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“The dog ate my homework.”

Over the last few years, the term “grit” has been popping up in books, podcasts and lectures. It seems that grit, as it relates to leadership in popular business culture, is associated with themes of courage, follow-through and resilience.

Why do you do the work you do?

It’s kind of an uncomfortable question: Have you ever failed? Has your campaign missed the mark? Did you ever have to scramble for a Plan B – or Plan C? I’ve been there. And while it hurts like heck in the moment, you learn as much, or more, from failures than success. What have I learned?

A lifetime of personal and professional goal setting has taught me that it is critically important to properly define success before setting goals or making resolutions.

I’m not great at resolutions. I have great intentions, just lousy follow through. After all my years I have learned that the higher I set my sights, the less opportunity I have to succeed. So I keep expectations low and generally feel better about how things turn out. I may not be a better or healthier person, but I won’t have failed so often in my goals.

Oftentimes our blogs lift up the power of volunteers, and make no mistake, the not-for-profit sector could not achieve our missions without them. But as we approach the holidays and pause to reflect and give thanks for the numerous things in our personal and professional lives, I feel compelled to acknowledge the people who work in this sector.

Like most professionals in today’s work environment, I have looked for a variety of mentors to help me grow and develop as a professional, as a woman in the workplace, and as a wife and mother. 

Many thanks for the good wishes. My situation has deteriorated dramatically, and I’m currently in home hospice. For now all is stable. But the long-term prospects are clear and not good. And long-term for me is actually very short-term.

One of the more interesting trends we’ve noticed in capital campaigns is a shift in leadership structure. Instead of individual chairs, we’re commonly seeing co-chairs, tri-chairs, honorary chairs and more. While this may seem like a suspect idea at first – if everyone is in charge, no one is in charge – it turns out to work really well in this critical volunteer capacity.