The Files
The Madness & Sadness of a Poetic Soul
A raw, introspective poem about identity, existential fear, and the search for authentic spaces of belonging amid life’s controlling forces.
A Dialogue with Ian Shea
Meet Ian Shea, founder of Black Cat Contracting, and learn from his approach to organizational consulting.
Learning from Melissa Segal
Discover insights from Melissa Segal, LCSW and founder of InterHuman Solutions, on mission-driven work, communication, and creating meaningful change.
What Frederick Douglass Understood About Freedom That We Keep Forgetting
Explore what Frederick Douglass understood about true freedom that modern society keeps forgetting—and why his insights matter more than ever today.
Together We Be
A journey through identity, imagination, and interconnectedness—exploring the dance between self and other in shared sacred spaces.
Like a Butterfly
A poem about love, letting go, and the beauty of freedom—watching someone you care about soar like a butterfly through life’s journey.
Re-Evaluating Our Worth As Human Beings
A reflection on worth beyond productivity—AI acceleration, privilege, and identity—ending with a simple question: what do we actually need?
Accountability Over Accuracy — Spaciology Chronicles
A boardroom interruption shifts the room. David chooses repair over being right—and learns how accountability can widen trust.
Space As Home (Part 3): From Heroics To Habitat
The hero’s journey is a beautiful story. It is also a dangerous default. In its modern form, the hero narrative trains us to believe that transformation is a personal achievement accomplished through willpower, certainty, and conquest.
Space as Home (Part 2): Shared Space and the Ethics of Attention
If internal space is the room you live in alone, shared space is the room you co-create with others.
Space as Home (Part 1): Living Inside a Belief System
Beliefs are not only opinions floating in the mind. They are the invisible architecture that shapes what we notice, what we dismiss, what we fear, what we desire, and what we think is possible.
Who Wants To Live Forever?
A contemplative poem exploring mortality, love, and cosmic connection—from witnessing the universe’s end to finding grace in life’s final moments.
Learning from Laura O’Rourke: Grant Readiness and the Art of Sustainable Funding
This is the second in my dialogue series where I sit down with fellow professionals to explore their expertise and learn from their unique perspectives. Today’s conversation is with Laura O’Rourke of Laura O’Rourke Consulting, a fellow member of the Independent Philanthropy Advisor Referral Group (IPAR).
Learning from Seth Klukoff: Strategic Communications That Actually Work
Today’s conversation is with Seth Klukoff of Eoan Strategies, a fellow member of the Independent Philanthropy Advisor Referral Group (IPAR).
Into The Mystic
Voyaging through time and change, “Into the Mystic” captures the wonder, questions, and courage found on our lifelong journey beneath the spinning stars.
The Philosophy of Enough
Discover why mission-driven organizations achieve deeper impact by embracing ‘enough’ rather than chasing endless growth that dilutes mission focus.
The Universe, Kites, and Sadness
This poem reflects on longing, letting go, childhood joy, and searching for meaning—reminding us we are kites, tethered by the universe and human experience.
Why Slowing Down Accelerates Mission Impact
Slowing down gives organizations space to reflect, align with their mission, and focus resources for real impact.
Spaceship Earth
A poetic reflection on life, identity, and the mysteries of existence aboard “Spaceship Earth.” Exploring gravity, feeling, dreaming, and cosmic wonder.
Dust in the Wind
A meditation on reality, perception, and mortality – exploring how thoughts deceive us while we spin through existence until becoming dust in the wind.
The Deeper Story in Mission-Driven Work
Marketing for mission-driven organizations operates in spaces far removed from traditional promotional strategies.
Expanding Connections: Independent Philanthropy Advisor Referral Group (IPAR)
The most successful mission-driven organizations understand a fundamental truth: you don’t have to go it alone.
One-Hit Wonders
A poem that explores what it means to be a “one hit wonder”—inviting readers to reflect on individuality, impermanence, and the shared beauty of fleeting moments.
The Generous Mindset: Making Room Before the Ask
Fundraising isn’t just about the ask—it’s about the space you create for generosity to emerge. When you lead with presence, not pressure, you open the door to authentic giving.
Chasing Space, Finding Self
At the end of our lives, what will we think about? Will we remember those ‘important’ projects at work that diverted our attention from our children as they struggled to get our attention?
Integrated Marketing: Seeing the Big Picture
Marketing often feels like staring at individual stars in the night sky: each campaign, each channel, each tactic burning bright on its own.
Grant Writing as Sacred Space
Think of grant writing not as a transaction, but as creating sacred space—a place where your mission and a funder’s values can meet, connect, and grow together.
Building Trust in Mission-Driven Spaces
The most successful mission-driven organizations understand a fundamental truth: development is not about extracting resources from donors: it’s about creating the conditions for authentic relationships to flourish. When you shift from extraction to cultivation, you stop chasing transactions and start building trust.
A Space-Based Approach to Leadership
Most leadership playbooks still carry old habits: control the plan, predict the future, move fast, and grow at all costs. That mindset can shrink our field of vision and crowd out people, wisdom, and the living world.
The Meaning of Freedom
This past weekend, I had occasion to visit Freedom, NH for their Old Home Week Celebration—an experience that changed my perspective on what it means to be human.
Rethinking Transformation: More Than a Hero’s Tale
For generations, the hero’s journey has shaped how we imagine change. Its arc—departure, ordeal, return—offers a compelling story of individual transformation.
The Sun Will Never Set
A cosmic, philosophical poem exploring identity, existence, and the universe—where dreams, love, and sorrow intertwine across time, space, and the human soul.
The Radical Limits of Prescriptive Approaches
There is a certain comfort in a playbook. Step one, step two, step three: a promise of order in a world that feels increasingly chaotic.
Unstorying the Narratives of Space
What if space isn’t just where things happen—but how? Unstorying reveals how past stories shape us, and how space itself becomes transformation.
Space as Praxis: Making Room for What Matters
Explore how internal, external, and shared space can foster clarity, connection, and transformation—space as a radical act of presence and care.
Finding Beauty in Business
Can business be beautiful? This file explores how meaningful human connection, vulnerability, and purpose can redefine our understanding of business beyond transactions.
Stepping Off the Train: Beyond Right and Wrong
In these divisive times, it feels somewhat comfortable to gravitate toward an existing train of thought. This train goes left, and this one right.
Why Care?
In a fractured world, why care? This file explores the existential and practical value of compassion, connection, and shared human experience.
Gratitude for the Unknown
A meditation on presence, memory, and mystery—where beauty lives not in knowing, but in yielding to the sacred space of the unknown.
Better Governance For Nonprofits
Explore how transformative leadership redefines nonprofit governance, fostering collaboration, innovation, and systemic change for greater impact.
Unstorying the Self
Discover the journey of unstorying the self, exploring how personal narratives shape our identity and the ethical responsibility we hold to others, nature, and the world.
Marketing’s Role in Shaping Self-Perception
Marketing is deeply intertwined with our worldview because it shapes and reflects how we perceive ourselves, others, and the world around us.
Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part III)
To some extent, the hero’s journey reflects and perpetuates a colonizer mindset, leading to the subjugation of entire cultures.
Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part II)
Technology, profit, productivity—these are hallmarks of what is often construed as progress within the Western worldview? Progress for whom?
Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part I)
Floods, wildfires, drought, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution, mass riots, war—this is the world right now in active ecological crisis.
Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part II)
Strategic plans are particularly excellent examples of a process with questionable results, especially if stakeholder collaboration is desired.
Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part I)
In various fields (counseling, education, business, and leadership, etc.), transformation and change are often framed as part of a metaphorical hero’s journey.
To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part III)
If we think in silos, we bring ourselves deeper inside single systems.
To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part II)
What does social purpose mean in the context of my life? How do I apply my belief in a social purpose? How I answer these questions may provide insight into the extent to which I have retained my systemic sensibility.
To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part I)
Is the past really past, and is the future somewhere ahead of us? The realization that past trauma, for instance, has a direct bearing on our mental health lends credence to the notion that yesterday is alive, a consideration that leads to a cybernetic complementarity that the future is equally real today. Can we hold two seemingly disparate ideas?
Wading at the Edges
All my life, I have essentially waded at the edges of the proverbial pools of life–a condition that does not lend itself to transformation, an idea I recently gleaned from Braiding Sweetgrass (2013) by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Successful Fundraising Strategies
Strategic fundraising begins with research—understanding donors’ interests, capacity, and connections to craft tailored approaches that turn insight into impact.
Fundraising Ethics
Effective fundraising and development must include careful consideration of the laws and regulations that govern such activities, which include interactions with donors, staff, and volunteers.
Development In Nonprofits
Effective development requires a substantial amount of input from different kinds of ‘players’ throughout an organization.
Fundraising and Development
Fundraising is more than asking—it’s the start of a relationship. Development builds trust, turning support into shared purpose and philanthropy into culture.
Self-Reflection in Marketing
Marketing is a business domain not only for promoting brands, products, and services but also as a platform for organizational self-reflection, engaging the entire staff in the process.
Best Practices in Organizations
Recently, I had a “conversation” with an individual about next steps related to further developing a nonprofit board. Excited about some of my recent research that touches on new ways to conceptualize the role of nonprofit board development, I indicated that perhaps we could consider new ideas.
Great Pains
A poetic farewell to fractured selves and old myths—where love defies form, memory bends time, and the soul sways like grass in life’s vast, unanswered field.
Small Hands
A surrender to softness and flow—where logic fades, the river speaks, and the heart remembers what the mind cannot hold: that we belong to earth, and to love.
I is Me
A reflection on fear, selfhood, and myth—where the lone hero dissolves, and healing begins in the embrace of the whole, not the chase of the broken self.
Stepping Outside The Shadows Of Myself
Those two boys to my left are my sons when they were much younger and I subscribed to a much different paradigm of life, so different in fact that what I am about to write would have been unthinkable when this photo was taken.
Melody of Self
A meditation on connection and self—where beauty lives in shared feeling, and the song of the self becomes most real when sung in someone else’s embrace.
Chronicle of Dreaming Man
Every morning,
he would row his boat
gently down the stream,
merrily,
thinking life is but a dream.
He was not concerned with how things worked,
but rather how they seem
inside his often broken heart,
Running To Love
Yesterday, I was on a run near a river and actively pondering the experience of love when I had a profound realization about myself that I think is relevant for others. All my life, love has been an experience for me that has felt so utterly massive, so real, that I have run from it. I went out on my run yesterday with the intent to explore why this is the case, and I unexpectedly ran into an answer.
In Plain Sight
As
I lay hiding,
confiding
to no one
and no thing,
the remnants of past selves
bring
me pain
inside the heart
I pretend is my brain
is a boy,
so scared
to share himself
with a world
What is Love?
Exploring the complexities of love, this file questions if love is a feeling, an action, or something deeper.
Soft Feelings
Soft feelings are hard to let go,
especially when they bleed
into dreams
and streams
of consciousness
that meander and flow
into places I do not understand
or know.
Broken people made whole
inside the hole
within the sphere of the heart
of the soul
and liquid dreams,
Motivation
We have all heard it. “If I were you, I would…” Is such a statement meant to motivate, or is it instead a strategy by which we assert our position in life? Is it motivation at all?
Objectives
Interpretation, though, can be dangerous, in business. Isn't this why managers seek to control the variables in any equation? Without measurable objectives, our staff may end up achieving any number of goals, none of which, however, may be the 'right' one. Perhaps,...