Did you know that a majority of the refugees from the Middle East live in the region? Lebanon & Jordan host millions of people who have fled war, conflict or other disasters. There are an estimated 1.5 million Syrians in Lebanon, for example. In Pakistan, the story is similar : about three million Afghans reside …
“You can’t do too well if you are creative or very imaginative, in Washington DC,” said the senior member of a Congressional staff who I was meeting in the nation’s capital. This was a few years ago, when I had just finished my Master’s degree and was managing a small nonprofit. I was the …
On a recent trip that I took recently, I turned on the screen on the airplane and watched Before the Flood, a well-made documentary, narrated by Leonardo Di Caprio. The documentary is a summary of what we already know : We are screwed. From a climate-change perspective, we are already well past the stage …
Lessons from crisis management & communication campaigns – Part 1 I just heard from a colleague that entire malls are being shut down and people are stocking up food and supplies, in California. The Coronavirus scare is getting real as the State of California has declared an emergency. For sure, this seems to be a …
The past few weeks have been filled with conferences. I was in Mexico City for a conference organized by CEMLA on remittances in Latin America and a meeting there lead me to another conference in Miami, this time the IMTC conference. Founded by Hugo Cuevas Mohr, the IMTC conferences are where practitioners, bankers and technology …
The recent scandal with Ukraine and Mr.Trump is one of the dozens of ethical (and legal) scandals that we have seen. Scandal after scandal, it seems like the word scandal is losing its steam. However, this one has a new twist : there is a whistleblower involved. The American legacy of whistleblowing goes far back, …
New York Times published this article recently that talked about writing companies offering essays, academic papers and the like, as services to American college students. I have seen examples of this in my own classroom, though have been handicapped in proving that this work is completely written by someone else. This goes to the heart …
I received a report in my mailbox today titled ‘Race to lead’ which deals with the issue of challenges that leaders of color face, in the nonprofit sector, in the U.S. Many of the issues highlighted in the report are quite familiar to me : lack of funding, board of directors not taking you seriously. …
I am teaching a course on Nonprofit Leadership this summer. This is a strange time to be talking about leadership, given that we are witnessing so much chaos around the world and those who are supposed to be ‘leading’ are doing anything but lead. Consider the world of business, which has become the focus of …
I attended the Jumm’ah prayers at the Masjid Al-Taqwa in Altadena. Here is an abridged version of the sermon. The Imam read out a message from a family in the neighborhood. They had left a card as well : “We stand with you on this sorrowful day, we hope you can find some peace.” – …
