Hi! I want to tell you about something that happened last week that reinforced why I do this work the way I do (and how I accomplish my work as well). A client needed board training. Not the cookie-cutter, here's-your-binder-good-luck variety. Real training, as in: How do we run an annual review process for our executive director? We need to learn how to read financials without glazing over! What's our actual role in fundraising? How do we onboard new members so they don't spend a year...

You probably use the word "stakeholder" dozens of times a week. In proposals, meetings, strategic plans. It feels neutral, professional, standard. It's not. The term comes from literally driving stakes into land to claim it—to forcibly mark indigenous territory as someone else's property. Every time we use it casually in our sector, we're invoking the language of dispossession. I just released a podcast episode with Austen Smith and Julie McFarland diving into why this matters and what to do...

I recently published an article on board succession planning in Community Association Institute's Common Ground magazine's November/December edition. The article was written specifically for homeowners associations and community association boards—the volunteer leaders who govern neighborhoods, condos, and planned communities. But like so many other topics, there is nothing in that article for community association boards that departs from the advice I'd give to nonprofit board members. The...