week that left me unsettled.

The first is from a program report and came in a highlighted box: Change happens at the speed of trust. Trust takes time and discourse to achieve. Meanwhile, don’t push for improvements. I like reversing this logic: Trust happens at the speed of change. I like trust in motion more than in discourse. I see trust more readily in behavior than in voiced sentiments.

The Legacy of Black Pioneers

February 1, 2023

Hal’s Blog- I saw a great exhibit on this subject at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg Florida recently. It told through contemporary quilts the stories of Black individuals and families who went west. I first learned that while these stories are seldom told they are plentiful. About 25% of cowboys, for example, were Black.

ATTENTION!

January 18, 2023

Hal”s Blog- In an achievement framework, we speak of defining results and designing programs to achieve them. In these times, it is just as hard, however, to stick to results as to anything else.

Gloria Mark points out the challenge in her new book Attention Span: A groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity. She has found that people spend an average of 47 seconds on any screen. We are nomadic while sitting still.

"Hal and Indigo's adventure on horseback"

The Journey and the Adventure

January 4, 2023

Hal’s Blog- We often speak of life as a journey. “My” journey and “your” journey are far more common than “our” journey.

Acting Out

December 14, 2022

Hal’s Blog- Stop acting out! I heard this a lot growing up and did not realize until long after childhood that this admonition is tough to observe. Acting means motion. To stop acting out I lose all my kinetic energy.

I just read a memoir with insights on acting out for a full career. It is Paul Newman’s book, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man. Here is what sticks with me, from three book passages.

Boys will be boys. That’s a problem.

November 30, 2022

Hal’s blog- For many years I have considered this expression as a miserable excuse for male bad behavior. A new book gave me a very different take. Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves speaks to just how males struggle and fall behind in education.

Signs from above

November 16, 2022

Hal’s blog- What if nonprofit organizations acted like gas stations?

The Report or the Change?

November 2, 2022

Hal’s Blog- My partner Robyn and I had a great discussion the other day about how nonprofits typically hire consultants to do one of two things. The first is to study an organization and provide observations and recommendations in an area the organization wishes to improve.

Words that cancel

October 26, 2022

Hal’s Blog- No, this is not about cancel culture, whatever that means. This blog entry is about how words help or hurt each other. I was prompted to write this after reading today in an ad for a window company that it featured a “Robust Limited Warranty”. Robust lost its meaning when I learned it is limited.

Made to Stick

October 19, 2022

Hal’s Blog- I was rereading my many underlining’s in a book by this title last night as I unpacked boxes for our winter in Florida. Dan and Chip Heath’s 2007 explanations of why some ideas last and others die are—sadly—just as relevant today as when they wrote it

Hal’s Blog

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