Stampede Your Nonprofit into the National Spotlight October 2026 Finding Your Nonprofit’s Buffalo Parade On a Friday evening in late September, a stampede of buffalo puppets took over Lower Manhattan. To tourists, it was another quirky NYC experience. To locals commuting home, it was a nuisance. But to the volunteers and creative directors from St.…

Every nonprofit executive wants one thing above all from their communications firm: a front page story in The New York Times about their organization. OK, maybe it’s not always The New York Times, but it’s something splashy. But I have some news for this hypothetical executive: It’s not going to happen just because you want…

What Mamdani Teaches Us about Social Media Fundraising September 2026 Learning from Politicians to Tell Stories Credit: NYC Office of the Mayor New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani It’s arguable whether modern American politicians do much of anything well (look around!), but the ones who inspire devotion on either end of the political spectrum have…

As a 25-year-old who still lives with her parents, I know a thing or two about convincing people to donate money to your cause. The key to being persuasive is to pull on your donor’s heartstrings and demonstrate how their money will be used to uplift another human. It’s about being visible and accessible, so…

The Odyssey’s Lesson for Thought Leadership August 2026 How a 3,000-Year-Old Epic Poem Became a Modern Op-ed Machine Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, epic hero and op-ed talking point. In case you haven’t noticed, The Odyssey — the nearly 3-hour movie based on a 12,000-line poem from 3,000 years ago — is newsworthy. So newsworthy,…

Everyone loves the idea of publishing an opinion piece or letter to the editor in The New York Times or seeing their CEO's name in The Washington Post. Fewer people love the part where an editor says "no thanks" — or, more often, says nothing at all. There's no secret formula for getting opinion pieces…

GOOOOOAAAALLL!!! A CEO’s Reputation Is the Organization’s (Ask FIFA) July 2026 CEO Reputations Can Boost or Stain their Organizations This past month, people around the globe have tuned in for the FIFA World Cup. For many, their excitement has been tempered by their distaste for Gianni Infantino, the controversial FIFA president. From bribery allegations to…

There is an old adage, you’re only as good as your word. For nonprofit leaders, you’re only as good as your reputation. It sounds dramatic, but it’s true.  A nonprofit CEO’s reputation is an asset. Like any asset, it can appreciate in value, like Labubus, or depreciate remarkably quickly, like the bunch of bananas I…