Tag: Nonprofit

ARC, Books, Professional Development

Book 392: Simple Giving – Jennifer Iacovelli

Geoff W

When I read Doing Good Better, I was looking for this. That isn’t a knock on Doing Good Better, it’s a kudos to Simple Giving and Jennifer Iacovelli. And I guess that’s an even bigger kudos to Tarcher/Penguin for sending me a copy because I would never have found sought it out, even though philanthropy is what I do for a living.* Simple Giving comes out next week October 27, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Where Iacovelli succeeds in the breadth of which she covers in this rather short book. She talks about individual and crowd sourced philanthropy, she talks about volunteering and socially conscious purchases and businesses and she spends time talking about how you can engage even the youngest of philanthropists in volunteering their time.

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ARC, Books, Professional Development

Book 380: Doing Good Better – William MacAskill

Geoff W

I’m torn on this one and not for any obvious reasons. I think MacAskill does an excellent job laying out the foundations of “effective altruism” and I think this is something fundraisers and nonprofits need to be aware of for the future. However, I feel like there wasn’t enough to convince me 100% that this is the best way to move forward, probably because I had questions about MacAskill’s own nonprofits and experience.

Let’s start with the good. MacAskill has created a solid evidence-based way of helping alleviate some of the world’s biggest problems. Learning what a Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY, pronounced kwalee) challenged my perception of how to rate a nonprofit, but more importantly raised questions about whether things should be comparable when you’re talking about life-saving research. The answer is yes, with a bunch of caveats.

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Culture Corner

Boston Book Festival, Part II: My Workshop

Geoff W

“I am laughing to myself. I just got off the phone with my sister and as usual she brought up something from high school, Remember that time we stole a fire hydrant? What ever happened to it? Just asking that question sends both of us into a fit of giggles….”

And so begins my ‘short story’ that I wrote during my Jumpstart Your Writing workshop at the 2011 Boston Book Festival. (Don’t worry you can read the rest at the end of this post in blue, but it’s definitely not the whole story or even a well written story – I only had eight minutes to write!)

As you read in Part 1, I had a great time at the panels, but I think the coolest thing I did (aside from spending too much money on books) was to step out of my comfort zone and take a writing workshop. The workshop was an hour-long and provided for free by Grub Street, one of the largest independent centers for creative writing in the US (and it’s a nonprofit). The description read,

You’ve spent the day hearing great authors read from their work–now it’s your turn to create some of your own. Join Grub Street for an hour of innovative and inspiring prompts that will get you brainstorming ideas for new stories and scenes. The focus will be on creating memorable characters and settings, inventing plots, and improving dialogue. This session is designed for people interested in writing fiction and non-fiction, but poets will also benefit from the challenge.

The workshop was really interesting. I took Section B with Grace Talusan, who was great! We started out with a bit of an overview and then jumped right into the writing activity. It was four basic steps and it was brilliant and just forced you to write regardless of what it was you were writing. My notes are to the left and below.

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Updates

July 2011 Update

Geoff W

It has been seven days since my last post.

Since that last post I have attended a warehouse sale at Harvard Bookstore (mentioned in my last update) where I picked up six books, and picked up four additional books at the biggest Goodwill I’ve seen on our way home from Maine this past weekend!

In addition to this, I’ve read three additional books and started a fourth.  Books/Posts 19-21 will appear hopefully this week and 22 will appear early next week assuming I finish it sometime soon.  And they will be:

I don’t feel too guilty as I supported a local bookstore, a great nonprofit and picked up five books on my list (bolded below), and five I’ve either heard about or thought sounded fascinating, including a book by Paulo Coelho who I’m interested in reading more of since I read The Alchemist.  The books I picked up are:

And here is a picture.
 This is my Tom, my boyfriend.  He won’t be too happy about the picture, but I like the picture (and I asked first).  Not to mention I was trying to sneakily take the picture and failed miserably.

Most of the time when I say we, I mean Tom and I.  He’s not the biggest fan of reading, but he’s starting to realize how AWESOME books are. 😀  In the picture he’s finishing Mockingjay of the Hunger Games trilogy on my eReader (which he didn’t want to give back).

I know I drive him nuts by reading as much as I do (like not paying attention to him on long car rides or not noticing he’s at the airport to pick me up because it’s a critical moment in the novel :-D), but I’m slowly chipping away at his ‘non-reader’ status.  He will be happy to see that his orange obsession (the flip-flops) and Dexter (the leg and tail in the lower right) stayed in the picture.

And on that note – I’m signing off to start writing my backlogged posts.  I’ve almost surpassed last year’s posts and have plans to keep moving forward so that’s a definite plus.  If only I’d keep to my demand of not starting a new novel until I’ve posted the last…  Now to keep up the momentum…

Books, Professional Development

Book 39: Outward Bound USA: Crew Not Passengers – Josh Miner and Joe Boldt

Geoff W

“I was suddenly aware of how ignorant I was, alive with curiosity, doing academic work at a level I would not have thought possible a few years before. I did not know it yet, but I was learning the basic educational fact of life: the answers are meaningless until the questions are asked.” (17)

This quote pretty much sums up my review of this book and my beliefs in the need to be challenged in education and the push/drive for excellence. Not only was I pleasantly surprised by this book, I learned a lot more about the history of Outward Bound USA and its intricate ties to experiential education in the United States. Now this might seem like a bit of a contradiction with a title like Outward Bound USA: Crew Not Passengers, but I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. The book sat on the bookshelf in my cubicle the entire time I’ve been at my current position and one day I decided I should read it and not only did it reaffirm my decisions to work where I work, but it also further informed my belief that classroom learning is important, but it’s what you do outside of the classroom in relation that’s just as important.

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