The Business of Giving
A question worth carrying into the weekend. What is one change you would be willing to fight for even if you knew that, a generation from now, no one would remember it was you who made it happen? That answer tells you what you are actually building. The post Notes #105: The Legacy That Forgets Your Name appeared first on Denver Frederick .
Don’t admire the bounce. Fund the repair. So a question for anyone leading people through a hard season. Who on your team have you been quietly praising for their resilience, when what they actually needed was for you to lighten the load? What would real recovery require, and can you give it? The post Notes #104: Don’t Admire the Bounce. Fund the Repair. appeared first on Denver Frederick .
The leaders who make their organizations matter are the ones who can say what they do in words that are unmistakably their own. So try it right now, in the comments. Describe what your organization actually does in one sentence, without using “impact,” “empower,” “transform,” or “community.” If the sentence is hard to write, that difficulty is the most useful thing you will learn this week. The…
The leaders worth following are the ones who know how many hands built what they are tempted to claim by themselves, and who share the credit as honestly as the work was actually shared. So do it here, in public. Name one person whose unseen contribution made something you are proud of possible, and who has never gotten the credit. Say their name. The acknowledgment is the work. The post Notes…
The deepest poverty is to be treated as someone with nothing to offer. The deepest respect is to ask someone to contribute, and to mean it. So where in your work do you treat the people you serve only as recipients? And what would it look like to ask them to give, not just receive, and to actually build on what they offered? The post Notes #101: People Need to Give, Not Only to Receive appeared…
The goal is not to be thanked. The goal is to leave the other person more themselves, more capable, more whole, than your help found them. And to be glad when they walk away owing you nothing, not even gratitude. So an honest question. When has your generosity needed something back, even just the thanks? And what would it take to give the next thing cleanly, expecting nothing? The post Notes #100:…
Tell me about a value your organization held when it genuinely cost you. The contract you walked away from, the donor you declined, the easy win you refused. That story is the proof. What is yours? The post Notes #99: Is Anyone Home Behind Your Values? appeared first on Denver Frederick .
The most valuable things in any situation are often the ones your instruments were never built to detect. And the leaders who create the most lasting value are the ones who assume, going in, that there is more there than they can yet see. So think of a place you wrote off as lacking. A team, a community, a person. What might have been there that your instruments were never built to detect? It may…
A question for anyone who gives, or leads an organization that lives on giving. The last time you decided what a community needed, how many people from that community helped you decide? And what would change if they had? The post Notes #97: Give as Though Your Power Were Borrowed appeared first on Denver Frederick .
Where has the pressure to produce quietly turned a relationship in your work into a transaction? And which person on that list deserves to be more than a means to your mission? The post Notes #96: The User Loses More appeared first on Denver Frederick .