Next week, I have the distinct honor of attending a Stanford Graduate School of Business seminar; Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations.  In preparation for the course we are assigned homework (something I tried not to do that much of in school let alone now that I have a real job), and the homework consists of several books, articles, and case studies all exploring the concepts of strategy and its multiple parts. 

Every New Year I try to leave the country for at least one week. Beyond my general distaste for New Year ’s Eve gatherings in the States, I guess there is something about ringing in the New Year in a new place that makes me feel more hopeful about the state of humanity; more hopeful about the power we have to be change makers in an ever shifting world.

I never imagined equating the interfaith movement with the iphone. . . . Or inter-religious peace-building with the Nike swoosh. But alas, there we were at the Interfaith Youth Work Conference, deep in conversation about what we could learn from our corporate counterparts. I used to believe that all things marketing or advertising were evil and the only thing the corporate world could teach us in the activist world was how not to care about the environment or our employees.