nonprofit

  • Thank God I Work for People, Not a Company

    “Man, the world ain’t supposed to work like this. I mean, maybe you don’t know that yet. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without having to ask you if I can. That dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you ripping him off. Everything is supposed to…

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  • “Would You Rather…”

    December 29, 2017 Gather round, kiddies — we’re going to talk about business ethics. Wait!  Don’t run away! When my wife worked at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, one of her coworkers used to ask interesting interview questions to get at the heart of the ethical dilemmas inherent in modern work.  For example:  “Would you…

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  • A Day of Caring. And Cinnamon Rolls…

    Tomorrow is the Tulsa Area United Way’s 26th Day of Caring:  a chance for more than 5,000 volunteers to fan out across the Tulsa area to work on approx. 350 community service projects. It’s kind of a big deal — Tulsa has one of the oldest and largest Days of Caring in the country, which…

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  • Volunteer Tech Opportunities in Tulsa

    OR:  “What’s a Community-minded techie to do?” Yesterday I had the opportunity to go meet with a roomful of new IT folk (developers mostly) at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma about the many ways they can contribute to the life of the community through tech service.  BCBSOK has been a great partner to us…

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  • RUM: Managing Funds for Fun and Nonprofit

    We all have competing demands for our time and resources.  After the basics of food, shelter and education for our families we’re involved in things to better our world — volunteering and giving to nonprofits and/or to our church.  In this way we can all “do good” in our community in ways big and small.…

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  • Crossing the Rubicon

    May 12, 2017 Here in the world of United Way, we’ve always stressed how we’re all locally run and managed.  We pay a “license fee” if you will to share the United Way brand, with all the responsibilities and conditions that come with it. We’ve all maintained our own local files forever – moving from…

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  • Avoiding slow motion failure

    May 2, 2017 You know when you’re driving down a familiar street and you suddenly notice a favorite store or restaurant is gone? While you feel a palpable sense of loss, the demise can often be attributed to the following:  (1) you and others didn’t shop there enough, or (2) mismanagement by the entrepreneurs.  I…

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  • “Frictionless Giving”…at the United Way?

    February 7, 2017 Not long ago I was reading about Domino’s Pizza and their efforts with their phone apps on what they call “frictionless ordering,” or the Zero Click App.  You can read about it here. The assumption is if you order pizza from Domino’s, you’re probably going to order what you did before.  So…

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