The Realist Idealist

My friend Henry recently applied to JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Deutsche Bank for a spot in each of their summer internship programs. Henry was asked back for interviews and successfully made it into the final round with a handful of other applicants at each of the banks. After all of the [...]

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Last year I spent several weeks in Northern Uganda, Rwanda, and Eastern Congo - all bordering each other, and all three having been ravaged by genocide in recent years. In the case of Eastern Congo, the conflict is ongoing. I sent letters and wrote a few short pieces about my time there.
To be [...]

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People can’t read enough about Obama. As such, the media can’t stop writing about him. As such, I feel like I’m reading and thinking about this guy (and this race) all the time. (…I also live smack in the middle of DC, so maybe that’s part of it too.)
When it comes to realistic [...]

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PS: It’s official. Hillary Clinton is throwing in the kitchen sink.
Video: Clinton mocking Obama
You know there are big problems for Clinton when  Frank Rich of the NYT is able to make a relatively convincing argument that Clinton’s campaign draws striking similarities to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Both are defined by arrogance, naivety, [...]

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As I’ve started fundraising for our programs in Rwanda, people have continuously asked me “Well, what is your fundraising strategy?” I desperately want to pull out a glossy and laminated booklet that outlines our diversified set of donors and fundraising approaches, complete with detailed timelines and cute little bar graphs.
Instead, I sigh and say “Well, [...]

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At the end of the day, fundraising is the engine that drives the nonprofit sector. In general, if you’re running any organization - for-profit or non - and you’re not thinking about money, you’re wrong. With the overwhelmingly vast majority of nonprofits, if you’re not thinking about fundraising, you’re wrong.

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I like the idea of taking ideas or terms that people are familiar with and tweaking them for use in the social sector. In the case of this post’s title, I had enough backlash from two friends when I said “pimp” that I almost refrained from writing it. Almost. Maybe there’s something [...]

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You probably won’t be able to request paid time off on March 12, but on Favorday that’s not the point.

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Seems so simple.
There are myriad psychological and sociological studies that more or less prove that smiling greatly increases the amount of time that someone wants to spend with you (or your brand) as well as how attractive they think you are (or your brand is). If someone is spending more time with you, [...]

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As I’ve worked overseas for the better part of the last decade, one of the things I’ve always been disheartened by is the amount of high-potential talent in many countries that is simply too under-nurtured or under-developed to be able to tackle the country’s or local community’s problems.
What is often even more frustrating though is [...]

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