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Are you interested in a program for nonprofit leaders who are ready to explore their path, energize, envision their next steps, and enhance what they have to offer? Check out our Catalyst for Nonprofit Excellence program. Click here. Deadline for application is July 27.

Our graduates from last year tell us it was a "powerful experience" that helped them clarify their leadership style and the way they engage in their lives. 

Hello from the sunny capital of Alaska – Juneau.

This trip began yesterday in Cordova, which was finally snow free. The Prince William Sound Science Center was celebrating with their dignitary-filled event, the Copper River Nouveau.

From there I arrived in Juneau to visit with a nonprofit about CEO transition, another about a capital project, and a third about their sustainability. I leave tomorrow for Kodiak to meet with the senior staff of a significant organization, then back to Anchorage Monday night to catch a 6:30 AM train to Seward on Tuesday for strategic planning with another board.

The snow is gone!!!! (At least at sea level) And the cruise ships have arrived. Today three boats were in Juneau increasing the population by almost 20%!! On their busiest days they increase by a third! And Skagway over quadruples its population with every boat!!

The smidgen of insight today is that even though the world is moving ever faster and it's hard to slow down, it's summer in Alaska. For our first inhabitants it's time to engage in subsistence activities and ensure survival. For all of those people arriving from Outside on cruise shops, planes, and up the highway in RV's, many bucket lists are getting checked.

In other words, it's summer. We have endured one of the snowiest and coldest winters in years. It's time to slow down and enjoy the amazing place we call home.

So while our day-to-day work is important, so is our life. We need to have enough control over it to make sure we keep all things in balance.

Slow down! Enjoy your summer.

Dennis

Greetings from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where we met with community leaders, did basic finance training and had opportunities to help connect people to resources available to their community.

For people who never leave their western, urban core community, it's hard to understand the sense of community within and the isolation from outside of communities like in Kaktovik. I wish every Alaskan, everybody, could have the experience I feel so fortunate to regularly experience in my job.

That leads to today's smidgen of insight. Life is neither more ideal nor tragic in small communities.

In smaller communities there are a few people engaged enough to make a difference and from time to time those who are engaged have conflicting opinions about what should be done. The only difference is there are 4-8 doers in a place like Kaktovik and in Anchorage there may be 40-50.

When these conflicts turn into major disputes, feelings are hurt. If these conflicts are not eventually resolved, the community suffers, regardless of size.

Maybe the reason we idealize small town life is that in big communities there may be a few more engaged people to make things happen, and more people means more diversity, which can lead to larger conflicts. Urbanites and rural people each misinterpret that urban conflicts are worse; they're not. All unresolved conflict, the inability of the engaged people in any town to compromise, eventually destroys the community.

So today's smidgen of insight is that diverse opinions from engaged people are the fabric of community. But for community to survive, those people must eventually compromise.

Community cannot be sustained with ongoing conflict but the lack of conflict can be an equal dilemma. Because if there is no conflict, the community has become overly controlled by one viewpoint. Dictatorships can on the surface seem peaceful, but as long as those communities have people, eventually there will be conflict.

I guess the point is that life is never easy because for us to successfully live together in community we cannot avoid conflict, nor can we tolerate too much conflict for too long.

Compromise is the answer.

Dennis

Any savvy Alaska Airlines traveler knows where I am today, over Mount Rainier. I am on the way to the East Coast. This is the time of year Foraker visits our nation's capital to meet with our delegation's staffs and discuss what is new in the nonprofit sector.

This trip we'll discuss the new reality about capital campaigns and how so many organizations have called to discuss potential strategic alliances. We will also report on the increasing number of nonprofits in Alaska that are experiencing funding issues. And how almost every nonprofit we are with nowadays is concerned about recruiting and keeping the right directors on the board.

For all those familiar with the trends we predicted eighteen months ago, these issues should sound familiar.

The smidgen of insight today is that even though we have tried to prepare the sector for the inevitable, human nature seems to make it hard to accept troubling messages. We deny these messages are about us; personally. Maybe that's why even though we know to watch what we eat and drink, and know to do some kind of regular exercise, too many wait until we are sick to internalize the message.

That is how I feel about my inability to prevent, or reduce the pain I am certain many now feel about their nonprofit.

If anyone has a suggestion about how we can communicate our message in a way that wakes people up to the new realities before they are in pain, we would love to learn from you.

Dennis