Planning the first issue!

Between Thanksgiving and just the hustle of the holidays, I haven’t had much time to blog. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been making progress on the magazine.
In fact, we’ve made lots of progress. We’ve got a big list of stories, most of them assigned and some of them assigned to some really great writers. [...]

Do big events mean big money?

One of the things we want GoodCause to examine is whether the expense and effort required to produce big events is worth the return of donations and money raised from the event.
A post on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s blog, Give and Take (I put the feed on my blog, bottom left) notes Newsday and Don’t [...]

1000 bags of Thanksgiving groceries

One of the stories we have planned for the first issue of GoodCause is about Thanksgiving volunteering. Thanksgiving kicks off the season of giving, after all, and there are lots of opportunities around town to serve and feed needy folks on Turkey Day.
But we wanted to highlight other opportunities to give back around Thanksgiving, [...]

I know why you volunteer

Actually, I don’t know why you, in particular, volunteer. But I can guess. What do you think? Be honest. What’s the real reason why you volunteer?
I’m going to do something crazy and offer up three major reasons. Now, I know I don’t have but three readers out there (if that many), but I’m hoping to [...]

Free iPhone anyone?

Not $500. Not $300. Free. All you have to do is donate. Any amount will do.
Employees at United Way are bumming that they can’t enter… but everyone else can. Mando links to the entry form. But hurry because the contest ends November 30.
If you win it, please don’t tell me because I don’t handle jealousy [...]

What it’s like to serve on a board

I think all 230 attendees of Greenlights’ Board Summit learned a lot about opportunities to serve, but there was one panel discussion in particular that was especially enlightening – the “What’s it like to serve on a board?” session.
Yesenia Reyes was one of the three panelists, and she was generous enough to spend some time [...]

Too much excitement

I haven’t posted in a few days because I’ve been in Monterey, California, at a conference, Stanford Publishing on the Web for Professionals. It’s designed for people from publications backgrounds who want to take their publications’ Web sites to the next level. Lots of great ideas here.
I’m a little overwhelmed but totally jazzed at the [...]

Picture yourself on a nonprofit board

Wednesday night, Greenlights hosted its fourth “Board Summit,” which is not as descriptive a title as it could be considering it’s not a summit of nonprofit boards but rather more like a “board fair” in that it matches would-be board members with nonprofits that need board members.
I went to see what kind of people thought [...]

Why aren’t more people like them?

I spoke with three people this week about their volunteering, each of them remarkable in that they have made volunteering a part of their lives as naturally as some of us make exercise or reading the paper every day a part of our lives. Obviously, not everyone thinks of volunteering the same way, so [...]

Seriously, we want to help

I wanted to get an idea down so that it’s clear to all the nonprofits we want to work with.
The idea behind GoodCause magazine is to be a guide and connection point for volunteers and donors. It sounds simple, but we do keep in mind that thousands of nonprofits and volunteer-services agencies are trying to [...]