03 Dec The Best Article – Best of 2009
Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 cont… December 3 Article. What’s an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious’d and reference throughout the year.
The best article I read this year is of course online! In the form of a blog… it does run a close second to an actual printed article (like in a magezine) – the Thanksgiving dinner article in the November 2009 issue of Real Simple – and that’s only because I made a Turkey for the first time this year and I was a bit nervous with all the horror stories floating around in my head from post-Thanksgiving articles I have read in the past – and I must have re-read how to make the turkey about 16 times (and called my Mother’n’Law about 12 times) – but I have gotten off on a total tangent…
The best article I read this year is Seth Godin’s “The problem with non – non as in Non-Profit“
I find myself serving on another non-profit board, for Circles of Women, South Central this time around. I waffle between feeling passionate and grateful about serving on boards and feeling like a sucker for serving on boards… this time around I am feeling pretty dang passionate. I was so moved by Seth’s post that I forwarded to the entire board with an all-caps “MUST READ BLOG POST” in the subject line.
Some of my fav parts listed here:
Did you start or join this non-profit because of the non part? I doubt it. It’s because you want to make change. The way the world is just isn’t right or good enough for you… there’s an emergency or an injustice or an opportunity and you want to make change.
These organizations exist solely to make change. That’s why you joined, isn’t it?
The problem facing your group, ironically, is the resistance to the very thing you are setting out to do. Non-profits, in my experience, abhor change…
If you spend any time reading marketing blogs, you’ll find thousands of case studies of small (and large) innovative businesses that are shaking things up and making things happen. And not enough of these stories are about non-profits. If your non-profit isn’t acting with as much energy and guts as it takes to get funded in Silicon Valley or featured on Digg, then you’re failing in your duty to make change.
The marketing world has changed completely. So has the environment for philanthropic giving. So have the attitudes of a new generation of philanthropists. But if you look at the biggest charities in the country, you couldn’t tell. Because they’re ‘non’ first, change second.
I still find myself thinking about it almost everyday… I recommend it to anyone working for a cause, or making the world a better place, or anything along those lines with the disclaimer that it will get inside your head… it will move you… it will leave wondering if you are doing enough… and if you are like me, it will keep you awake at night wondering if you could do more.