Just one thing

This time of year people like to think about the one thing they can change to make the next 12 months better than the last.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were just one thing? I wonder what it could be ...

Well, don't look to me for easy answers.

But in terms of your mission, there probably are just one or two things you could change in the next couple of months that would dramatically improve your work.

And they're probably in one of these areas:

1. Relationships with the people who matter to you.

2. Tools for communications, experiences, and insights.

3. Programs that help your people move forward.

4. Priorities for clear decision making.

Those are the major components of the engine that propels your mission.

If you've already picked a primary focus, I'd love to hear about it.

If you haven't, the turning of the year is as good a time as any to decide where you can best focus your efforts.

(Hint: If you don't know where to start, #4 is probably a good place.)

All the best,
A.

CiviCon 2026: Paris

While you’re putting up that new calendar for the coming year, you might take a moment to mark this:

We're thrilled to announce that the global CiviCRM community is gathering in Paris for CiviConf & CiviSprint Paris 2026! Join us for an inspiring week of collaboration, connection, and learning, set at the HI Paris Yves Robert Hostel—just a short walk from Gare du Nord and minutes away from the legendary Montmartre neighbourhood

Monday, October 5 to Friday, October 9, 2026

Mark your calendar and get ready to be part of the most international CiviCRM event of the year!

So, that’s a one-day conference on October 5th, followed by a 4-day Sprint with Admin and Developer training.

Oh, and Paris. There’s definitely lots of Paris.

I’m hoping to be there myself, and would love to see you there.

Read more in the “Save the Date” announcement on civicrm.org.

All the best,
A.

No formal training?

Veteran FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss tells a story of his first encounter with Harvard University's top business negotiation experts.

They surprised him with a role-play scenario in which they had kidnapped his son and demanded a 1-million dollar ransom.

"I was intimidated," he says, but by the time it was over, he had beaten them at their own game. "I had taken on the best of the best and come out on top."

It's a neat story, but what he says next really got my attention:

For more than three decades, Harvard had been the world epicenter of negotiating theory and practice. All I knew about the technique we used at the FBI was that they worked. ... We didn't have grand theories. Our techniques were the products of experiential learning: they were developed by agents in the field, negotiating through crisis and sharing stories of what succeeded and what failed.

Here's the thing:

It's good to have a theoretical understanding of why certain methods work or don't work.

But experiential learning is powerful and real.

Most nonprofit leaders never receive formal training in the work they need to do. Often, such training doesn't even exist.

Fortunately, you have real experience to rely upon, and access to people who can share their own experiential lessons with you.

If you're paying attention to the actions you take and the results that you get, then you've got a solid foundation on which to proceed.

You've already spent time -- probably years -- training yourself through hard-won lessons.

Moving forward towards your goals requires a simple decision to trust what you've already learned, and continue taking appropriate action, formal training or no.

All the best,
A.

CiviCRM security update: tonight

If you're running CiviCRM, you should know that the project has announced the release of a security update as of today.

You should start to see notices about this in your CiviCRM System Status panel once the release is formalized, probably late tonight.

Security updates are no joke. I hope you’re making time to keep your site updated — or have delegated this to someone who is.

(BTW, if you’re already hosting with Joinery or subscribed to my Proactive Security Updates service, I’ve got you covered. You’ll be hearing from me soon when your update is complete.)

All the best,
A.

Who benefits?

A friend's three-year-old has new shoes.
I say "Dude, cool shoes!"
He smiles.
I smile.
Who benefits?

My daughter practices months for her voice recital.
We all show up.
She sings.
We listen.
Who benefits?

An organization serving a cause I care about has a fundraiser.
I give money.
They serve the cause.
Who benefits?

Here's the thing:

The good stuff in life is not either/or.
It's both/and.

When we're doing it right, everyone benefits.

All the best,
A.

Creating transformations

Yesterday I noted the difference between transactional and tranformational interactions.

• When all we want is the exchange itself, it's transactional.

• When we're aiming at the meaningful result of that exchange, it's potentially transformational.

And: In a transformational interaction, each person is always both giving and receiving.

By creating transformational interactions with each of our people, we we tie our mission's fulfillment to their fulfillment.

And that right there lays the foundation for a naturally self-reinforcing system, one where every good action builds momentum for the next good action.

So, I'd like you to try something, if you can take a moment:

Think about anyone who's contributed somehow to your mission in the past year. And ask yourself:

What's the transformation they could experience through that interaction with you? How could that interaction actually change their lives, renew their spark, create a meaningful result for them?

And just one more: Think of someone who has benefited from your work in the past year.

What's the transformation they could experience through that interaction?

A practical step:

If you really want to start building a positively self-reinforcing system of transformational interactions, you can take this a step further.

For each those two people, write down:

• at least one feeling that you think they would want to have about their connection to your work;

• at least one action you would like them to take in relation to your work;

• at least one thing you might do or say to them at some time, to help make the connection between that feeling and that action.

(If you've made that list of categories of people with whom you are organization interacts, I suggest doing this for each of those categories.)

Why this matters:

What we're doing here is building a connection between:

1. the spark that motivates your people,

2. tangible actions that you can take, and

3. the building of deeper longer-lasting connections between your people and your mission.

This isn't the only way to do it, but it's a very good one.

This is the beginning of building a map to help you take your organization further than it's been before.

And the great thing is: it doesn’t just move your organization forward. It takes your people forward with it.

All the best,
A.

Transaction vs. Transformation

I like to play guitar. (Yes, we're in the middle of an email series here, but please allow me this small side-quest.)

When I buy a set of guitar strings, it's a very transactional exchange. Cash paid, strings acquired, done.

But when I pay for a private guitar lesson, something changes: It's not just a transaction; it's an opportunity for transformation.

Both my instructor and myself are hoping that the lesson will be part of a meaningful change in my development as a musician.

That's one spectrum of human interaction:

• When all we want is the exchange itself, it's transactional.

• When we're aiming at the meaningful result of that exchange, it's transformational.

And of course, if I start to feel that my instructor doesn't care about my growth as a musician -- that he's treating our sessions as mere transactions -- I'll strongly reconsider whether to continue with him at all.

So, how does this relate to your work?

You probably could, without trying very hard, point to interactions that are essentially transactional.

• A donation given

• A membership renewed

• An event registration paid

That's fair, and everyone gets what they expected.

But I'd also bet that there are interactions that are truly transformational:

• A noble desire to give, fulfilled in that simple gift; then meaningfully recognized.

• A commitment to cooperation and growth, renewed along with that membership; then validated by participation.

• A community discovered by attending that event, and encouragement both given and received.

Anything that awakens that motivational spark begins to be transformational.

And it matters not whether the person would typically be labeled a "giver" or a "receiver." In a transformational interaction, each person is always both giving and receiving.

Here's the thing:

In our cause-driven work of fundraising and need-serving, we tend to group our people into givers and receivers, funders and beneficiaries, those whom "we need" and those who "need us."

But I propose to you that they’re all people we need, and they're all people who need us.

By creating transformational interactions with each of them, we tie our mission's fulfillment to their fulfillment.

You want a system where every awesome action builds momentum for the next?

That's the foundation of it, right there.

All the best,
A.

The Spark

If you participated in yesterday's exercise, I'll touch on that below. If you didn't, just ask yourself this:

Do you remember when you started in nonprofit work?

Do you remember intentionally choosing a career path that might not be the most lucrative option?

Do you remember the feeling that came with that decision?
The sense that it might all be worth doing, because you could make a difference in a cause that matters?

And now?

Have you been lucky enough to have that hopeful wholesome dream rewarded and validated and acknowledged, consistently, throughout your non-profit career?

Or have you, like many people, experienced at least once the disappointment and frustration of having the very people you expected to partner with you show themselves to be less than enthusiastic about your commitment?

If you've had that happen even once, you know it can be hard to recover.
It's a hard splash of cold water that can drive the spark of inspiration deep into hiding.

But think for a moment about the bright-eyed hopeful you that started this journey.

Was that person a giver, committed to helping the cause?

I'm sure the answer is yes. Yes, they were a giver.

But did they also hope to receive something, to experience something, to feel something?

Of course they did. They were absolutely a giver, and they absolutely wanted something as well.

Validation, acknowledgment, belonging, accomplishment, cooperation -- all the great things that come from partnering with others in a worthy cause.

And that first moment where you might have felt that splash of cold water?
That's a turning point.
Not everyone recovers from it.
Any organization you're helping right now should be glad you did.

So what does this have to do with that list of categories you may have written from yesterday's prompt?

Only this:

Every one of them participates in your work with that same spark of hopeful ambition that you once felt.

Donors? Yes.
Service recipients? Yes.
Board members? Yes.
Members? Yes.
All of them? Yes.

They all still hope to receive something, to feel something, to experience something.

If they didn't, they would not participate.
And what's more: if that spark goes away, so will they.

What this means for you and me:

If you're reading this now, I expect it's because you believe in your work and in your ability to make a difference that matters.

I feel the same about my own work.

And that puts us in a special position:
In our relationships with every person our work touches, we have the opportunity to foster and grow that spark, or to dampen it.

If you have a list of relationship categories from yesterday's prompt, you might start to think about the spark that moves each one of them.

Nurturing that spark is the secret to helping the whole lot of them move forward together.

And I'm willing to bet that's the reason you started this work in the first place.

All the best,
A.

P.S. Hang on to that list, we'll look at it again tomorrow.

The map that matters

Today's email is not a casual encouraging thought. It's an exercise that will take some time and effort, and should get you a valuable result, if you're up for it.

---

When you're trying to get somewhere you've never been before, you'll want a map.
(Digital, mobile, printed, hand-drawn -- whatever.)

I'm guessing that right now, in your daily work, you're actually doing that:
trying to take your mission and your organization further than it's been before.

So where is the map?

Here's a simple step you can take today to start building a map that will help you get where you're trying to go.

First, recognize that any accomplishment you can make is based on relationships.

(Sure, as an individual you can do things like learn the piano or get six-pack abs all on your own; but we're talking about an organization that both relies upon and helps people. In that world, literally nothing happens "all on your own.")

Just as any journey you could undertake consists of moving from one landmark to another, so any progress your organization makes toward a goal must consist of navigating through real human relationships with real human beings.

So we accept that: no relationships -> no mission accomplishment.

Next, ask yourself: Exactly who are these relationships with?

I'm actually asking you to stop here (right now, or at a scheduled time today), pull out your favorite distraction-free writing device (if you're me, that's a pencil; if you're anybody, it's not your phone) and write down your response to this prompt:

List the categories of people (as many as you can) whom your organization must relate to in accomplishing its mission.

I told you this was an exercise, and I genuinely believe it matters:
If you don't have such a list handy somewhere, you need to make one.
Start by drafting it today.

Just to clarify, when I say "as many categories of people as you can," I suggest that you categorize people by the way your organization relates to them. Is there a category of people whom you serve? Do you serve people according to various categories? Is there a category of people upon whom you rely? Do you rely upon various categories of people? Try to give all those categories names, and write them down.

(You could, for example get a very large number of categories if you decided to list everyone by ZIP code. But I suspect that you probably relate to all your people the same without regard for their ZIP code, so that's not a worthwhile distinction here. We're just looking for the categories that indicate the different ways you relate to your people.)

Next we'll talk about what you could do with this list.

For now, just write it.

And if you can, take a few minutes look over those categories and notice any thoughts or feelings that come to mind.

Those will actually start to matter very soon.

All the best,
A.

All the information in the world

Imagine you had a magic little machine that could tell you anything you wanted to know about your people.

What would you ask it? Do you know?

And what would you do with the answers? Do you know?

If you do, there's probably a way to gather that information, or a good estimation of it, and then to take action.

But if you don't know, that's a sign that your problem is not a lack of information — it's something deeper, something that can't be solved by tools or features or reports.

If that's your situation, it's time to pause and make a map.
Time to clarify who your people are, what you hope for them, and some ideas to help them get there.

Give that some thought.

I'll write again tomorrow with something a little more practical that you can start taking action on, even if — or especially if — you don't know where to start.

All the best,
A.

The optimal challenge

In a healthy organization, challenge is not optional. The universe is conspiring to end you, and it's up to you to prove you deserve to exist.

So it's not optional. But it can be optimal.

An optimal challenge is one that …

• … is actually achievable. Setting impossible goals is a great way to train failure.

• … is actually difficult. Setting goals that aren't difficult is a good way to train complacency.

Choosing optimal challenges for yourself and your team gives you two great benefits:

1. You build a track record of success. This raises morale and increases confidence based on lived experience — which of course makes it feel easier to take on the next challenge.

2. You get actual measurable results that are better than if you'd set no goals at all. This is not just morale-building, it's capacity-building.

The great thing is you don't need permission from anyone start setting optimal goals. You could decide, for example, to:

• Pick the most convoluted workflow in your daily work and finally sort it out for good.

• Document just one multi+person process so that everyone can understand how it all works.

• Schedule an hour with your CRM specialist to understand where all those duplicate contacts are coming from, and make a plan to stem the tide.

• Meta: Get better at setting optimal goals, by keeping track of the goals you're setting and how often you meet them.

• Meta-meta: Start celebrating when you and others around you meet their goals -- or heck, celebrate when you can even remember to set good goals.

Here's the thing:

The pressure to achieve more and more with less and less is tremendous.

It can feel like you're being asked to achieve everything with nothing by people who wouldn't even notice if you did.

But none of that matters.

What matters is what you want to get out of this work. The reasons you took up the calling in the first place.

The reasons are still there. The cause is still valid.

Picking one optimal challenge at a time, you can strengthen both yourself and the difference you make in the world.

You don't need anyone's permission to do that.

All the best,
A.

What if it didn’t have to be crazy?

It's been a long time since I started in the nonprofit sector, but I remember those days well.

I was a full-time employee at a mid-sized nonprofit in New York for about 7 years.

Once I got settled in, I began to notice: this organization was a little crazy.

• Everyone worked long hours.

• One project after another was pivoted at the last moment into something else.

• Unattainable goals were met with impossible budgets and unworkable deadlines.

• Even good results were rarely recognized, so frantic was the pace of keeping up with whatever was next.

• Staffers who were friends with the executives had a way of meddling outside their designated areas, creating a whirling conflict of expectations and loyalties.

I put up with it because I believed in the cause.

I couldn't understand why it was so hectic, but I figured it was just some quirk of our organizational style.

Then I began to work with other nonprofits.

And I understood, it hadn't just been us.

Nonprofit life can get pretty crazy.

But here's the thing:

Not all the organizations I’ve worked with are crazy. Maybe I’ve found a way to attract the sane ones.

Most of them are effective, efficient, and staffed by people who are genuinely happy and fulfilled.

• They set reasonable and attainable goals.

• They understand what those goals are worth and invest their resources accordingly.

• They ensure each area of concern is owned by a specific person, and they trust that person to take care of that area and ask for help where needed.

• They understand the value of relationships: between team members, and with their larger constituent base. Everyone has a reason for participating. These organizations validate those reasons.

• They expect their tools to be reliable, but don't expect them to substitute for creative thinking and ownership.

• They ask each team member to stay in their own lane. If you have a concern, take it to the person who's in charge of that area. You can ask for help, but you can't tell them how to do their job.

• They acknowledge that while their hopes and dreams may be limitless, their resources will always be finite, and they decided to work within their means.

If you're working at such an organization now, rejoice and rock on!

But if your current situation is a little more on the crazy end, it might be worth asking:

Does it have to be that way?
What if you could take steps to bring sanity back to the work that really matters?

A little hope it's a dangerous, but I'll offer this:

The work that matters doesn't have to make you crazy.
There is a sane and pleasant way to make the world a better place.

Nonprofit sanity begins with clear goals, honest assessment, kind and clear communication, and a willingness to make tough decisions and then move forward.

It's not a matter of luck -- it's a matter of chosing systems that value calm execution.

All the best,
A.

The relationship engine

Your organization is a little engine.

It runs on relationships.

But it also powers relationships.

At its best, it's a virtuous cycle, a living ecosystem of mutual benefit.

The relationships further the work, and the work nurtures the relationships.

Your little engine probably has more moving parts than you can count.

When they fit well and run smoothly, life is good.

Where there's friction and noise, something probably needs your attention.

But the maintenance is always worth it.

Because your little relationship engine enriches the lives of everyone who's connected to your work.

That's the beauty of what you do.

All the best,
A.

”This is what matters right now.”

Everything's connected.

Your membership programs. ⇒ Your policies and procedures. ⇒ Your CRM data and features. ⇒ Your staff training. ⇒ How your staff feel about their work. ⇒ How they interact with your constituents. ⇒ How your constituents feel about your organization. ⇒ How likely they are to give more next year or renew their membership or tell their friends about your work.

On and on. The hip bone's connected to the thigh bone.

This can lend itself to chaos, or to clarity.

When you can't separate the components and consider them one by one,
or you can't prioritize the one or two most important elements,
it all goes into a mush,
and you can feel like you're living in chaos:
”Where do I even start?”

But when you can carve out a moment
to consider what really matters,
to you, to your mission, to your constituents,
you can start to find clarity:
”This is what matters right now.”

If we can agree that shiny new tools don't automatically make your life easier, then we can ask: What does?

For the nonprofit leaders I work with, it's usually this:

• Understanding your real priorities.

• Remembering that your stress level impacts that of your staff, which impacts that of your constituents.

• Simplifying your processes to something everyone understands.

Of course, it doesn't all have to be perfect.

But it helps a lot to know you’re picking the right battles.

All the best,
A.

Cleverness vs Clarity

Many of the nonprofit leaders who come to me for help imagine that a new tool (or a different one) will solve their problems.

But in most cases, they don’t really suffer from a lack of tools.

They suffer from a lack of clarity.

I see it all the time:

• Automated workflows that no one on the team understands.

• A reporting dashboard that looks impressive but doesn’t answer the imporant questions.

• A system full of clever features that quietly and mysteriously break, because no one remembers how they work.

These are clever tools that don't lead to clarity.

Sure, building clever tools feels productive.
But clarity is productive.

Clarity tells you:

• who you’re serving

• what they need

• what you need to track

• what you can safely ignore

• which one or two workflows actually matter

Once you know those things, the right system is usually simple. Sometimes very simple.

But without clarity, even the best-looking setup becomes a stress machine.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by your CRM or your processes, you probably don’t need more features, or more clever ones.

You need a better understanding of the work itself.

Clarity takes things off your plate.
Cleverness -- without clarity -- adds to it.

All the best,
A.

Start with “what it is”

Every shrinking organization tells itself a story.

• “Somehow people just aren’t interested anymore.”

• “It’s a generational thing.”

• “Things will bounce back next year.”

• “We’re doing everything right -- it’s just the culture.”

It’s a short story, sure.
But you can tell it’s a story because it has reached a conclusion.
The moral of the story is already summed up.

It’s a very human thing to do.
Because these stories feel safe.
They offer an explanation, without forcing anyone to look at the uncomfortable details.

But the real leverage -- the thing we can grab hold of -- doesn’t live in these stories.

It hides in the thing no one is naming.

Not the interpretation of meaning, but the observation of happening:

• “Only a few new people reached out this season.”

• “Our participation has thinned out.”

• “We haven’t followed up with inquiries in weeks.”

• “The partners we used to rely on aren’t sending anyone our way.”

• “Our outreach rhythm broke during COVID and never recovered.”

Those are concrete.
They can be tested, changed, or improved.
They’re not the end of a story, they’re the beginning.

But as long as we stay focused on what the decline means,
no one can grab the small handles sitting right in front of them,
handles attached to what's actually happening.

That’s usually where the turnaround starts:
not with a grand solution,
but with a clean look at what’s actually there.

It's tempting to start the story with the conclusion,
but good stories -- the ones with happy endings --
start at the beginning.

And the beginning is wherever you are, right now.

All the best,
A.

Why is this so hard?

I'll just grab a cup of coffee before my next meeting.

Oh, the pot is empty. I top up the water and put in a new filter.

Oh, there are no fresh grounds. I reach for the grinder.

Oh, the hopper is empty. I open the cabinet for the bin of fresh beans.

Oh, we have no beans. I go into my meeting frustrated and poorly caffeinated. Not sure which is worse.

There's got to be a better way.

What if there were one person who’s responsible for making the coffee?

What even if that person was me, and I at least expected to make it part of my day?

What if we just switched to K-Cups?

Any of those would probably be better.

Here's the thing:

Sometimes the problem isn't the tool, or the materials, or the end product. Not the report, or the feature, or the demand.

It's just the frustration … and unpredictability … and stress that comes from a lack of standard procedures, or of healthy expectation management.

We don't have to have everything done for us.

But it does help when the things we do often are not often harder than we thought they would be.

All the best,
A.

Time to launch?

You've probably felt the anxiety that can come with rolling out a new fundraising campaign.

Is the message on target and clear?
Are the visuals striking the right tone?
Is the timing right?
Is the call to action prominent but not demanding?

That's the same anxiety you're likely to feel with any new roll-out:

Membership drive
Staff training
Website features
Educational program
Public awareness campaign

It's a paradox:

You can't wait until it's perfect, because it never will be.
But you can't rush into it thoughtlessly.

Where's the happy middle?

Usually, it's in getting honest, brief feedback from a handful of people in your target demographic.

It's not:

• Asking everyone in your target group to help you design it (too early in the process; shows a lack of leadership; generates more input than you can use).

• Just doing it however the Executive Director, or your board, says (they don't represent your target demographic).

• Going with your gut and seeing what happens (too late in the process; no chance to use whatever haphazard feedback you might gather).

Instead, it's just:

• Picking 3-5 people who can be honest with you, and who are as much like your target audience as you can find.

• Asking each of them their for feedback on 2-3 specific questions. For example, "Real quick, design A or design B? Can you say why?", or "Can you take 5 minutes with me to look at this web page and try to do what it's asking you, and maybe think out loud to me as you go?"

• Using that feedback to refine your offering. And then …

• Launching. Sending. Announcing. Shipping. Whatever you call it, it's time to do it.

Here's the thing:

Pre-launch jitters are a real thing. Ask any stage actor on opening night.

But the goal is not perfection. It's helping the people we care about.

Usually, a little targeted input from the right people is enough to get you pretty close.

And then, it's just time to launch.

All the best,
A.

The password was “LOUVRE”

In the wake of the recent broad-daylight robbery of $88 million in jewels from the Louvre, investigators have reported some surprising lapses in security protocol.

Notable: The password for one of their key security systems was, at some point — can you guess? — "LOUVRE". (Thanks to list member Allison for sharing this tidbit!)

Obviously, passwords matter. I recommend requiring your people to use strong passwords, for both their site logins and for their email accounts.

Other thoughts on security:

• If they want what you've got, they'll get creative. Ground level security at the museum is too tight. How about a hydraulic lift to an upper-story window?

• They may not always try to take something out. Sometimes they want to put something in. British art forger John Drewe was convicted in 1999 of, among other things, inserting false records of his forged paintings into the archives of the Tate Gallery, in order to bolster his claims of their authenticity.

• It's not always high-tech. A smooth talker on the phone or a persuasive email has often been enough to gain critical information from a staff member, leading to a security breach.

Here's the thing:

Protecting your organization’s resources and the private data of your constituents isn't a simple matter of pushing the right buttons or checking the right boxes.

It's an arms race.

Whatever protections you put in place, someone will — if they want too badly enough — try to find a way around.

It's up to you to consider how far you'll go to prevent that from happening.

You might start with strengthening your passwords.

All the best,
A.

Are you relevant?

Mass email.

A fabulous tool for helping you build relationships at scale.

But here's a thought:

With every email a person receives from you,
you’re training them to see your work as either relevant to their lives,
or not.

Is the message you’re sending going to
… help them have a better day?
… help them learn something they care about?
… give them a feeling they want to feel?

If so, that message is a reminder that your work is relevant to them.

If not, it nudges them just a little closer to eventually saying (as one client described it in a CRM Strategy Session today), "You don't care about me, so I don't have time to care about you."

I know which one I want.

All the best,
A.