Life at Harvard continues at an unbelievable pace – but it is great! I’m enjoying every minute of it. Today one of the discussions was about a leader who thought he knew what the answer was, but didn’t know that he didn’t really know what was really going on. Hmm, how can you know what [...]
“Fully funded, now what’s our mission?”
Today our cases in the strategic nonprofit leadership course at Harvard Business School included Prison Fellowship (featuring Frank Lofaro, now president of Christian Leadership Alliance) and an interesting group of British financiers who created their own charity called Absolute Return for Kids (ARK). ARK holds a gala event each year to raise money for charity. In [...]
What to do with hard-to-measure mission statements
Well, I’ve just finished the first full day at Harvard’s nonprofit leadership course and so far each class session has boiled down to one or two key ideas. This is very helpful because it makes it easier for us to take what we have learned back to our ministries. One of the cases we looked at [...]
Picking pockets and rolling drunks
One of the professors here at Harvard is an exceptionally good fundraiser. His track record is outstanding. When he speaks at fundraising events, he believes he should be upfront about his role. That way no one is surprised when he asks for money. He often introduces himself saying, “I am in the business of picking pockets [...]
“So, what do you do?”
That was the opening question at my Harvard Business School course on Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management. How many times a day do you get asked this question? I had already answered it at least 20 times today as I met the other students in the class. As part of the registration process we had [...]
Rev. John Pellowe, MBA, DMin
