If I had a dime for every time I saw “storytelling” mentioned in a nonprofit context, I would be staycationing this summer with a white wine lawn fountain and drone-delivered truffles, and my favorite nonprofits would be returning their PPP money like Shake Shack. Suffice to say, storytelling is a common (and important) topic whenContinue reading “A story makes meaning.”
Category Archives: Adult learning
The Producer Role: Ensuring Online Success
Imagine an in-person workshop. The speaker is setting up materials in the front of the room, organizing her props, and making sure she has her crisp opening ready to draw people into what she is planning to teach them. In the back of the room, a trusted partner is welcoming people, getting them a nameContinue reading “The Producer Role: Ensuring Online Success”
What is instructional design?
Margaret Schulte and I explain instructional design in our new e-book “How to Design for Action.” We define the term in the introduction, which I share here. Since publishing the book, I turned those dress shirts into an awesome tote bag. Maybe time to re-sort the bins! My university-age daughter needed bins to transport herContinue reading “What is instructional design?”
Push less dirt, Lift more rocks
Two years ago, my family bought land north of the city. Laboring with hand tools quickly proved futile, so we acquired a tractor. The tractor’s job is to push dirt around to flatten the land for a future orchard. The challenge is that the dirt is filled with large rocks, glacial erratic boulders to be precise, so it is hard to push that dirt around. It would be a lot easier if we could grab the boulders from above and pull them up and out of the dirt.
Five Years Later: Lessons from FUN
Finance Unlocked for Nonprofits (FUN) launched five years ago this week at the Washington State Nonprofit Conference. We shared the five buckets of basic nonprofit knowledge every board members should know: how to read a Balance sheet and Income statement, the IRS Form 990, Giving, and Oversight. The buckets spell BINGO, and yes—we played. FUNContinue reading “Five Years Later: Lessons from FUN”
Lessons from Mary Poppins
We remember the songs from Mary Poppins, but not from its sequel. Why? There is a good reason.
Grains of Learning in a Mayo Jar of Time
It would be hard to imagine a more ridiculous purchase. Straight out of a trainer tools magazine, a $39.95 mayonnaise jar complete with golf balls, pebbles and sand. The prop was designed to demonstrate time management. I couldn’t toss the catalog into the recycle bin fast enough. And yet a mere two hours later, ourContinue reading “Grains of Learning in a Mayo Jar of Time”
Let’s Play Learning Strategy Mix-and-Match!
The waning days of summer are upon us. The clouds have rolled in, and the smoke has cleared. For those of us in the Pacific Northwest, there’s comfort in donning fleece and staying inside while the rains freshen the air. One of the highlights of my summer was working with two groups developing a learningContinue reading “Let’s Play Learning Strategy Mix-and-Match!”
Project Runway: A Lesson in Adult Learning
Binge watching reality television provides a lot of time between the drama to think about learning. Such was the case when my daughter and I watched a season of Project Runway over the course of two weeks. It was my first deep dive into the world of high fashion design and catty criticisms about whetherContinue reading “Project Runway: A Lesson in Adult Learning”