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"What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done well, what gets rewarded gets repeated." John E. Jones

Editor’s Note: It’s hard to be reminded of the Holocaust, especially when I think I was born only seven years after it ended. It’s not like so many things–ancient history. And so I was glad when my daughter-in-law suggested that I read it. Hitler and Himmler and their “human experiment” are not as distant as we’d like to think.

Editor’s Note: I recently saw to my surprise that 71 year old Baez is still performing and very active in rights movements and so I dedicate this, one of her most famous early performances from 1963, as this month’s song.

I’ve written before about my favorite leadership book “On Becoming a Leader” by John Bennis because his primary point in the book is that we are always “becoming” leaders. The same holds true for focusing the foundation I began in 1997. We like to say that we are “twice as good as we were last year but only half as good as we could be next year.” Our first iteration was “serving the poor.” We formed an outreach center, stumbled into a near-downtown Cleveland neighborhood and started our work… rather clumsily, I might add. A few years into it we realized that Northeast Ohio had over 2,500 non-profit organizations. That told us we’d do better to help make existing organizations better instead of building another very average one.

Editor’s Note: Our foundation continuously seeks to narrow its focus, keeping a constant diligence to avoid the natural tendency towards “mission creep.” This case study demonstrates the benefit of being single-mindedly devoted to a focused mission by telling the story of Rural Development Institute. The organization has helped 400 million poor farmers around the world take ownership of some 270 million acres of land – all on a modest budget.

Editor’s Note: I recently began researching PRIs, or Program Related Investments, to gain an understanding of how they create leverage and whether it makes sense for our foundation in some cases to provide low-interest loans instead of grants to our nonprofit partners. The attached, provided to me by the helpful people at Ohio Grant makers Forum, gives a good overview of the features and benefits of using PRIs.

“That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” 

Editor’s Note: Steve Rothschild, former executive vice president of General Mills and founder of Twin Cities RISE!, a nonprofit that works to advance anti-poverty programs, offers a useful case study of the challenges and successes RISE! has experienced, with a view to providing a management guide for other nonprofit leaders to follow. I especially liked the book's honest portrayal of the early difficulties that RISE! faced, especially the process the organization went through to achieve focus, and the steps it took to overcome the natural tendency of most philanthropists to try to do too much too fast.

Editor’s Note: It's hard to believe it’s been over ten years since George Harrison, my favorite Beatle, passed away. Hearing his solo stuff, especially this song, always puts me in a good place.