This very simple survey method at a special event caught my eye last year at the Larimer County Farmers’ Market in Fort Collins, Colorado, where we live. When I managed a nature center for thirteen years in Pueblo, special events were the lifeblood of our fundraising and they attracted thousands of people to our site.Continue reading “A Flipchart Survey”
Category Archives: Nonprofits
Five Ways to Better Understand Your Audience
I will never forget my days running a state park visitor center when we counted people going through the building. These daily numbers went into a report we submitted to the state office annually. We detected the presence and number of our visitors and that was about it. Most of us do notContinue reading “Five Ways to Better Understand Your Audience”
What’s On Your Dashboard?
I remember hearing Hazel Henderson, author of Paradigms of Progress, speak many years ago at a sustainability conference. She suggested that operating the American economy with GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was like flying a Boeing 747 with just one instrument, a speedometer. It doesn’t tell you much about how you are doing in a tripleContinue reading “What’s On Your Dashboard?”
Five Ways to Keep Your Special Event Special
Think about Mardi Gras, and New Orleans comes to mind. Pamplona evokes images of the running of the bulls. Times Square in NYC seems to own New Year’s Eve. I noted several other cities with events but the big televised ones with strong brand identity were at Times Square. Special events help create a communityContinue reading “Five Ways to Keep Your Special Event Special”
Five Strategies for Proactive Project Management
Have you ever dreaded the sound of your cell phone ringing, knowing that it brings yet another crisis or question that pushes your organization into confusion? Reactive organizations seem to be very common, especially among underfunded, overworked nonprofits and government agencies. It’s hard to get out front and steer the wagon, when the wagon’s alwaysContinue reading “Five Strategies for Proactive Project Management”
How and Where Do We Learn?
Fareed Zakaria had an interesting discussion this past Sunday on his CNN GPS show about the educational gap in America. His guests, Teach for America Founder Wendy Kopp, Sal Khan of Khan Academy, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and former New York City school administrator Joel Klein made up the panel. Their discussion wasContinue reading “How and Where Do We Learn?”
Program Scope Objectives, A Measure of Success
If you’re an interpreter or guide working on the front-line of an agency, organization or tour company, how do you evaluate your success on a daily basis? Is it the number of smiles you receive, the volume of the applause, the “good job” comments made by your peers or supervisors? More than a dozen yearsContinue reading “Program Scope Objectives, A Measure of Success”
Optimism Is a Choice We Make
I used to like the story about 10-year old twin boys at Christmas-time. Their parents explained to a psychologist that one was always optimistic, expecting good things to happen and the other expected the worst, a pessimist. “What can we do to balance their attitudes about life,” they asked. The specialist suggested they disappoint theContinue reading “Optimism Is a Choice We Make”
Six Reasons to Train Collaboratively
I recently stood for several minutes at an information desk at a park waiting for one of several workers on duty to notice me and ask to help. They were deeply engaged in personal conversations. Their uniforms indicated that some were employees and others were volunteers. At any park, zoo, museum, historic site, forest, aquariumContinue reading “Six Reasons to Train Collaboratively”
Passages Create Connections
In the 1980s I was managing a nature center in Pueblo, Colorado. A local Italian family asked if they could plant a cottonwood tree along our waterfront in memory of their grandfather. Beaver had cut down many of the cottonwoods over the years, so we allowed the planting and I was amazed when more thanContinue reading “Passages Create Connections”
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