Writing tips from Dilbert

I never imagined that I would be quoting the Dilbert blog but when you find a useful source of information sometimes you just need to go with it. Many foundation staff members spend a lot of time writing and anything that clears through the clutter of nonprofit and foundation writing sounds like a godsend to me.

The Day You Became A Better Writer

I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in “business writing.” I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.

Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it.

Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.

Humor writing is a lot like business writing. It needs to be simple. The main difference is in the choice of words. For humor, don’t say “drink” when you can say “swill.”

Your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Go back and read my first sentence to this post. I rewrote it a dozen times. It makes you curious. That’s the key.

Write short sentences. Avoid putting multiple thoughts in one sentence. Readers aren’t as smart as you’d think.

Learn how brains organize ideas. Readers comprehend “the boy hit the ball” quicker than “the ball was hit by the boy.” Both sentences mean the same, but it’s easier to imagine the object (the boy) before the action (the hitting). All brains work that way. (Notice I didn’t say, “That is the way all brains work”?)

That’s it. You just learned 80% of the rules of good writing. You’re welcome.

How EPIP saved my philanthropic career, even before I had one

I found EPIP about a month before I started my 1st foundation job. I was doing web searches to find out as much as I could about the foundation world before I started my job as a program officer. The web is a large place but there is very, very little when it comes to how to do the work of grantmaking. I stumbled across the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) website and was so excited because it was a great centralized resource. It was there that I found out about GrantCraft, the Council on Foundations Affinity groups, and the Grantmaking School, which have all been fantastic resources in my 1st year and a half of grantmaking. We didn't have a local EPIP chapter in Minnesota so we started a local affiliate. This has been a great professional network of people that are new to philanthropy as well but are an amazing resource on almost anything that I need to know about philanthropy, from how to handle the politics of grantmaking, to technical assistance on foundation tools, to how to get the most out of professional development opportunities. If you have an EPIP chapter in your community, join and see the benefits right away. If there isn't a local chapter in your community, start one and you'll be amazed at how EPIP will impact your career.

Gates' Thoughts on Complexity as a barrier to solving social problems

Bill Gates recently gave the commencement speech at Harvard. On Philanthropy did a great summary of this. Gates made an interesting point about complexity that I think is very applicable to our work at Foundations.

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity…Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers any time an organization or individual asks “How can I help?” than we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares – and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

He went on to recommend a four-point plan for addressing a complex problem: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and, until that discovery, make the smartest application of the technology you do have. He used the AIDS epidemic as an example, the goal being, of course, to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention, the ideal technology a single dose vaccine that gives lifetime immunity. Until that vaccine is discovered, however, the best prevention approach is to get people to avoid risky behavior.

The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.

How often does the big idea get lost in the details of the work that we do with nonprofits?

Insider's Tip for Getting a Philanthropy Job

I have gotten lots of questions from people about how to get a job in philanthropy. I wish there was a secret that I could share but it is really about who you know and how you are able to showcase your skills and talents. I just read a great article from ask the headhunter about why insiders get hired and more importantly, how to make yourself an insider. Hope its helpful!

Why Insiders Get Hired -- And You Don't

By James Frye

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Today it's easy for job hunters to use the Internet to track down managers by name and to submit resumes to them directly. But this trick isn't so clever. Managers see names they don't recognize and ignore their e-mail as spam. Given a choice, managers still tend to hire candidates referred to them by people they know and trust. They can still distinguish applicants who have an inside referral from those who do not. Using the Internet to be clever isn't nearly as effective as using it to be smart -- to actually meet those trusted insiders that managers turn to when they want to fill a job.

Don't waste your job-hunting time sending your resume "blind" into a company. Don't try to be clever by sending it to a "name" if that name doesn't know you. If you want to get hired, first get referred by someone the manager trusts.

My applicant filter
When I've been in management positions, I've preferred to interview and hire people through my trusted network of friends and professional contacts. If I get unsolicited e-mail that cannot cite the path the person took to get my name, it's almost guaranteed to end up in the trash. You may think that's foolish on my part. After all, you're a great employee -- right? -- and I should be happy to have you!

The reality is that in the same week I get an e-mail from a stranger, I'm probably going to get a couple of e-mails from a FOAF (friend-of-a-friend). These are all known entities to me. I know how the person got my name. I know that if the friend gave out my contact info, the friend also did at least a nominal screening, since my friends don't just dish leads for fun. I know that I can follow up with my friend to get information on the applicant (although many times, a friend has contacted me first to ask permission or even to promote the candidate).

The simple fact that the candidate has passed these barriers has eliminated many questions. The candidates I talk to have been filtered. This saves me time and increases my chances of hiring a great worker.

Meanwhile, the unsolicited candidate is a huge unknown. The candidate thinks pulling stuff off my company's website exhibits research; I probably recognize it as a minimal cut-and-paste effort since a dozen others have tried this already. I know that no truly inside information is being exhibited in the letter. I suspect that I'm merely just another name on a massive mailing list, and I'll react the same way I do with all my junk mail -- I'll use it to feed the recycling bin.

You may call it reckless and stupid since I may be turning down a good candidate. I call it using my time well, since I know I have other options that have higher odds of payoff.


Become a real insider
Since my first job, I've built up a network of business contacts. The likelihood of a random applicant getting an interview decreased as my network got bigger. I have always hired (when in a hiring role) through personal referrals. Pulling a couple of sound bites off a web page and thinking it is research is not going to work better than getting referred to me by someone I know and trust.

If you are surfing the web for contact names so you can get to the manager, don't just send a resume to a name you found. Instead, use the phone to get hold of those managers and ask for an informational interview. Or, find people who know the manager. Talk to them first. Help them vet you, so they'll want to refer you to their friend the manager. (Even big cities seem to have a small-town feel to them once you start making connections.) Ask everyone you know if they know a person at the company you have targeted. If they don't, ask them if they know someone who might.

Give your contacts some credible reasons to see you as an insider, which will improve your odds of having someone pay attention to your application. Send it blind, and you'll be waiting a while.

The Great Generational Divide or the Cross-Generational Solution to Work Satisfaction?

I have been in what some people would call a “generational rock and a hard place” for the last few months. I am a young person in the foundation field and one of my passions is helping young people learn how to advance in the philanthropic sector but one of my professional duties at the foundation is managing a project on older adult civic engagement. A big piece of this project is figuring out how to keep baby boomers in my community engaged as they begin to retire or change careers. Talk about competing priorities. On one hand I know how important it is to keep baby boomers engaged, on the other hand I am hearing from young people on a daily basis that they can’t advance because baby boomers won’t leave the philanthropic sector and make room for young people to advance. I have finally realized that this isn’t an “either, or” proposition. Baby boomers at foundations and in the nonprofit sector as a whole have great expertise that they contribute to the field but they have created positions for themselves where they work 80 hours a week and refuse to take vacation (or sick days for that matter), with the idea that “this whole place would fall apart without me”. Young people want more responsibility but would also like to have a life outside of their job. There are lots of explanations for why this is but one of the most probable that I have heard is that Gen X was raised as latchkey kids and saw the family sacrifices that their parents had to make to slowly climb the career ladder. They also saw their parents lose their pensions in mass layoff and Enron scandals, so they know that the old paradigm of work hard for the same company for 40 years and retire is no longer realistic.

What if a new way of working was created that still kept baby boomers engaged but allowed them to reduce the number of hours that they work so that they could keep health benefits and stay involved in a career that they love? What if this same new way of work allowed Gen X the flexibility to spend time with their families or take on a second job (to pay down the massive student loan debt that so many have)? If we started thinking of the program officer position (of any other foundation or nonprofit staff member for that matter) as a collection of tasks that can be completed by one or many people depending on the time available for each worker. How much more effective would a foundation be if instead of one program officer, they now had three sharing that same 80 hour a week position? The foundation would now have 3 times as many connections in the community, 3 diverse perspectives on how to solve social problems, and 3 great ambassadors for the foundation’s work.

What refinements (or significant changes) do you think are needed to create a foundation workplace that is supportive for multiple generations?

Question- How would you invest the resources of a foundation?

If you had $1 million in foundation resources to invest in a community problem or opportunity, where woud you put that money and why?