“In its most advanced sectors, a highly concentrated capitalism has begun selling “fully equipped” blocks of time, each of which is a complete commodity combining a variety of other commodities. This is the logic behind the appearance, within an expanding economy of “services” and leisure activities, of the “all-inclusive” purchase of spectacular forms of housing, of collective pseudo-travel, of participation in cultural consumption and even of sociability itself, in the form of “exciting conversations.” “meetings with celebrities” and suchlike. Spectacular commodities of this type could obviously not exist were it not for the increasing impoverishment of the realities they parody. And, not surprisingly, they are also paradigmatic of modern sales techniques in that they may be bought on credit.”

So, have you ever been to Disney world? Have you been to a Disney “timeshare”? Me TOO.

It was a completely artificial experience. It made me want to seek out nature, and the dark, and something more real.

If you have been similarly dissatisfied with Disney and its sanitized backward-looking version of life, perhaps you might enjoy this video.

Guy Debord continues:

“The development of capitalism meant the unification of irreversible time on a world scale. Universal history became a reality because the entire globe was brought under the sway of this times’ progression. But a history that is thus the same everywhere at once has as yet amounted to nothing more than an intrahistorical refusal of history. What appears the world over as the same day is merely the time of economic production -time cut up into equal abstract fragments. Unified irreversible time still belong to the world market-and, by extension, to the world spectacle.

The general time of human non-development also has a complementary aspect, that of a consumable time which on the basis of a determinate form of production, presents itself in the everyday life of society as a pseudo-cyclical time.

Pseudo-cyclical time is in fact merely the consumable disguise of the time as commodity of the production system, and it exhibits the essential traits off that time: homogeneous and exchangeable units, and the suppression of any qualitative dimension. But as a by-product of time-as-commodity intended to to promote and maintain the backwardness of everyday life it necessarily finds itself laden with false attributions of value, and it must manifest itself as a succession of artificially distinct moments.

…modern society’s obsession with saving time, whether by means of faster transport or by means of powdered soup, has the positive result that the average American spends three to six hours daily watching television. The social image of the consumption of time is for its part exclusively dominated by leisure time and vacations -moments portrayed, like all spectacular commodities, at a distance, and as desirable by definition. This particular commodity is explicitly presented as a moment of authentic life whose cyclical return we are supposed to look forward to. Yet even in such special moments, ostensibly moments of life, the only thing being generated, the only thing to be seen and reproduced, is the spectacle-albeit a ta higher than usual level of intensity. And what has been passed off as authentic life turns out to merely be a life more authentically spectacular.

Our epoch, which presents its time to itself as essentially made up of many frequently recurring festivities, is actually an epoch without festival. Those moments when, under the reign of cyclical time, the community would participate in a luxurious expenditure of life, are strictly unavailable to a society where neither community nor luxury exists. Mass pseudo-festivals, with their travesty of dialogue and their parody of the gift, may incite people to excessive spending, but they produce only a disillusion – which is in turn offset by further false promises. The self-approbation of the time of modern survival can only be reinforced, in the spectacle, b reduction in its use value. The reality of time has been replaced by its publicity.”

From: Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, Pages 107, 110, 111-112

Next time you see a vacation package offered, or a ski mountain, or a European tour advertised, know that this is what you’re buying. The “publicity” of “authentic” time.

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Have you ever bought an auction “vacation package”? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on November 9, 2011.

association of Fundraising professionals

This video is very um… just don’t watch it at work, okay? You will have a hard time explaining it to passerby.

Yes, Association of Fundraising Professionals, I’d just like you to see this little video!

Did anyone else see this image and laugh really hard at the thought of the association of fundraising professionals ever being associated with it?

Actually, imagine if the AFP was all “Let’s get some new blood in here, and furthermore, let’s make them foul-mouthed troublemaking women to boot!”

HILARIOUS. I wish they would.

Recently, the AFP has been innundating me with materials for their conference. Literally one in my mailbox every week. The speakers? Queen Latifah and Bill Clinton! Now, I dig Queen Latifah, but seriously, what do either of them have to do with the price of eggs? They aren’t fundraising professionals. I don’t see how they are going to add to the discussion at all.

If Queen Latifah was a foul-mouthed troublemaking fundraiser who was ALL ABOUT social change, I’d be into that. I’d be at that conference before you could say “Eggs!” If AFP branded their conference with crazy gold bling for your ying-yang, imagine all of the fresh energy, the amusement, the youtube parodies, the young people at the conference!

But haven’t we all been at conferences that just seemed like a total waste of time? What would being at this conference really serve? if you’re looking for a new job, wouldn’t you be better off going to an HR professionals meeting? If you’re looking to learn new things, wouldn’t you be learning them online already? If you’re actually just a big bill clinton fan, okay, but otherwise, why would you go? Celebrities aren’t going to tell you how to run your small fundraising office. Even if Bill Clinton raised a lot of money on the campaign trail, he had people doing it for him. He wasn’t actually doing it. And I happen to know that he costs a LOT of money as a speaker, money that could be put back into local chapters or training new fundraising professionals to do better jobs. Why, AFP, why are you having him come?

Your thoughts? Are YOU going to the AFP conference? Why or why not?

Hey Association of Fundraising Professionals, nice bling! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on February 28, 2011.

This last week, Katya Anderson wrote about the numbing of our compassion when we have heard lots of statistics and lots of stories.

I was just reading about this trend in “Half the Sky” and it frankly shocked me, that people could care less and less about greater quantities of people, the more stories that they read in an appeal letter.

Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn write: “Frankly, we hesitate to pile on the data, since even when numbers are persuasive, they are not galvanizing. A growing collection of psychological studies show that statistics have a dulling effect, while it is individual stories that move people to act. In one experiment, research subjects were divided into several groups, and each person was asked to donate $5 to alleviate hunger abroad. One group was told the money would go to Rokia, a seven-year-old girl in Mali. Another group was told that the money would go to address malnutrition among 21 million Africans. The third group was told that the donations would go to Rokia, as in the first group, but this time her own hunger was presented as part of a background tapestry of global hunger, with some statistics thrown in. People were much more willing to donate to Rokia than 21 million hungry people, and even a mention of the larger problem made people less inclined to help her.” -Half the Sky, page 99

However, we are still bound by our biology, and it seems that people can easier wrap their heads around one person who needs help, rather than countless faceless thousands.

How incredible.

All of this time you’ve been trying to put giving to your nonprofit in a bigger social context, show the scope of the problem, you’ve been leaving money on the table.

I do hope every nonprofit fundraiser reading this blog will consider putting just ONE story in their next newsletter or appeal, sans statistics, and track those results as compared to previous appeals where several stories and statistics were mentioned.

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How many stories should you put in your newsletter or appeal? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on February 10, 2011.

Half the Sky! Read it!

Lately I’ve been reading “Half the Sky” by Sheryl WuDunn, and Nicholas Kristof, about fundraising and international aid efforts. It is extremely well-researched, and well-written. Sheryl WuDunn, the first Asian-American ever to be awarded the Pulitzer prize, deserves it 100%.

International aid is a lot more complicated than it seems at first blush. I’ve written about “The Myth of the Naked African Child” before, and rather than reprise that post, I’d like to share a little story with you, from ‘Half the Sky’ which, by the way, you would not want to read during a serious depressive episode.

This title quote comes from a person at a concert by Bono, who feels that aid does Africa more harm than good.

The passage reads,

“…Economists have noted that it’s difficult to find any correlation between amounts of aid going to a country and development in that country. As Raghuram Rajan and Arvind Subramanian put it in a 2008 article in The Review of Economics and Statistics:

“We find little robust evidence of a positive (or negative) relationship between aid inflows into a country and its economic growth. we also find no evidence that aid works better in better policy or geographical environments, or that certain forms of aid work better than others. our findings suggest that for aid to be effective in the future, the aid apparatus will have to be rethought.”

Half the Sky! Read the book by Sheryl WuDunn and Nick Kristof!

We’re great admirers of Bono, who has been indefatigable in support of aid for Africa and who knows the subtleties of development; he talks poverty policy as well as he sings. Yet when Bono spoke at an international conference in Tanzania in 2007, he was heckled by some Africans who insisted that aid isn’t what Africa needs and that he should back off. Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan, complained about the calamitous consequences of “the international cocktail of good intentions.” James Shikwati of Kenya has pleaded with Western donors: “For God’s sake, please just stop.”

In 2000, a world health conference in Nigeria set a target: by 2005, 60 percent of African children would use bed nets to protect them from malaria. In reality, only 3% were using bed nets in 2005. There is also a legitimate concern that aid drives up the local exchange rate of African countries, undermining business competitiveness.

Maybe we should let an African tell us what she wants. Here’s a Ted talk by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, first female finance minister for Nigeria, entitled, “Want to help Africa? Do business here”

Highlights from her talk:

“We are tired of being the subject of aid.”

“We have to reform our economies, change our leadership, and be more democratic, and we have to do it ourselves.”

“The best way to help Africans is to create jobs and help people stand on their own feet.”

“Some of the best people to invest in on the continent are the women.” -Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister in Nigeria

If you want to do more to help the Half The Sky movement, go here.

What do you think? Do you agree that investment in women and the economy is the best solution for the problems that aid causes in Africa?

Please leave a comment and tell me what your response is.

Dear Western Donors: “For God’s Sake, Please Just Stop” originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on January 27, 2011.

Dorothy Day was a right on woman!

I’m not Catholic or anything, but Dorothy Day was pretty damn special. Ms. Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She also described herself as a Christian anarchist. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. She died in 1980.

I found these quotes from Dorothy Day after listening to Utah Phillips talk about Ammon Hennacy being her protege. Dorothy Day inspired Hennacy to found the “Joe Hill House” in Utah, where Phillips drifted to (after coming back from the Korean War) and stayed for 8 years, becoming a pacifist. Here’s a poster made by Hennacy.

Flyer by Ammon Hennacy

And Utah Phillips, in turn, was a mentor to Ani DiFranco, who is one of my favorite folk singers.

Utah Phillips and Ani Difranco

So I kind of wanted to get a sense of her lineage. Dorothy Day is a suitable great-grandmother for Ani DiFranco. Behold these quotes.

On Community
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.”
-Dorothy Day

Isn’t this part of the reason we’re involved in nonprofits? To escape the long loneliness? To find our community which believes it can make the world better?

“Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.”
-Dorothy Day

How often do you give this message to people in your day to day life as a nonprofit communicator? Do you help them feel connected to a greater sense of purpose? A group of people who care about the same thing they care about? Don’t take your position lightly. You are helping people find more significance in their lives by connecting your mission to what they want to see accomplished in the world before they die.

On Measuring Nonprofit Effectiveness

“Don’t worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.” — Dorothy Day

I think what Dorothy Day meant here was that there is a truth in each of us that cannot be denied. Maybe this truth demands that you work for social justice. Or the environment. Or community arts and theater. Whatever your truth is, keep to it. Even if the structure you’re in is not supporting you, you can work outside the structure and still be faithful to your truth.

“People say, “What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.” — Dorothy Day

I used to have a teacher who would say, “Every little step is a big step.” People get frustrated with social change and with social movements because our lifespans are so relatively limited, that we cannot see the instant gratifying results we want as a result of our hard work.

This is what is wrong with demanding instant outcomes from grants and other forms of money given by people. Social change takes years. It can take decades and other false packages. If you’re looking for what is truly effective in a nonprofit, you have to look at a community from many different angles, and over a long period of time.

On Who To Trust

“I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.” -Dorothy Day

Nonprofits that are actually doing the work will survive. Nonprofits that are all talk will fail. People in the community trust a nonprofit that they can see is doing the necessary work. And they will support that nonprofit. So if you’re stuck in a nonprofit that is actually not doing anything, just get out. Find a nonprofit that really IS doing something. Don’t trust people and their words blindly. Watch what they do. This goes for potential partners, all the way up to the President. Just watch their actions and you’ll see what they’re really about.

Ideals
“The greatest challenge of the day is: How to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” -Dorothy Day

“We believe in loving our brothers regardless of race, color or creed and we believe in showing this love by working for better conditions immediately and the ultimate owning by the workers of their means of production.” -Dorothy Day

Imagine if each nonprofit was a worker owned cooperative. Imagine with each grant that came in, and each dollar, the collective as a whole got richer. Imagine how easy it would be to turn everyone into a fundraiser in that environment. Yeah, pretty nice, isn’t it? Do you know any nonprofit collectives?

On Work

“You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it’s right.” — Dorothy Day

“Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.” — Dorothy Day

“Words are as strong and powerful as bombs, as napalm.” -Dorothy Day

Words and their power fascinate me. I put these quotes in last as a reminder to myself and any other woman reading this who loves to write. If writing brings you joy, then it IS your vocation, whether it’s a grant, an appeal letter, an e-newsletter, or a novel or poem. Even your diary entries count as writing. So if you love to write, whoever you are, keep writing.

What did you think of Dorothy Day’s quotes? Please leave a comment.

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Dorothy Day Was a Right On Woman! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on December 14, 2010.

Of these, which ones do you think yield the most money? Which ones, the least?

If you have any to add, please leave a comment!

1. Quarterly Appeal letter

2. Grants

3. Your Annual Report

4. Sell Fruit

5. Old-time photograph booth for your museum

6. Gala/Dinner

7. Sell t-shirts

8. Do a Twitter push for donations

9. Collaborating on grants with another nonprofit

10. E-newsletter

11. Ask your most faithful donors to become monthly givers

12. Ask for donations on Facebook

13. Create a bequest program

14. Ask for gifts of stock

15. Set up a workplace giving speaking engagement tour and ask your most successful local corporations to give.

16. Have a phone-a-thon

17. Hold a yard sale for your nonprofit

18. Ask donors for baked goods to hold a bake sale

19. Ask new local businesses to donate to promote their business in your next newsletter.

20. Ask your local library to donate old books to your nonprofit, sell the books on Amazon.com

21. Get people who are selling their houses to use a broker that will give your nonprofit a percentage of the proceeds.

22. Invest in stocks or CDs for your nonprofit

23. Get people to donate their cars to your nonprofit

24. Get people who are having a bridal shower to have their friends give the money they would have spent to your nonprofit.

25. Get a billboard donated to your nonprofit and ask for donations there.

26. Get a celebrity to come to an event, and sell a pre-event where rich people can hobnob with the celebrity.

27. Ask a scout troop to adopt your nonprofit and raise money with a carwash.

28. Ask a ladies auxiliary committee at your local hospital to consider donating to your nonprofit,

29. Ask your local community foundation if they have any donor advised funds that would be a good fit for your nonprofit

30. Ask the Moose Lodge or Shriners to donate to your nonprofit

31. Get people who are having a wedding to get their guests to give to your nonprofit instead of getting them gifts.

32. Advocate for state appropriation of funds to your nonprofit

33. Ask churches to give to your nonprofit out of their collections once a month.

34. Make a food cart and sell food for your nonprofit downtown, at festivals, or farmer’s markets.

35. Lease space in your building to other nonprofits or businesses.

36. Hold an arts bazaar in your nonprofit space, partner with community artists, and get lots of people to come in and see what your nonprofit does, and ask them to give.

37. Hold a movie night and ask people to give.

38. Ask your volunteers to give to your nonprofit.

39. Ask your board members to give, and introduce you to their rich friends.

40. Cultivate long term relationships with many different community members that lead to giving.

41. Hold a festival around your nonprofit cause, and ask people to give there.

42. Research people who gave large amounts to other similar nonprofits, and ask them to give to your nonprofit via a long cultivation process.

43. Hold a community forum about a particular topic and then ask people to give there.

44. Hold a friendraiser for your most loyal and generous donors, secure their support for another year there.

45. Ask sororities and fraternities to organize social gatherings for your nonprofit.

46. Get a group of cyclists to do a long ride for your nonprofit, and get people to sponsor them.

47. Use MGive where people get their own donation page on your website and can direct friends and family there to give.

48. Ask for text donations to your nonprofit.

49. Send out a paper newsletter or magazine and ask for money for your nonprofit.

50. Ask your own employees if they’d like to start a monthly employee giving program to your nonprofit.

51. Set up a partnership with Credo Mobile so that people can round up their cellphone bill and give that to your nonprofit each month.

52. Ask local restaurants to donate a portion of one night’s profits to your nonprofit.

You obviously can’t do one a week, some of these are long term ideas. However, others would only take one phonecall to hear if they want to help you or not. Why not make a list of those phonecalls today? Start with people already in your database. See who you know. Give this list to your board members. See who wants to run with it.

These are my ideas, do you have any you’d like to share?

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52 Ways to Fundraise originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on November 8, 2010.

Do you speak three or four?

Which ones do you speak?

I speak English, French, and some Indonesian and Korean.

This video shows Bob Holman, one of my favorite teachers, talking with griot, going to Timbuktu, chasing dying languages and traditions. Griot are keepers of West African oral tradition, poets, geneologists and musicians!

“Language defines a place. When a language dies, a culture dies.” -Bob Holman

Want to help preserve endangered languages?

Go here

or

here

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Which nonprofits are helping preserve languages? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on October 29, 2010.

Kim Klein

Who is Kim Klein?: Kim Klein is the founder and former publisher of the bimonthly Grassroots Fundraising Journal, which celebrated its 25th birthday in 2006. She is the Chardon Press Series Editor at Jossey-Bass Publishers, which publishes and distributes materials that help to build a stronger nonprofit sector. She is also the author of Fundraising for Social Change, Fundraising for the Long Haul, Fundraising in Times of Crisis, Ask and You Shall Receive: A Fundraising Training Program for Religious Organizations or Projects, and Raise More Money, which she edited with her partner, Stephanie Roth. She is the featured writer for the e-newsletter of the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, with her column of answers to questions posed by readers called “Dear Kim.” Widely in demand as a speaker, Kim Klein has provided training and consultation in all 50 of the United States and in 21 countries. She has just returned from Montreal, where she was an adjunct faculty member at Concordia University, working at the Institute in Management and Community Development. Contact Ms. Klein at kim@kleinandroth.com

You should hire her to speak for you, fundraise for you, write for you, and read her blog and buy her many books. All are so good! She has the tools and expertise you need. And she’s an inspiring speaker.

How did you get started writing and editing fundraising books?

I saw that there was a dearth of information for organizations with budgets under $1 million and for organizations working for social justice. There was plenty of stuff for universities, hospitals and larger institutions. Yet, there was a large oral tradition about fundraising, so I just started writing things down that I saw and trying to make a coherent frame out of all the experience people had.

What kind of people should read your new book, “Reliable Fundraising in Unreliable Times”?

People who are familiar with some fundraising principles and are wondering what else they can do; organizations who are experiencing some kind of crisis right now and want to get through it, and people who want to build a broad base of individual donors and have already have some infrastructure in place but want to go to the next level.

What’s one idea from the book that you think nonprofit leaders should take action from in particular?

We have to work together, across all our different sectors of education, health care, environment, and so on. We must develop an identify as a “Sector” and advocate for ourselves, which should mean advocating for the common good. Further all organizations need to see that pressuring government to create revenue solutions to budget problems is imperative: in other words all nonprofits need to work on fair and just tax policy.

Tell me about your book in process. Why is it so important for nonprofits to get involved in tax policy?

Nonprofits are the institutions most affected by budget cuts, and the people we serve suffer from cuts in federal, state and local programs. Yet most nonprofits simply try to do more and more with less and less, instead of saying, “Some things must be funded publicly, by taxes.” Adam Smith said, “The purpose of taxes is to remedy inequality as much as possible,” and certainly that should be a purpose of the nonprofit sector as well. When we don’t advocate for fair taxes, we say to the right wing, “You were right, we could do this with less money” but we can’t and working harder and harder is not going to solve our problems.

What books do you wish you could see out there on the bookshelves?

I’d love to see more reflection on what all nonprofits should do to address racism, sexism and militarism.

Amen to that. What sort of response have you been seeing to your blog?

People seem to like it and a lot of people read it, tweet about it, and mention it to me. I think we just need way more readers.

OK readers of this blog, add them to your RSS feed! Do you blog for a purpose?

I hope so. I blog to promote the ideas of the commons: the notion that our most valuable assets are what we don’t own, such as water, air, rights, etc. We must protect, enhance and in some cases, repair, our commons and pass them on undiminished to the next generation.

What do you think makes a successful fundraising career?

Understanding that money is simply a tool and it is a tool we all need to do our work. Time is actually our most precious non-renewable resource, and money helps us use our time more effectively. Successful fundraisers are also people of great commitment to the nonprofit sector and people willing to take a long view of what works and doesn’t.

Who do you admire? Who is a hero or heroine of yours?

I suppose all the usual suspects: Mary McLeod Bethune, Sojourner Truth, Peter Maurin, Mahatma Gandhi. I also admire ordinary people who have flaws and overcome them to do great things.

What causes do you wish that more foundations would make a priority?

Foundations have so little money that I don’t think about them very much.

What major gift asks were most difficult for you, and why?

The requests that are hard are when the donor has an agenda also. I remember a donor asking me if her son could sit on the board, and another donor asking if our organization would agree to not oppose a problematic housing development. I had to learn to be clear that no amount of money was worth the organization’s integrity. The other kinds of solicitations that are hard are the ones where the donor is equivocal, won’t say yes and wont say no, tells you to get back to them a hundred times. People have to learn to be direct.

Thank you so much Ms. Klein. You’ve really opened my eyes about foundations. I am so grateful to you for taking the time to do this interview.

Exclusive Interview with Kim Klein, fundraising author, editor, consultant and thought leader originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on October 18, 2010.

Reciprocation
This is also known as the give and take and take. If you give a donor a flower, they might feel more inclined to give money to your organization. This is also the way the free sample works, if you try a product, and then have the option to return it after 24, 48, or 72 hours, you’re much more likely to buy. Monthly giving, assuming you’ve done it well, goes on the assumption that you’ll go on giving after a trial period of 1 or 2 months with your donation automatically deducted from your account. And they are usually right.

Commitment and Consistency
Do you like this?
Do you like that?
Then you NEED THIS!
Getting your donor in the frame of mind to say yes is something that Amnesty international and Mother Jones are doing very well right now. if you care about freedom, if you care about journalistic integrity, etc then you NEED to give to these causes! Of course, you don’t need to give to any cause, but these are certainly good examples of commitment and consistency principles at work.

Social Proof
When you put in testimonials from community members, leaders in law enforcement or outstanding donors in your appeal letters, why do you think this works?

These testimonials and pictures function as a kind of social proof to potential donors that your nonprofit is doing good work. Kind of like a laugh track, it makes you think it’s even more legitimate than it actually may be.

You could even have an anonymous “man in the street” person as a testimonial and it works.

Authority
When you have a celebrity attached to your cause, like Tori Amos and RAINN, you will be able to command a greater degree of respect as a nonprofit. When you have a political figure attached to your cause, people look at their title, their clothes, and the trappings that they have, and decide that your cause is legitimate.

Scarcity
This is your last chance to give! You’d better give today or our anonymous donor won’t match your gift 3 for 1!
Yeah, you know it’s NEVER your last chance to give. But this is yet another way to get people to hurry up and give to you if they’re on the fence.

More lessons from Influence, by Cialdini

Tips for you! Have you tried TwitGrid yet? You could use it to have public conversations with your donors on Twitter!

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What makes people want to give to you? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on August 20, 2010.

Donald Trump
Lee Iacocca-Former CEO of Chrysler
Pat Mitchell-Former head of PBS
Bernie Marcus-Founder of Home Depot
Tom Sternberg-Founder of Staples
Bernadine Healy-Former CEO of American Red Cross
Michael Bloomberg-Mayor of New York City, and 8th richest person in the world
Larry King-Radio personality
Robert Redford-Founder of the Sundance Film Festival and producer and actor in one of my favorite films, “Sneakers”
Martha Rogers-Head of Peppers & Rogers Group
Jamie Dimon-CEO of Bank One
Deborah Rosado Shaw-CEO of Dream Big Enterprises
JK Rowling-International best-selling author
Mozart

Did you know that 60% of CEOS get fired? Would you like to nominate some right now?

Are you ready to get fired? Ask yourself some questions.

Are you prepared to lose your job rather than compromise fundamental values?

Have you developed enough different skills so you always have a backup career in times of crisis?

Here’s some advice from Dr. Bernadine Healy, former President of the American Red Cross, who raised over $3 BILLION dollars for them before being fired. She did all of this, mind you, with a brain tumor.

She says, “Don’t get fixed on things you can do nothing about. Otherwise they will slow you down.”

“If you have faith in your own judgment and the cause is important, and if you have done your homework and sought wise counsel, and if you are driven by the right reasons, you must have the courage to take the personal risk of standing up and being counted.”

“Life isn’t a straight upward trajectory, but I think you will win more than you lose if you stand for something.” -Bernadine Healy, M.D.

Mark Hansen, coauthor of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul books, was living in his car when they were written. Nobody would lend him money, not even his family. No one would offer any support. Then he wrote this book, and suddenly he was on top of the world.

He says, “If you go for security instead of opportunity you will lose both.”

“Ask yourself, what are the multiple streams of income you can create in your lifetime?”

“Constantly ask the question-What’s the one skill that will double, triple, quadruple my income?”

Lee Iacocca‘s story is startling. He made Ford $1.8 BILLION, and then Henry Ford fired him. He went on to Chrysler and turned them around to make $2.4 Billion. Just goes to show that unfair firings can happen in any industry, at any time, even when you think you’re doing things beyond reproach.

His advice? “Look for bosses who are buoyed by your success. If they seem threatened by it, it’s time to grab a life preserver and swim for shore.”

“Working with a despot, no matter how good you are, can only have two possible endings. Either you become a despot too, or the despot turns on you.”

He says, “If you can’t move forward, go sideways.” and, “Don’t let your love of success justify staying in the wrong place too long.”

Robert Redford says,

“Find your passions and pursue them tenaciously.”

“Embrace a dream. Have you been living out someone else’s script that squelched your dream for the future?”

“Link Your Thinking.” Redford created Sundance, which led to a film festival, which led to a restaurant. He says, “Once you find your primary channel, it can sprout opportunities in one hundred different directions!”

Finally, he says, “Give back. The people who give back the best are the ones who push things forward.”

All quotes from “We Got Fired” by Harvey MacKay, Ballantine Books, NY, NY. 2004

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Have you ever been fired? Was that awesome, or what? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on July 21, 2010.