Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power (cover page for 157 page PDF) is the report of a U.K. government agency charged with identifying means of pushing power down to the community level. It's recommendations - intended for both government and citizens - are framed in terms of U.K. structures, but are applicable to the U.S. and other countries as well. For example, the idea that there could (and should) be an "obligation to respond" to petitions by the government entities at which their directed, could move petitions from being a list-building tool used by fundraising organizations to a legitimate form of public input.

Leadership and its recognition are critical elements of civil society and social change. There are two related ways in which mainstream media and culture treat leaders that disappoint and concern me. The first is the way in which robber barons who, in their later years, turn some of their attention to civil society, are accorded enormously more recognition than those who have devoted their lives to it. The second is the way in which truly world-changing leaders are accorded positive attention only after they have in some way accommodated traditional ruling interests. In her article on Invoking the Memory of Mandela the Freedom Fighter, Fazila Farouk honors the great man, as he was before he was accorded the respect of mainstream culture. I invite you to read this and then turn your attention to honoring those who are doing now what Mandela did then.

Although I get a little frustrated with Biznik's cliched promotional copy, with references to the "secrets" of this or that, they are nevertheless slowly becoming a good source of content for small scale entrepreneurs. Christopher Johnson's recent advice on 10 Tips for Naming Your Company, Product, or Service is entirely applicable to nonprofit circumstances. In short, his ten tips are: (1) Quantity and diversity yield quality. (2) Selection is as important as creation. (3) Try different types of name. (4) Use collective intelligence. (5) Use linguistic resources. (6) Do exercises to explore connections to relevant concepts. (7) Pictures are important, even when you’re just thinking of words. (8) To avoid embarrassment in other languages, ask the experts. (9) Forget etymology. (10) Know when to let go.

Jan Masaoka's latest Blue Avocado article is on the topic of Boards of All-Volunteer Organizations. I've been involved in a number of these myself, as I suspect have many of you. I've also endured the challenge of trying to shepherd such organizations into being staffed, when the opportunity for dramatic growth has presented itself. No easy task. The "family feel" of all-volunteer organizations is both a great asset and a serious burden. As usual, Jan has realistic advice to offer.

I'm teaching a workshop next week about online social networks and have been fascinated by the way in which many nonprofits treat them as just another distribution channel. I think this is a recipe for failure. In my short article entitled Online Social Networks Are Not Mailing Lists I explain why I think this is true.

As we've invested our efforts in scaling up our seminar catalog, we haven't made a lot of changes to our available publications. That will start changing soon. First, we're going to continue to roll out our existing publications in hard copy form, especially where such a form is very practical, as with our hands-on Quick Guides. I've become more and more convinced that scaling up listening is the key to nonprofit success online, and so I'm happy to announce that, in addition to the existing PDF, the "Are You Listening?" Quick Guide is now available in paperback.

Much has been made in recent years about the notion of "theories of change" in the context of strategic planning and evaluation. I thoroughly approve of this trend. But unfortunately, many so-called theories of change - that I read in plans or proposals - are quick and dirty causal models that often lack a larger theoretical context. The larger context really matters and that thrown together model hides deep assumptions that would be better off revealed. You can help reveal them by reading Doug Reeler's A Theory of Social Change and Implications for Practice, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (35 page PDF). He examines three different views on how change happens: the Emergent Change model, which sees change as a result of day-to-day patterns of unfolding; the Transformative Change model, in which change comes about as a result of crisis and unlearning; and the Projectable Change model, in which change is a result of plans. His key contribution is his look at the relationships between these models and how they affect leadership, our ability to read change, planning & evaluation, and donor practice.

The international human rights organization Witness has released a Video for Change Training Guide, which is in large part available online, free of charge. (As usual, I think diverse formats can complement each other, so I recommend the hard copy as well.) The chapter titles reveal a lot about what this guide has to offer: (1) Using Video for Advocacy. (2) Safety and Security. (3) Storytelling for Advocacy. (4) Video Production. (5) Editing for Advocacy. (6) Video as Evidence. (7) Strategic Distribution. The Video Action Plan that they include with the guide - a questionnaire that assists with the strategic planning of a video project - is a fabulous resource all on its own, and is also tightly tied to the rest of their content. Fantastic work!

We all want more traffic on our websites and there are plenty of people out there willing to sell it to us. Although the organizations that are most vulnerable to being conned are those who themselves are looking for some kind of shortcut, it still pains me whenever I learn of another nonprofit spending its money on Search Engine Optimization fraud. In Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, a number of consultants and engineers explain what's going on and how not to get cheated.

"No-Ask Fundraising" - what a great phrase. (And I thought "Frictionless Fundraising" was a great brand.) In my ongoing quest to open people's eyes to the power of real cultivation, I want to recommend Gail Perry's article on this topic, subtitled Six High-Impact Jobs for Board Members. It's amazing how rarely these straightforward ideas are implemented: (1) Make Friends for the Cause. (2) Identify Your Organization's VIP Friends. (3) Open the Door with Advice Visits. (4) Gather Friends with Small Socials. (5) Become a Tour Guide—And Show How We Change the World. (6) Acknowledge Donors' Generosity.

From over 40 research studies on organizational change, we learn that the success rate of corporate change programs is 33%. In thousands of quietly furstrated conversations, the change agents are blaming people. If you are as tired as I am of how the conversation about change (particularly technological change) in organizations is framed, I recommend Michael Kanazawa's online pamphlet People Don't Hate Change, They Hate How You're Trying to Change Them (available as a 13 page PDF designed for the screen). One of his closing remarks captures the consulting philosophy I've followed for over twenty years: "If you believe that people thrive on change and that your job is to unleash it, you will tap into a limitless source of ingenuity, energy and drive that will allow you to consistently take your big ideas into big results."

Email outreach is the core of online marketing for most nonprofit organizations and email newsletters are in turn the core of that outreach. So, I'm pleased to announce one of our two-part, hands-on workshops: Email Newsletter Reinvention & Improvement, to be held on Wednesdays, August 20 and 27, 2008. We help you to fix your newsletter's most damaging mistakes, to build on your newsletter's greatest strengths, and more. As always, we strike a balance between long term and short term plans, strategic and tactical thinking.

First Monday is out and I'll resist linking to every article in this edition. Today, I'll just point to this one, by Linda Jean Kenix: The Internet as a Tool For Democracy? A Survey of Non-Profit Internet Decision-Makers and Web Users. The author asked a number of interesting questions about both behavior and opinion of nearly 700 people from mostly small nonprofit organizations. In particular, she focused on the creators of online content for the organizations, with an interest in six practices: promoting a cause, interacting with members, reaching potential donors, providing information, gathering information, and general interconnectedness. Definitely worth exploring.

Melissa Brown has prepared an excellent summary of those results of the Giving USA Survey that relate most to The State of Fundraising On-line. If you find it useful to compare your organization to others, you'll find this very handy.

If you've tried to speak out in a mall, through signs or leaflets perhaps, then you know that free speech doesn't exist in private spaces, no matter how public they may appear. More and more of our public commons are in essence being subject to the same enclosures that drove people and their farm animals off of shared pastures during the industrial revolution. And as much as we may feel that there is more free speech online than off, in most of the large online services, this is not so true. In the newswire article entitled Rights Like Free Speech Don't Always Extend Online, we get a vivid sense of just how much like a mall many online forums actually are.

We continue to expand our catalog of on demand seminars. The latest addition is The Golden Goose: Building Trust Online with Donors, Activists, and the Media. In many ways, trust is the currency of civil society and new media creates profound opportunities to both build and lose the trust of our key stakeholders. This is a cross cutting workshop that deals with the basics of earning and keeping trust, and how to apply those basics across a variety of online media. As always, we offer both immediately applicable tactics and strategic insight that will bear fruit for a long time.

Ashoka, an organization that has supported social innovation for years, is actively soliciting nominations for Senior Fellows. Their selection criteria are: Innovative Ideas, Creativity, Entrepreneurial Quality, Social Impact, and Ethical Fiber. Take a look at the sort of people who are Ashoka Fellows and consider who you might be able to propose.

Strategic assessments of entire movements are challenging, but essential. The War Resistors League's Special Report Assessing the Antiwar Movement asks critical questions: What is lacking in the peace and antiwar movement? What prevents the emergence of a stronger, more coordinated, more strategic movement? What are the biggest openings and opportunities for organizing today? How do we build a more multiracial and cross-class antiwar movement? What roles can veterans, soldiers and military families play in ending war? What is the relevance of nonviolence today? How do we link peace and justice issues and build alliances? What does base-building look like in antiwar organizing?

Even the most disciplined strategists can get sucked into abandoning capacity and movement building when they get caught up in the insidious hope of a heroic narrative. Johann Hari critiques this phenomenon in Our Infantile Search for Heroic Leaders. He overstates at times to make his point, but it's a critical point to make.

There are some types of training that have benefits far outside their typical domain. In Nine Ways Nonviolent Action Workshops Make Better Activists, Philippe Duhamel describes one example of this. His nine impacts are: (1) Building trust. (2) Examining consequences. (3) Rehearsing tactics. (4) Practicing media skills. (5) Reducing fear. (6) Agreeing to common guidelines. (7) Allowing different roles. (8) Addressing diversity and raise self-awareness. (9) Promoting resilience.