Blog
Happy Fabulous Five, Spark!
Today marks five years since I launched Spark Consulting. As I look back on the past five years, I have much to be grateful for. Leading that list is all the people who’ve contributed to…
Read More →Q&A on D&I
Did you miss the July 12 webinar my Include Is a Verb co-author Sherry Marts and I presented for the Wild Apricot Experts series on living your talk on D+I? Never fear! The recording is now available:…
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Membership 101: The Welcome Series
When last we left the Membership 101 series, you had just gotten a new member and were busy finding out why she joined so you could focus your marketing and communications efforts around those 2-3…
Read More →Moving From Talk to Action on Diversity and Inclusion
Does your organization have a compelling statement on diversity and inclusion that doesn’t seem to be reflected in your day to day operations? Don’t worry – lots of organizations face the same challenge. Join Sherry…
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Membership 101: Why Did They Join?
My last membership 101 blog post addressed the question: how do I know when it’s time to ask a prospect to join my association? The answer was: by studying your data. Data can tell you when…
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Walking Your Talk on D+I
For those of us who are “on the bus” on the value of genuine diversity and inclusion, this is the crux of the matter: how do we effectively walk our talk on D+I? We have…
Read More →Why Do Our D+I Efforts Fall Short?
Our D+I efforts fail for a number of reasons: Beautiful statements and a handful of ghettoized programs don’t fundamentally change behavior. We create “goals” that are not actionable and have no measures attached. Every single…
Read More →What Makes the Association D+I Environment Unique?
In short, relationships. Most of the focus on diversity and inclusion in the for-profit world is on staff and, to a lesser degree, boards of directors (which, of course, only some for-profit companies have). The…
Read More →Key Concepts in Diversity and Inclusion
As Joe Gerstandt points out in his sidebar in Include Is a Verb: Moving from Talk to Action on Diversity and Inclusion, clarity is key. We need a shared and widely understood vocabulary of “concise, clear, actionable…
Read More →Include Is a Verb
Associations know the research that the Millennial generation that is rapidly becoming the majority of our workforce and membership base is the most diverse generation we’ve ever had in the US – and that the…
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