Reflection Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 23

Reflection Paper - Essay Example oss such situations where irrespective of being apparent that a person did good to others, sans caring about personal well being, people did find a strong need to imbue such an act with selfish motives. In that context Robert Trivers’ concept of reciprocal altruism is of immense importance. Many individuals do believe that Triver by ascribing the notion of reciprocal to a noble notion like altruism does divest it of its inherent goodness and nobility. However, I think that even if we ascribe to the idea that people do altruistic activities to avail the benefits of reciprocity from the subjects they benefit, it still does prove one important fact that overall the human conscience and its genetic makeup is born to be good. It is a fact that people many a times act in ways that tend to benefit other people. However, the cynics believe that they do so to get something in return. At the least people engage in goodness and altruism to get the benefit of believing that they did something selfless for others. Thereby, in a cynical context, the moral satisfaction of doing an altruistic act qualifies to be a cause of selfish personal aggrandizement. This readily turns the idea of altruism to be opened to evolutionary ideas and explanations. Trivers in his article talks about the theories of kin selection and reciprocal altruism to convey that they emotional makeup and thereby the underlying genetic framework of humans so designed to be altruistic with the idea of benefiting from it at some other time. The crux of Trivers’ theory is that evolution does happen to favor such individuals that sacrifice their personal well being to do well to others with the intention of accruing a favor at a later stage. T he theory of reciprocal altruism did explain one important evolutionary enigma as to how do the organisms that sacrifice their personal well being, life and the ability to reproduce for the sake of others happen to evince evolution. It is quite understandable to consider

Public and social issues Essay Example for Free

Public and social issues Essay Slowly there was huge controversy regarding the manner in which domain names were allocated and provided registration by the NSI. There was a huge increase in the trademark disputes especially in the . com TLD domain. The IANA had no concern for legal issues over the domain name allocations. Hence, many nations including the US had concern over the allocation of domain names over the internet . In 1997, the management of several generic TLD’s were handed over to the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC). The organisation helped in framing 7 new generic TLD’s and ensuring greater amount of healthy competition in the second level domain names . The NSI and the IANA were together concerned with the development of a set of rules and regulations for the assignment of domain names. They developed a corporation that would have jurisdiction for the assignment of domain names throughout the world. This organisation (ICANN) also helped in the development of rules and regulations for the internet domain names. The US DOC also played a major role in the development of the ICANN. The final version of the bylaws by the ICANN was released on October 2, 1998, and released by the DOC. On November 1998, the ICANN and the DOC decidedly to jointly design rules, regulations, mechanisms and methods to ensure Domain name functions. The DOC and other organisations were interested in bringing about better competition and ensuring stability. The role of the US government was slowly being transferred to the ICANN. The NSI also changed its name to Verisign. It was concerned with developing a shared registration system and provides services under the generic TLD’s such as . com, . net, etc. Verisign has to sell certain number of registers in order to have authority of the . com register in 2001. However, some of the registries of Verisign and ICANN still are shared from May 2001. Verisign would operate various registries such as the . org registry till 2002, the . net registry till 2005, the . com registry till 2007. The ICANN has allocated the . org registry from 2002 to 2008 to Public Internet Registry and Verisign for the . net registry from 2005 to 2011 . The domain name has turned out to be a huge business model for several companies. The ads-per-click policy, which would ensure that advertisements placed in the domain name would make more money than the domain itself, would ensure that the domain is continued. On the other hand, if the cost of the domain is more than the advertisements, then the domain is ceased for the next year. There is also a five-day grace period (following registration), which ensures that anybody who has registered a wrong domain can go back and correct his/her mistake. Today, domain names are created and dropped at a very fast rate, and hence, people are in huge confusions. This is happening at a very fast rate, even faster than the rate trademarks are picked up and dropped. To ensure certain amount of control at the rate at which the domain names are picked up and dropped, the ICANN is monitoring several registries. It has given certain number of its registries to companies that can sell out domain name. Such companies are known as ‘registrars’, and they would usually be working on the . com and . net TLD. However, the ICANN has introduced a 5 day window period, which would allow the registering body to make changes or take back the domain name registration within a period of 5 days. The ICANN can also recommend the owner to make modify or even remove certain domain names registered during the window period. This would ensure that any illegal activities or potentially abuse over the internet can be prevented. At the same time, healthy competition can be encouraged over the internet . Since January 003, there has been a shift in the management of the . org TLD from Verisign to the Public Internet Registry, which is an organisation created in 2002 keeping the public internet in mind . During the mid-1990’s, the US government decided to shift several infrastructure and governance that the US government and the military had over the internet over to private bodies. The government felt that the main reason for implementing such policies were because the industry themselves can specialise in creating effective policies and ensure development and advancement through regulations and policies framed over internet. The US government also tried to install several institutional controls means to ensure that the private bodies that had certain governance over the internet. Several organisations such as the ICANN and the IAHC also felt that the international involvement was very important in developing a domain name policy.

Rap :: essays research papers

Tha Century / 100 Bars Deep Now This's Gonna Be Sticky.... I shapeshift monotonous mockeries into a metamorphisis of melodic monogamy... Im more morbid audibly, smear your extremities with catatonic embalment fluid.. Smoke you for the toxin release! My words constrict airholes until all oxygen is ceased... Kids is tryin to elevate they point of views by studying topography?! Ha! You god-awful emcees.... Watch true suns set across the horizon of your premises... I shadowbox with the reflection of an extra-terrestrial nemesis, to sharpen my depth perception! Intense ressurections of mental sections, to ascend beyond eleven tenths of perfection... I was born when the clock was confused and twelve fell into thirteen... From dusk to dawn my embryo's vitality radiated a pulsing kinetic energy... I disperse beams! 360 degrees of devastation, and six degrees of seperation.. Equals 60 emcees thats gon die from each gamma ray salivation... I still see 20/20 with a cycloptic chromosome, so all mimes manipulated by psionic overtones.. Are overthrown from the underworld overture, over your vocal tone... Undulation, running flows over oval opal stones! Spitting sinister cyclones! If your real or not, its your plot, life behind a twisted doorlock...Amongst wizardous warlocks! Wither in sweltering weather... Swelling cerebellums in cellars, swirling in pools of clorox! Potions pour from my incisors, and inject adrenalin inside words.. In sin curves and blind blurs, reminders of pioneers and rectangularly erected pine boards... The riddle was solved whence it was exposed for its awfulness... I dreamed of an eon long apocolypse, only to wake up and find i was revolving in it... Once i shed my body, its residue will vaporize into cumulonimbus stormclouds... While i study obelist physics, and calculate diabolical arithmetics... Im sicker then cancer victims spittin up tumorous appendiges, then lighting a cigarette.. My aesthetics are acrobatic, the accepted eclectic with savage epileptic habits.. I feed your asses mass laxatives, as to extract gastric acids when the gas passes... Flash flasks of the nastiest wrath, worse then moldy thermoses of birth water contaminate.. Splash that in your eyes and laugh as your sinus collapse, and the virus attacks rampant.. Half of yall are clowns, spiritually vacation bound.. Likely contestants for the neighborhood talent show consolation round.. I put headphones in penetentiaries the way i spit these bars.. Battle? im the head blitzkrieg czar.. I diss emcees hard, thats why bitches be sparse... I slaughter in psychotic spasms like a vicious retard... Visually unscarred... Everytime i kill a victim my ammunition is re-charged... Im rippin seams apart... You couldnt find a rhythm in your weak heart.. OMNI hoe, we reach stars... I was born with my ambillical attached to the sun, and energy has granted me a tongue.. I turn tornadoes twisting 180 degrees from their regular rotation.

A substitute for royalty Essay

As I reluctantly strode towards my final year of school I pictured the scenes that would await me. Without Jack, my best friend since infant school I felt depressed and gloated in my state of solitude. Jack had left to be an author, although he did not seem either a novelist or an intellectual. I had never read his work before but still I encouraged and supported him. During lunch I noticed the solemn expressions on the teacher’s faces, they lacked their usual humour and were drained of all normal colour. My efforts to replenish their vitality were useless; their expressionless behaviour dampened my own spirits. I left school as I arrived, upset, weary and worried. I couldn’t explain why the staff had acted so out of character. I thought continuously until in the corner of my eye I noticed a pupil from last year. He was pale and surrounded by cigarette butts. In the attempt to cheer myself up I dared to make conversation â€Å"I heard about your four A levels,† I muttered. Realising he may not have heard me I raised my voice â€Å"Has the fact you’ve achieved four A levels stressed you out that much that you’ve started smoking,† I said jokingly. Yet again he blanked me. I approached him gently placing my hand on the bench. I looked closely at his face. His skin was stretched over his bones; his cheekbones and eye sockets bulged out abnormally. â€Å"What’s wrong?† I asked reassuringly â€Å"It looks as if you’ve had an alien encounter,† He arose rapidly â€Å"Yeah something like that,† he finally replied. Then briskly he t rickled away into the distance. The following day I had games first lesson. In an attempt to secure a place in the first side this year, I subtly began to make conversation â€Å"I bumped in to Chris yesterday, he’s smoking very heavily, shame really he made such a good player.† â€Å"I don’t blame him† was the immediate response, bewildered and confused I questioned him â€Å"what do you mean?† â€Å"Ask Mr Lewis† he said in a faint voice as he rapidly relieved himself from my company. As soon as I reclothed myself from the shower I paced towards Mr Lewis’ office. Mr Lewis was a short middle-aged man who was consistently joyous; he was certainly not a stereotypical head teacher. I halted abruptly as he came into view. He was pinning up a notice on his door ‘There will be no welcome Prom, Sorry’ Shocked and upset I realised that this was maybe the only night a female would look at me twice. The anger swelled inside me and at that moment I was determined the prom would go ahead. So I decided to take the news well and acted as if the prom meant nothing to me. During the remaining day I secretly organised the traditional event and felt rather proud of myself as even the most popular guys in the school congratulated me for coming up with such an ingenious plan. The night of the prom lurked as the school bell echoed throughout the corridors signalling the end of school. As the hordes of pupils proceeded towards the exit I cunningly knocked the Janitors keys out of his hand and kicked them forward. A person up ahead picked up the keys, removing the key that would unlock the hall. He then discarded the rest of the keys by hiding them in someone’s bag. After returning home to get changed I entered the ceremony as a hero disguised in a turquoise suit with cue-ball cufflinks. I had arrived fashionably late, just as the votes were being passed around for who would be this years Prom King. Not surprisingly Karl won substantially, he seemed to possess some inhuman magnetism which melted girls hearts. His personality was nothing to be admired but his muscular build was all it took. The party did not warm up until 11 o’clock when a slender figure with a revealing dress approached me with the crown. â€Å"I think Karl must have left, I found this by the fountain,† her voice was so feminine I temporarily found myself in a hazy dream. The girl forcefully placed the crown in my hands. I hesitantly thanked her before asking Mark to come up and be crowned. However just over half an hour later a group of boys I recognised as Mark’s friends approached me soaked through and smelling of chlorine. They handed me the crown, â€Å"we found it floating in the Jacuzzi, Mark must have left.† I had no choice but to call up another contestant, his name was Tony. I hoped he would stay until the majority of people had left otherwise I would be forced to crown myself. A few girls had voted for me but I’m sure it was a joke. However, to my disgust a rather drunk pupil wandered clumsily in my direction, he fumbled with the crown. I removed it into the safety of my hands. † I found it by the lockers,† he uttered just before a huge lurch was followed by harmful amounts of vomit. He sat contently and upright next to a wall as I walked on to the stage. I introduced myself and explained the situation. I raised the crown high. It hovered menacingly above my head, until a powerful, shrill cry caused me to stop, it was Mr Lewis he burst in and broke down. The crown was dropped. He was extremely angry. We poured out everywhere. Unfortunately I had to face him next morning, he was in tears and gradually explained next to nothing just that last years prom was a disastrous tragedy. He handed me one piece of blood stained paper, which was addressed to me. It said ‘I’ve personally published this novel’ I frowned for a few seconds and handed it back I told him that I did not understand. Mr Lewis quietly murmured â€Å"come and see me after school if you don’t figure it out.† I thought hard all day but I couldn’t unlock the mystery. I went back and he showed me a picture of Jack my old friend. He was at the prom dressed in a dinner suit. Mr Lewis handed me a book. I noticed it was the book Jack had given me before he left. I had left it in my locker on my last day. The Janitor must have found it. I noticed the title ‘My unpublished novel’, I opened it, page after page was decorated colourfully in harsh words such as die, hate, kill. They continued for hundreds of pages. Puzzled I eventually turned to the Synopsis. It was a statement from Jack ‘I’ll show the world that not publishing my novel was a fatal error.’ I stared at Mr Lewis in fright. He slowly explained that he had got in touch with the publishers, which Jack asked to publish his book. The publishers told him the basic plot, ‘It was a story of a boys battle to become popular. He was laughed at for being voted Prom King and swore revenge at the next prom. At the next prom the boy was collecting everyone’s votes, then he would take them away and replace them with fake votes, which he had prepared earlier, therefore he could kill each King in the order he pleased. Throughout the night the crown was left in random areas about the school. People returned the crown claiming that the King had left the prom so a new one was voted for. The boy had eventually killed three Prom Kings and planned to kill the fourth one by dropping weights on to him, which were suspended by a rope from the ceiling. Then he poured the entire chemistry departments acid content over his body until he was unrecognisable. He started from the feet up to give him a slow death. He had turned blue from the weight on his broken ribs and sternum. However as he prepared to pour the last test tube full of acid onto his face the prom king lashed out with a severely burnt leg tripping him. He landed on the empty test tubes, which impaled him through his back. The prom king was found in mostly ash and the boy was bleeding heavily from his mouth. He was left in hospital for a while until A close friend came to see how he was and realised he had left the hospital. No body remained. The hospital was baffled. The friend ran back to the death scene finding only a crown near where the body of the fourth victim was found on the floor. Spontaneously he realised a possible connection to the fact that his neighbour hadn’t returned from the party. He was first to be crowned. It took him a while to believe it but His friend thought the boy had killed his victims and left the crown to signify it. The book then says the boy’s friend traces down people who had found the crown and began to reveal dead bodies left around those areas.’Mr Lewis looked deep into my eyes asking, â€Å"Now you understand, I’ve personally published this novel?† He did not await a reply; he carried on saying the publisher’s rejected his book in fear of it causing some person to act in the same way. â€Å"We believe Jack has acted out his own story for real and committed suicide by impaling himself at the end of it,† claimed Mr Lewis. Now Jack is haunting the crown. Whoever wears that crown is a certain victim of another violent, merciless death. Mr Lewis also explains that I must be the friend, why else would the note be to me? Mr Lewis asks if he thinks Jack would act differently if I wore the crown. I was very unsure but knew that Jack’s spirit had to be exorcised to put us all to rest and release the tension capturing the school. First I had to find the bodies of the various boys who had been crowned that night. I clearly remember that young woman who had told me she had found the crown near the water fountain. I rushed there as if I could still save him but I was sadly mistaken. A foul, pungent odour wafted towards me from behind a locked door. I forcefully hurled myself at the door, it shattered easily. The stench in the room was unbearable. I saw Karl, well I recognised one half of his face, the other seemed as if he had been hit close range with a shotgun, but someone would have heard that. I turned to take a sip from the fountain and only then realised there was dried blood all around it. Karl must have been drinking from this fountain while Jack approached him cautiously and then crushed his face into the fountain, leaving a gaping hole in his head. I left Karl to run to the swimming pool where Mark’s friends had found the crown. The Jacuzzi was the only sound interrupting perfect silence. I hesitantly switched it off. As the bubbles dispersed Mark’s figure became visible. He had the most frightening expression portrayed upon his face. He was fixed in a position with outstretched arms as his cumber band fastened him to a grill in the floor. He must have struggled vigorously before he finally drowned. Next I vaguely recalled my incident with the drunk and he had found the crown near the lockers. I guessed he meant Tony’s locker. Sure enough Tony was stuffed tightly into his locker while a maths compass was dug deep into his throat. I returned to Mr Lewis confirming each death. Mr Lewis was not coping well with the strain, he occasionally spluttered and tears ran down his cheeks. The same feelings were not present in my mind though only those of determination flourished through me. I politely stepped outside and headed for the chemistry lab. There I cautiously placed the crown on my head. Jack instantly appeared. He looked no different to when I last saw him. He appeared no less normal than the average human being. We barely exchanged words in our entire encounter. The first gesture made was an order for me to go closer to a neatly lined up row of glass. Obviously Jack was asking me to commit suicide. â€Å"I thought you would prefer this, I’ve known you a long time, you’ve never struck me as a fighter,† his cocky remark only flared my anger more. I slowly edged towards the glass bottles. Every step I took the wider Jack’s smile seemed to grow. Accidentally I managed to knock a bottle on to the floor. Panic stricken I wondered if his mood would change, mine certainly had, this was by far the most fearful experience of my life. Kindly Jack leaned over to pick the bottle up off the floor. As he arose I placed the crown on his head. He looked at me aghast. â€Å"How smart you look,† I proclaimed â€Å"anyone would think you were a substitute for Royalty.† He fell back on to the glass. The crown glistened evilly beside the table

Lab Report Essay

Heat it to 90 C and hold this temperature for 10 minutes. 2. Cool it to 50 C in a bath of ice water. 3. Shake the culture bacteria to free it from lumps and add to the milk. 4. Transfer the inoculated milk into the beaker or jar. Cover. 5. Incubate the milk for 4 hours at 43 to 46 degrees until clotted. Clotting of milk indicates the bacteria utilized the sugars and underwent fermentation. 6. Chill for 1 – 2 hours 7. Stir the yogurt to make the texture smooth. 8. Package and consume III. Results and Discussion Kind of Milk| Taste| Color| Texture| Smell| Low- fat milk| Yogurt-like| Beige| Smooth| Sour| Full-cream milk| Very Sour| Beige| Thick| Very sour| In the table above, the reason why there were only 2 kinds of milk is because 2 groups used low fat milk and the other 2 used full-cream milk. As being compared from the table above, using full-cream milk caused the taste and the smell of the product (yogurt) to be extra sour. Yogurt is naturally sour because of the acid present in it. Also, the full-cream milk caused the texture to be thicker compared to the yogurt used with low-fat milk. Even though different kinds of milk were used, the color of the yogurt was the same, which was Beige. IV. Conclusion Based on the given results and discussion of the data, the characteristics (taste, color, texture, and smell) of the yogurt will depend on what kind of milk will be used for the yogurt making process. V. Recommended If one were to do the same experiment above, the group would recommend that they use low-fat milk to make their own yoghurt.

The analysis of Woodward in THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW 1955 essays

The analysis of Woodward in THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW 1955 essays The paper will analyze C. Vann Woodward's "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" (1955). "Woodward begin his series of lectures by nothing that, although an early form of Jim Crow-type legislation could be found in the cities of the antebellum North ("One of the strangest things about the career of Jim Crow was that the system was born in the North and reached an advanced age before moving South in force"), race relations in the nineteenth-century South were more often than not characterized by intermingling and close contact. (17) "In most aspects of slavery as practiced in the antebellum south," he notes, "segregation would have been an inconvenience and an obstruction to the functioning of the system. The very nature of the institution made separation of the races for the most part impracticable." (12) Similarly, while some elements of Jim Crow showed up during Reconstruction (such as the separation of churches and segregation of public schools), "race relations during Reconstruction could not be said to have crystallized or stabilized nor to have become what they later became. There were too many cross currents and contradictions, revolutionary innovations and violent reactions...for a time old and new rubbed shoulders and so did black and white in a manner that differed significantly from Jim Crow of the future or slavery of the past." (25, 26) In fact, Woodward, argues, even Redemption didn't herald the onset of Jim Crow. While "it would certainly be preposterous to leave the impression that any evidence I have submitted indicates a golden age of race relations in the period between Redemption and complete segregation," Woodward argues, "the era of stiff conformity and fanatical rigidity that was to come had not yet closed in and shut off all contact between the races, driven the Negro...

A Hermeneutical Critique on the Conquest Essay Essays

A Hermeneutical Critique on the Conquest Essay Essays A Hermeneutical Critique on the Conquest Essay Essay A Hermeneutical Critique on the Conquest Essay Essay Essay Topic: Poes Poetry The Representation of the brush between white settlers-invaders and autochthonal peoples in Jeannette Armstrong’s â€Å"History Lesson† and Susanna Moodie’s Rough ining it in the Bush differ greatly in a figure of ways. Writing at different times. for conflicting intents. from opposing points of position every bit good as utilizing different literary mediums- the ensuing representation of the brush between the white and autochthonal groups are inherently contrasting. Depicted as a lesser. more barbarous race in Rough ining it in the Bush every bit good as the victims of savageness and ‘civilisation’ in â€Å"History Lesson† . Native representation in the two plants are peculiarly dissimilar. nevertheless settler attitudes in both are based upon discriminatory and racialist ideals of the clip. and this can be seen in their brush. The function of faith besides helped determine the natives’ brush with the colonists. it is presented in a ludicrous manner in â€Å"History Lesson† every bit good as in a slightly nescient manner in Rough ining it in the shrub. Despite her at times minimizing linguistic communication. Moodie does show some regard and grasp of the Natives’ features. an involvement that is non-existent in â€Å"History Lesson† . nevertheless despite her just mindedness. her sentiments are still tinged with racism and an authoritarian white –supremacist sentiment. Writing about her experiences in the 1830’s in Canada. Susanna Moodie’s Rough ining it in the Bush is an history of life as a female colonist at the clip. Published as a usher to Britons sing emigrating. her authorship is ethnographic. analyzing assorted groups such as those immigrating to Canada. the colonists in Canada every bit good as the autochthonal Natives. In the Chapter â€Å"The Wilderness A ; our Indian Friends† . Moodie is confronted for the first clip with Native Americans. whom she describes as â€Å"a people whose beauty. endowments. and good qualities have been slightly overrated. and invested with a poetical involvement which they barely deserve. † As her first vocalization associating to the Natives. this sentiment serves to be instead belittling and surprising. As she believes they have received excessively much â€Å"poetical interest† . and their evident positive qualities â€Å"overrated† . Moodie goes on to compose. â€Å"Their honestness and love of truth are the finest traits in characters otherwise dark and unlovely. † Despite an effort at complimentary authorship. her Language here is extremely minimizing toward the Natives. and in their brush it is clear she sees herself superior to them. Her usage of â€Å"dark† refers to their cryptic personality every bit good potentially their skin color. The air of white colonist high quality nowadays in Rough ining it in the shrub is drastically magnified in Jeannette Armstrong’s verse form â€Å"History Lesson† . nevertheless the White persons are portrayed as inferior in footings of actions. In contrast to Moodie. Armstrong is composing from the Native’s point of position. telling the invasion of the white encroachers following Christopher Columbus’s initial expedition to the Americas. Her composing serves as a counter-history. supplying a version of events from the Natives position that have throughout history been seen as barbarous enemies of civilisation. It is argued. â€Å"Throughout recorded clip. empowered groups have been able to specify history and supply an account of the present. A good illustration of this is the portraiture of wars between Indians and White by Canadian historiographers. † It is this impression of white ruling history that Armstrong challenges in â€Å"History Lesson† . In the first stanza. Armstrong writes ; Out of the abdomen of Christopher’s ship a rabble bursts Runing in all waies Pulling furs off animate beings Shooting American bison Shooting each other left and right Armstrong ironically depicts the white encroachers as barbarians in this stanza. with small to state between them and animate beings such as the American bison referred to in line 5. Christopher Columbus’s â€Å"discovery† of the Americas is whittled down to one line. Using really informal linguistic communication. â€Å"belly† and â€Å"Christopher’s ship† denotes a peculiarly non-impressive image unlike most word pictures of his ocean trip in white histories. The usage of the word â€Å"mob† conjures beastly intensions once more frequently attributed to Native Americans. Equally good as picturing the brush between Natives and white encroachers. Armstrong besides indicates the oncoming consequences of colonising on the Natives’ land. â€Å"Pulling off furs† every bit good as literally diagrammatically picturing the barbarian nature of the Whites when runing animate beings. besides refers to the fur trade set up following colonisation of Canada. The mindless brutality continues with the shot of American bison every bit good as shot of each other. The deficiency of definition between the two. and the insouciant nature of the lines highlights the Whites animalistic and barbarous nature. every bit good as the deficiency of integrity between the European colonists. In this stanza â€Å"Jeannette Armstrong conveys the force of abstraction of â€Å"Colonialism† by telescoping it into a graphic imitation of huffy physical activity† . In contrast to â€Å"History Lesson† where the Whites are judged on their actions. in Rough ining it in the Bush Moodie ab initio analyses the Natives visual aspect and common traits. Moodie provinces. â€Å"The work forces of this folk are by and large little of stature. with really harsh and abhorrent characteristics. † Following this entirely deprecating description. there is a continuance of animate being like comparings â€Å"the detecting modules big. the rational 1s barely developed ; the ears big. and standing off from the face ; the eyes looking towards the temples. lament. snake-like† In both literary texts. the opposing group is represented as animalistic. albeit metaphorically in â€Å"History Lesson† and much more literally in Rough ining it in the Bush. Using important linguistic communication throughout. Moodie seems to be speaking down to the Native peoples. Her ceaseless insisting on mentioning to the Native peoples. within which there were 55 different linguistic communications and legion folks. as â€Å"Indians† besides shows a clear deficiency of desire in larning the civilization. a white attitude typical of â€Å"History lesson† every bit good. Although being an advocator of peace. her apprehension of the nature of white- native dealingss seems slightly off. Representing the pickings of Native land as being â€Å"Passed into the custodies of strangers† . suggests it was peaceable and non questioned. due to the inactive verb â€Å"passed† . However this is entirely contrasting with â€Å"History Lesson† in which the truer nature of the struggle is depicted. Religion plays a important function in both word pictures of the brush between white colonists and the indigens. Christianity. and the manner in which it was thrust upon the Natives is mocked in â€Å"History Lesson† . whilst Moodie finds the Natives’ apprehension of the faith lacking. despite her entire deficiency of cognition of the Natives’ spiritualty. Armstrong writes. â€Å"Father average good? waves his stopgap wand forgives round-eyed Indians† Mentioning to a Priest as â€Å"Father mean well† is a sarcastic simplification of English footings. proposing his purposes are good but small else. â€Å"Waves his stopgap wand† is a peculiarly unusual manner of depicting a rood. with â€Å"wand† proposing its charming as opposed to spiritual. Writing from a Native point of position nevertheless it is clear intending given to such objects mean small to those that do non imply such significances. and Armstrong instills in the reader the apprehension that Christianity in the oculus of the Natives is about ludicrous. In the self-deprecating line â€Å"forgives round-eyed Indians† Armstrong twists racism about. with her fellow Natives the abused in order to demo its true ignorance. Moodie in comparing. composing for her place countrymen. reacts angrily in what she perceives every bit excessively much of a captivation with a adult male made blade. â€Å"For several yearss they continued to see the house. conveying along with them some fresh comrade to look at Mrs. Moodie’s God! –until. annoyed and annoyed by the delectation they manifested at the sight of the eagle-beaked monster. I refused to satisfy their wonder by non bring forthing him once more. † Moodie represents the indigens as nescient and naif. nevertheless her choler at their involvement shows her close-mindedness in footings of religion. This can be seen once more when Moodie writes â€Å"Their thoughts of Christianity appeared to me obscure and unsatisfactory. They will state you that Christ died for work forces. and that He is the Saviour of the World. but they do non look to grok the religious character of Christianity. nor the full extent of the demands and application of the jurisprudence of Christian love. † Both literary texts are likewise in that Native comprehension of Christianity is missing. nevertheless it is of class non they’re chosen religion and so this is apprehensible. Mentions to the Garden of Eden can be found in both texts. as Armstrong writes â€Å"Somewhere among the remains of skinless animate beings is the expiration? to a long journey and unhallowed hunt for the power glimpsed in a garden forever closed everlastingly lost† Armstrong likens the new universe to the Garden of Eden. another signifier of Utopia disturbed by human action. Despite clear efforts at conveying Christianity to the Natives. she refers to the whole ordeal as â€Å"unholy† . owing to the awful actions of the colonists. Moodie’s find of the countries natural beauty and naming of already known stones and other objects is besides similar to the scriptural narrative. Yet Moodie sees herself as Eve. as opposed to the destroyer of it. In â€Å"History Lesson† there are several recognitions of the weaknesss of Colonization and Capitalism that are to come following the brush between Whites and Natives. As Armstrong writes â€Å"Pioneers and bargainers bring gifts Smallpox. Seagrams and rice krispies† She once more references the Bible. with the likelihood to the birth of Christ and the three Kings. However the gifts are awful. unwellness. alcohol addiction and peculiarly insubstantial modern nutrient that of no usage and no demand to the Native with their established diet. Typifying her statement. she states â€Å"Civilization has reached the promised land† like the unashamed nature of advertisement. Armstrong ironically includes the tagline â€Å"snap. crackling and pop† to exemplify the inutility to Natives White/US civilization has become. The desolation continues as in stanza 7 she writes â€Å"The giant? in which they trust while burying take a breathing woods and Fieldss beneath concrete and steel stand agitating fists waiting to mangle whole civilisations ten coevalss at a blow† The brush between the Whites and Natives is represented as lost. for the natural admiration of the state is buried â€Å"beneath concrete and steel† . with â€Å"whole civilisations. 10 coevalss at a blow† ready to be mutilated. Despite cases of missing understanding and credence on Susanna Moodie’s portion in Rough ining it in the Bush of the Natives and their beliefs and characters. she does exhibit some tolerance and recognition of their many accomplishments and positive qualities. As Moodie provinces. â€Å"The fondness of Indian parents to their kids. and the respect which they pay to the aged. is another beautiful and touching trait in their character. † Her brushs with them are represented as peaceable and humbling. as she notes their humbleness in having nutrient â€Å"The Indians are great impersonators. and possess a nice tact in following the imposts and manners of those with whom they associate. † However despite her sort rhetoric. her superior racist attitude frequently prevails. â€Å"During better times we had treated these hapless barbarians with kindness and liberality† . Frequently excessively happy to return to the usage of â€Å"savages† . she surely does non give the Natives much regard as is due. much like the brush in â€Å"History Lesson† . As J R Miller writes. â€Å"the ethnographic attack to the survey of autochthonal peoples was debatable because it was a descriptive portraiture that rendered Natives inactive and unchanging. † This is the instance with Moodie’s portraiture of the indigens. as it is clear their manner of life is seen as backward in her authorship. Much of this nevertheless is to make with the birthplace environing Rough ining it in the Bush. However the brush between the different groups in her authorship is peaceable. intriguing and surely non every bit black as in â€Å"History Lesson† . In both texts the common subjects of misinterpretations. faith and racism arise and aid to determine the representation of the brush between the white and native groups. with two really different word pictures of the brush and its effects. Bibliography Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851. James S Fridered. Native Peoples in Canada- Contemporary Conflicts. Canada. 1988 Jeannette C Armstrong A ; Lally Grauer. Native Poetry in Canada- A Contemporary Anthology. Canada. 2001 J R Miller. Contemplations on Native Newcomer Relations-Selected Essays. 2004. Canada Jeannette C Armstrong. History Lesson Native Poetry in Canada- A Contemporary Anthology. Canada. 2001 I was able to derive farther penetration into the subject of white settler/Native dealingss utilizing the book ‘Native peoples in Canada-contemporary conflicts† . I was able to larn more of the manner in which the history between these two groups has been documented. and this in bend enabled me to further understand the representation of the brush between them in the two literary texts. I found this book in the library. Native poesy in Canada enabled me to better understand the significance of Armstrong’s initial stanza. I found this utilizing Google books. J R Miller’s book. Contemplations on Native Newcomer Relations once more enabled me to better understand the historical certification of native/white dealingss in Canada. Again I found this in the library. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - – [ 1 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 2 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 3 ] . James S Fridered. Native Peoples in Canada- Contemporary Conflicts. Canada. 1988. p4 [ 4 ] . Jeannette C Armstrong A ; Lally Grauer. Native Poetry in Canada- A Contemporary Anthology. Canada. 2001. p 24 [ 5 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 6 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 7 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 8 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 9 ] . Jeannette C Armstrong. History Lesson Native Poetry in Canada- A Contemporary Anthology. Canada. 2001 [ 10 ] . Jeannette C Armstrong. History Lesson Native Poetry in Canada- A Contemporary Anthology. Canada. 2001 [ 11 ] . Jeannette C Armstrong. History Lesson Native Poetry in Canada- A Contemporary Anthology. Canada. 2001 [ 12 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 13 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 14 ] . Susanna Moodie. Rough ining it in the shrub. The wilderness A ; Our Indian Friends. Canada. 1851 [ 15 ] . J R Miller. Contemplations on Native Newcomer Relations-Selected Essays. 2004. Canada. p16.

Difficulties Faced by Interracial Couples

Difficulties Faced by Interracial Couples Interracial relationships have taken place in America since colonial times, but couples in such romances continue to face problems and challenges. America’s first â€Å"mulatto† child was born in 1620. When slavery of blacks became institutionalized in the U.S., however, anti-miscegenation laws surfaced in various states that barred such unions, thereby stigmatizing them.  Miscegenation is defined by  sexual relations between people from different racial groups. The term  stems from the Latin words miscere and genus, which mean to mix and race, respectively.   Incredibly, anti-miscegenation  laws remained on the books until the latter half of the 20th century, making interracial relationships taboo and posing barriers to mixed-race couples. Interracial Relationships and Violence A major reason interracial relationships continue to carry stigma is their association with violence. Although in early America members of different races  openly procreated with one another, the introduction of institutionalized slavery changed the nature of such relationships entirely. The raping of African-American women by plantation owners and other powerful whites during this period have cast an ugly shadow on relationships between black women and white men. On the flip side, African American men who so much as looked at a white woman could be killed, and brutally so. Author Mildred D. Taylor describes the fear that interracial relationships invoked in the black community in the Depression era south in Let the Circle Be Unbroken, a historical novel based on her family’s real-life experiences. When protagonist Cassie Logan’s cousin visits from the North to announce that he’s taken a white wife, the entire Logan family is aghast. â€Å"Cousin Bud had separated himself from the rest of us†¦ for white people were part of another world, distant strangers who ruled our lives and were better left alone,† Cassie thinks. â€Å"When they entered our lives, they were to be treated courteously, but with aloofness, and sent away as quickly as possible. Besides, for a black man to even look at a white woman was dangerous.† This was no understatement, as the case of Emmett Till proves. While visiting Mississippi in 1955, the Chicago teen was murdered by a pair of white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Till’s murder sparked international outcry and motivated Americans of all races to join the civil rights movement. The Fight for Interracial Marriage Just three years after Emmett Till’s horrific murder, Mildred Jeter, an African American, married Richard Loving, a white man, in the District of Columbia. After returning to their home state of Virginia, the Lovings were arrested for breaking the state’s anti-miscegenation laws but were told the one-year prison sentence given to them would be dropped if they left Virginia and did not return as a couple for 25 years. The Lovings violated this condition, returning to Virginia as a couple to visit family. When authorities discovered them, they were again arrested. This time they appealed the charges against them until their case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1967 that anti-miscegenation laws violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In addition to calling marriage a basic civil right, the Court stated, â€Å"Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.† During the height of the civil  rights movement, not only did laws change regarding interracial marriage but public views did as well. That the public was slowly embracing interracial unions is evidenced by the theatrical release of a 1967 film based entirely on an imminent interracial marriage, â€Å"Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?† To boot, by this time, the fight for civil rights had grown very integrated. Whites and blacks often fought for racial justice side-by-side, allowing interracial romance to bloom. In Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self, Rebecca Walker, daughter of African American novelist Alice Walker and Jewish lawyer Mel Leventhal, described the ethos that impelled her activist parents to marry. â€Å"When they meet†¦ my parents are idealists, they are social activists†¦ they believe in the power of organized people working for change,† Walker wrote. â€Å"In 1967, when my parents break all the rules and marry against laws that say they can’t, they say that an individual should not be bound to the wishes of their family, race, state, or country. They say that love is the tie that binds, and not blood.† Interracial Relationships and Rebellion When civil rights activists married, they not only challenged laws but sometimes their own families. Even someone who dates interracially today runs the risk of incurring the disapproval of friends and family. Such opposition to interracial relationships has been documented in American literature for centuries. Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona is a case in point. In it, a woman named Seà ±ora Moreno objects to her adoptive daughter Ramona’s impending marriage to a Temecula  man named Alessandro. â€Å"You marry an Indian?† Seà ±ora Moreno exclaims. â€Å"Never! Are you mad? I will never permit it.† What’s astonishing about Seà ±ora Moreno’s objection is that Ramona is half-Native American  herself. Still, Seà ±ora Moreno believes that Ramona is superior to a full-blooded Native American. Always an obedient girl, Ramona rebels for the first time when she chooses to marry Alessandro. She tells Seà ±ora Moreno that forbidding her to marry him is useless. â€Å"The whole world cannot keep me from marrying Alessandro. I love him†¦,† she declares. Are You Willing to Sacrifice? Standing up like Ramona did requires strength. While it’s certainly not wise to allow narrow-minded family members to dictate your love life, ask yourself if you’re willing to be disowned, disinherited or otherwise mistreated to pursue an interracial relationship. If not, it’s best to find a mate of whom your family approves. On the other hand, if you’re newly involved in such a relationship and only fear that your family may disapprove, consider having a sit-down conversation with your relatives about your interracial romance. Address any concerns they have about your new mate as calmly and clearly as possible. Of course, you may end up deciding to agree to disagree with your family about your relationship. Whatever you do, avoid springing your interracial romance on family members by unexpectedly inviting your  new love  to a family function. That could make things uncomfortable for both your family and your partner. Examine Your Motives When involved in an interracial relationship, it’s also important to examine your motives for entering such a union. Reconsider the relationship if rebellion is at the root of your decision to date across color lines. Relationship author Barbara DeAngelis states in her book  Are You the One for Me? that a person who consistently dates individuals with qualities diametrically opposed to those their family finds appropriate may be acting out against their parents. For example, DeAngelis describes a white Jewish woman named Brenda whose parents want her to find a white  Jewish, single and successful man. Instead, Brenda repeatedly chooses black Christian men who are married or commitment-phobic and only sometimes professionally successful. â€Å"The point here is not that relationships between people of different backgrounds don’t work. But if you have a pattern of choosing partners who not only don’t fulfill you but also upset your family, you are probably acting out of rebellion,† DeAngelis writes. In addition to dealing with family disapproval, those involved  in interracial relationships  sometimes deal with disapproval from their greater racial community. You may be viewed as a  Ã¢â‚¬Å"sellout†Ã‚  or a â€Å"race traitor† for dating interracially. Some racial groups may approve of men dating interracially but not women or vice versa. In  Sula, author  Toni Morrison  describes this double standard. They said that Sula slept with white men...All minds were closed to her when that word was passed around...The fact that their own skin color was proof that it had happened in their families was no deterrent to their bile. Nor was the willingness of black men to lie in the beds of white women a consideration that might lead them toward tolerance. Dealing with Racial Fetishes In today’s society, where interracial relationships are generally accepted, some people have developed what are known as racial fetishes. That is, they’re only interested in dating a particular racial group based on attributes they believe people from those groups embody. Chinese-American writer Kim Wong Keltner describes such fetishes in her novel  The Dim Sum of All Things, in which a young woman named Lindsey Owyang is the protagonist. â€Å"Although Lindsey was admittedly attracted to white boys, she†¦hated the idea of some pervert honing in on her because of her black hair, almond-shaped eyes, or any of the submissive, back-scrubbing fantasies her physical features might suggest to a large, clumsy mammal in tube socks.† While Lindsey Owyang rightfully shies away from white men drawn to Asian women based on stereotypes, it’s equally important that she examines why she exclusively dates white men (which is revealed later). As the book progresses, the reader learns that Lindsey harbors considerable shame about being Chinese-American. She finds the customs, food, and people largely repellent. But just as dating interracially based on stereotypes is objectionable, so is dating someone from another background because you suffer from  internalized racism. The individual you’re dating, not racial identity politics, should be your primary reason for entering an interracial relationship. If it’s your partner and not you who exclusively dates interracially, ask probing questions to find out why. Have a full-on discussion about it. If your partner finds members of her own racial group unattractive that reveals much about how she views herself and other groups as well. The Key to a Successful Relationship Interracial relationships, as all relationships do, pose their fair share of problems. But the tensions that arise from loving cross-racially can be overcome with good communication and by settling down with a partner who shares your principles. Common ethics and morals arguably prove more significant than common racial backgrounds in determining a couple’s success. While Barbara DeAngelis acknowledges  that interracial couples  face serious difficulties, she’s also found, â€Å"Couples who share similar values have a much greater chance of creating a happy, harmonious and lasting relationship.†

Motivation and how management can use it for a better, more Essay

Motivation and how management can use it for a better, more profitable, effecient workplace - Essay Example A. As the workplace structure and workers themselves change, management faces the problem of how to motivate employees (Gerstner, 2002). Gerstner (2002) poses the questions of â€Å"How do you pull the levers of motivation to change the attitudes, behavior, and thinking of a population? Different people are motivated by different things that may include money, career advancement, and recognition† (Gerstner, 2002). Effectively changing the attitudes, behavior, and thinking of workers demands that a manager knows what levers of motivation to pull in the first place. B. A global executive should provide leadership and direction to management levels according to business goals, mission, and vision. Global leaders and executives have certain characteristics and skills in order to succeed in the globalize world of business (Gregersen, Morrison, & Black, 1998). C. Knowing how to motivate well will enable managers to realize the full potential of each employee. Much literature about theories of motivation and work relate to the subject of inspiring employees to be their best (Gagne & Deci, 2005). D. This report will discuss motivation and how managers can use it for a better, more profitable, efficient workplace. This report will also explore the different theories, concepts, and practices managers can use to motivate employees. E. A leader is a visionary who has the end goal in mind and can see the big picture. A leader is a motivator of his/her followers. There are a variety of leadership styles a leader may holds; what separate a leader from the rest are the traits they posses to succeed and the various background assumptions held true by the . Some of these traits may include intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability (Cox, 2001). F. Executives are motivated by the goal and fits in the business component. S/he reacts rationally to external conditions and

Revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Revolution - Essay Example On the other hand, John Locke also opines that all humans are entitled to the right of liberty, life and property under natural law, which also comprises a social contract between a government and its subjects. As such, according to Locke, the government must protect its subjects’ interests. This paper will explain when it is appropriate to overthrow an established government in the views of Hobbes and Locke. It will further determine if individual citizens are entitled to their own judgments as to when it is appropriate to overthrow a government and highlight the differences between Hobbes’ and Locke’s view regarding revolutions. Both Hobbes and Locke are in consensus that there exists a social contract between a government and its subjects. They also agree that a majority of a government’s subjects cannot endanger itself intentionally. However, the variation in their perspectives of revolutionary situations stems from their different notions as to why so cial contracts exist and what, in the absence of social contracts, would be the state of nature (Thomassen 691). Hobbes views the administration as a unitary governing institution made up of the authority granted to it by its subjects. Hobbes’ justification of a revolution is based on the presence of a continuous state of conflict between the subjects and the legislature. In his opinion, the absence of a social contract would culminate into incessant states of war, fear and chaos occasioned by individuals pursuing self-interests. He believes that, under particular circumstances, the administration may be overthrown rightfully or, in the least, an attempted revolution may be directed at it. He bases his idea of â€Å"specific circumstances† on the fact that rational subjects would not harm themselves by being at war with an institution that draws its power from them, which is synonymous to fighting oneself. He supports his argument by stating that unless the subjects ar e at conflict with the legislature, the government still has much to offer (Ness 202). On the other hand, Locke believes that if the administration does not fulfil its part of the social contract, a revolution by its subjects is justified. He supports his argument by stating that when a majority of the subjects are endangered by the legislature, then that legislature is not representative of their interests and must be replaced. According to Locke, it is appropriate to stage a revolution when the government continuously abuses the rights of its people and consistently fails to protect their property (Boesche 119). He opines that, under such circumstances, it is appropriate and worth taking the risks involved in a revolution. He further points out that property, justice, morality and law exist before a legislature is formed and established and if that legislature contravenes the law of nature, it has knowingly put itself at conflict with its subjects. This is irrespective of whether the law is contravened via unavoidable or intentional circumstances because the government still earns itself a revolution (Ness 198). By this point, the views of revolution held by Hobbes and those by Locke become increasingly distinctive as Hobbes tends to take a more conservative stand while Locke is seemingly active in terms of triggering a revolution. According to the arguments of Hobbes and Locke, individual citizens have not been portrayed as being entitled to judge for themselves when it

Plots and structure of Fiction, Drama Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Plots and structure of Fiction, Drama - Essay Example The pet propels into Bailey’s, her son, shoulder causing a dramatic accident. However no one dies. The Misfit appears with two buddies, orders Baileys and John Wesley into the woods were they are shot by his cronies. The grandmother witnesses the mother, the baby and June star follow. She pleads with Misfit in vain and ultimately being shot three times in the chest (Group, p. 82). In the short play ‘A marriage proposal’, the writer describes the weird engagement of Lomov, who seeks to marry his neighbor’s daughter. Lamov fights with the woman he wants to marry before he can make his proposal, fights he is proposing and fights again after she agrees to marry him. They tend to fight whenever the converse to one another, and when this alarms her father at first, he decides that let them fight to one another. Ultimately, the father believes their last fight is actually the beginning of a happy family, though it is doubtful if the couple can conflict every time and attain anything like bliss. The meeting between Lomov and Tchubukov implys one sort of neiboughhood pact for Tchubukov, and more positive about lomov’s prospects. Allen Ginsberg describes his fanciful night walk to a supermarket In California were he imagine he sees Whit man (a 19th century poet) and one of his idol. As Ginsberg discerns the artificial and mass produced state of the post modern supermarket, he muses that Whitman might think this new era of people who are so removed from the nature. He uses symbolism to express his dejection on mass produced modern consumerist culture (Group, p. 122). On the opening lines of the poem advance the aforesaid journal - like quality and also presents the central crucial point of the poem at large. The first line explicitly expresses a tone of wistfulness or even sorrow. The evocation of Whitman‘s name is an obvious symbol of optimism or idealism. Because of the wide-ranging qualities of Whitman’s own writings, the logic of

Policy Theory - Disparities and access to healthy food in the United Essay

Policy Theory - Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States - Essay Example also another assumption that political systems in any society are stratified into different groups with some people being the decision makers who directly make the laws and policies. There are others who are influential and play a part in advising the decision makers based on their interests and opinions. Lastly there are the rest of the people who are combined in one large group with minority power and influence despite their numbers. The role of the large group is to implement the decisions made by the decision makers as well as to vote for them otherwise they highly remain to be seen and not heard. In order for the disparity in access to healthy food in the country to be addressed properly and changed, those with the power have to be aware of the issue and should be influenced to use their power to make and amend policies surrounding the issue. In order for this to have, advocacy based on strategy is necessary to ensure that the elite use their power and wealth to target the issue directly. The first of these strategies is to develop relationship with the decision makers or the influential. The influential are bound to raise the issue to the decision makers making them take notice and pass policies (Barker, 2008). It is also important to form alliances with other important partners and especially in the economic sector. They can assist in decision making with the political elite or use their economic power to make the decisions happen in case of any resistance. This may not be easy and the population may need to shift their social norms and accommodate the elite if they are to win them over. In case the decision makers are the political leaders, they may be needed to increase political will towards the leader and strengthen their base of support. This is likely to meet their approval and they may readily make the policy changes. Lastly is to ensure to have evidence in form of research lined up to back the claim for a need for policy change or new policy

Case Study for Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Essay

Case Study for Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company - Essay Example The tangible aspect corresponds to the company’s infrastructure and amenities. Aside from this, Ritz-Carlton also emphasized excellence in customer service which is the intangible aspect of its product. This is highlighted by the famous words of its founder: â€Å"Never say no when a client asks for something even if it is the moon. You can always try† (Lampton 2003). Thus, â€Å"guests remark that they are â€Å"pampered,† â€Å"respected,† â€Å"treated like royalty,† and â€Å"incurably spoiled† (Lampton 2003). Recognizing the importance of customer service in extending the Ritz-Carlton experience, the company has been passionate about training their staff and treating them as their strategic partners. The hotel chain makes it a point to make employees absorb the core value of the organization, train them, prepare them to serve the market. What is remarkable is the company’s strong adherence to strategic human resource management. Ritz-Carlton’s staff irrefutably becomes its competitive advantage (Lampton 2003). Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s popularity is high due to its upscale, luxury brand of hotels and resorts with locations in major cities in the United States and other internationally famous destinations such as Montego Bay, Jamaica, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Bali, Hong Kong and Qatar. The hotel company owns 59 hotels in 20 countries 37 of which are hotels while 22 are resorts. The operation of the hotel company began in 1983 with the purchase of the Ritz-Carlton, Boston by William B. Johnson. However, the legacy of the hotel is attributed to the celebrated â€Å"king of hoteliers and hotelier to kings,† CÐ ¹sar Ritz. The company states that â€Å"his philosophy of service and innovations redefined the luxury hotel experience in Europe through his management of The Ritz in Paris and The Carlton in London.†

Policy Theory - Disparities and access to healthy food in the United Essay

Policy Theory - Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States - Essay Example also another assumption that political systems in any society are stratified into different groups with some people being the decision makers who directly make the laws and policies. There are others who are influential and play a part in advising the decision makers based on their interests and opinions. Lastly there are the rest of the people who are combined in one large group with minority power and influence despite their numbers. The role of the large group is to implement the decisions made by the decision makers as well as to vote for them otherwise they highly remain to be seen and not heard. In order for the disparity in access to healthy food in the country to be addressed properly and changed, those with the power have to be aware of the issue and should be influenced to use their power to make and amend policies surrounding the issue. In order for this to have, advocacy based on strategy is necessary to ensure that the elite use their power and wealth to target the issue directly. The first of these strategies is to develop relationship with the decision makers or the influential. The influential are bound to raise the issue to the decision makers making them take notice and pass policies (Barker, 2008). It is also important to form alliances with other important partners and especially in the economic sector. They can assist in decision making with the political elite or use their economic power to make the decisions happen in case of any resistance. This may not be easy and the population may need to shift their social norms and accommodate the elite if they are to win them over. In case the decision makers are the political leaders, they may be needed to increase political will towards the leader and strengthen their base of support. This is likely to meet their approval and they may readily make the policy changes. Lastly is to ensure to have evidence in form of research lined up to back the claim for a need for policy change or new policy

Proposal for the upgrading and expansion of the school library Assignment

Proposal for the upgrading and expansion of the school library - Assignment Example The problem being faced is that the current library system is not up to par with regard to the changing library technologies; that is, searching for relevant resources is cumbersome since they have not been fully indexed to enable swift searching. In addition to that, the resources that are available in the library database are not updated. As a result, getting current online resources can be a challenge and in most instances, not all the journals are available for free access. Therefore, an individual may have to seek for other solutions which in most occurrences require a fee to be paid so as to gain access to the materials needed. Secondly, the library needs to be expanded in a bid to accommodate more students. This will in turn ensure that the students have enough access to the library resources. The suggested solution to these challenges is that if the management chooses to upgrade the library system, then access to library information will be very easy for each and every student. Secondly, if the library space is expanded, then students will be in a position to work and do their assignments from the library instead of doing it from home. The benefits that will be achieved include: students will have optimal access to current resources that are relevant and peer reviewed. Secondly, through the expansion of the library space, students will practice and gain through group discussions. The main aim of this proposal is to encourage the management to consider upgrading library system. ... Due to the demand to work on an assignment, an individual is prompted to look for the needed peer reviewed resources from other online sources. In most instances, peer reviewed sources may be charged a fee. Therefore, a student may not work on their assignment to the full capability that they would like to. Secondly, the library space is not adequate to accommodate all the existing and new students. Due to congestion, a student may be forced to work on their assignment from home. A solution that is prone to work includes the implementation of a system that is up to date so that students can gain access to new material. Additionally, this will require that the library space be expanded so as to accommodate more students who may prefer to do their assignments from the library. The importance of this proposal is to inform the management about the challenges that students are facing at school so that they can be in a position to look into the challenges and solve them. According to the N ational Literacy Trust (N.d), majority of the students in schools tend to read material that is made available to them from the library. In addition, this material should be intriguing as well as up to date; else the student may lose interest with the literature provided. If the library system is not upgraded to have current resources, a lot of students will lose interest with the library. This could in turn affect the student’s grades and also the schools ranking may be affected. Apparently, â€Å"when teachers and librarians work together, students achieve higher levels of literacy, reading, learning, problem solving, and information and technology skills†

Education, Teacher Essay Example for Free

Education, Teacher Essay How can teachers be advocates for children in and out of the classroom? Teachers play an important role, everyone knows that, but does anyone actually know how much teachers do for us? It seems that teachers are just an authority figure at school, but it is so much more than that. Teachers are in a classroom with about 25 children who thirst for an education. Teachers quench this thirst with the knowledge that they teach in the classroom. Teachers do not just advocate children in the classroom; they continue to do so in the community and the lives of people. Teachers advocate for children in the classroom. â€Å"What students need to succeed in the twenty-first century is an education that is both academically rigorous and relevant to the real world† (Covey). In the classroom, teachers are resource providers, instructional specialist, curriculum specialist, classroom supporters, learning facilitators, mentors and school leaders they are also learners that learn new things each and every day from the children they teach. Children look up to teachers for help, advice, tutoring, and guidance. In the classroom, teachers teach the curriculum they have planned for the day and are expected to help any child that is falling behind or does not understand. Discipline is also a part in the learning process. With all the cheating and various ways of bullying, schools these days have turned into a place you do not want to be at because you feel in danger of getting physically or mentally hurt (Covey). The misbehavior of these cheaters and bullies are preventing their classmates from learning and teachers from instructing the thought out session (Rizzolo). Teachers should always on the first day(s) of student attendance, get off to a good start and execute the rules of the classroom, to avoid this misbehavior from happening. Of course, the classroom rules should tie in with the school policies. When teachers are stating the classroom policies their tone must be stern but not strict, this is to ensure that the students do not take the teacher lightly. The teacher has a role in the community also. Teachers’ role in the community is extremely important, since it is the teachers who are the backbone of the educational system. The whole educational system starts with the school board. The school board comes up with all the school policy that every school must follow. Once these policies are set in stone, administrators interpret them, but the teachers are the ones that personally enforce these school policies and make sure everyone obeys these policies. For teachers to maintain support from the community to keep the school itself running, the community must have a positive observation on the teachers. In order to uphold this positive outlook, teachers must be prepared for the unknown and keep a positive attitude throughout (Nebor). Teachers play a valuable role in todays society. The government creates the standards of living and suggests ways of assessment. Our administrators direct the teachers to teach these standards that the government has created for us. After being directed by the administrators, the teacher educates the students on these standards. Therefore, it can be agreed that teachers are responsible for the society, or in other words is the backbone of society. As stated in the previous paragraph, a teacher is a figure that not only educates on an academic level, but also on a social level in order to create character and citizenship. As time passed, the message that teachers attempt to get across has changed but the meaning behind it has not. â€Å"A teacher must help form society at the foundation† (Covey). For today’s children will be tomorrow’s leaders. Teachers have an impact on the lives of others. Certainly, teachers affect the lives of the children they teach, but how? Teachers give their students encouragement by saying Come on, you can do it youve got this! or Hey, I believe you can achieve more; give it your all! †(Five Ways Good Teachers Change Lives) or other uplifting phrases such as a quote that I live by that says â€Å"Dont give up just because of what someone said. Use that as motivation to push harder. † Like encouragement, teachers also support their students by conveying the belief that their students can succeed at anything they put their mind to. The teacher must care for the students; have the child’s best interest in mind. Being a teacher like the teachers who risked their lives for their students in the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, is not necessary but showing them respect and support and encouragement is. Most importantly, challenge the student. Set high standards and push the student to succeed in everything they set out to do. Call out the best from them by rewarding them with some praising words. Just remember do not speak words of devastation, cause humiliation, express indifference, use authority to cause fear, or act out of anger and frustration, and all will be good. Parents expect a lot from teachers. Parents expect their child to learn from his or her teacher what they cannot be taught at home. Parents want their child to gain knowledge of obedience, traditional values, admiration, good manners, and responsibility throughout their whole school experience (Covey). Parents want to be able to schedule a one on one conference with the teacher to discuss their child’s progress or any problems the child is having, and how they are doing in the class or if they are not doing so well how they can improve. Teacher’s ability to inspire children to learn should be acknowledge for enthusiasm or passion cannot be taught, but it can certainly be transferable. Also, the teacher’s ability to understand the child’s perspectives should also be acknowledged, because good teachers will see what their students need to succeed. Children should be free to make their own mistakes and not be afraid of being punished, how else will they learn if you do not give them any room. Yes children should be able to make their own decision; you should also give them space to express themselves freely. One thing that you can make sure of is wherever they are expressing themselves or making their own mistakes they are in a safe environment. Teachers also inspire one another. Teachers all have a common goal, so why not come together and share. A lesson that on teacher teaches may inspire on if not many other teachers to do/plan a similar lesson. No one teacher can know everything there is to know in this world, so they learn from each other. Social media is a great place for teachers to acquire ideas for a lesson. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest are outstanding sites for teachers to connect with students and other teachers (Bort). Students benefit from this by having the opportunity to obtain assignments that they have missed and obtain information. Teachers benefit by having a way to communicate with students out of the class and get a hold of some inspiration (Vartan). Being a teacher is not an easy job. Teachers must always demonstrate leadership in multiple ways. A teacher should do everything that can to ensure that their students grow up to become a mature, responsible, and respectable person. Who knows the student may become the teacher and the teacher becomes the student. Works Cited Bort, Anji. Personal Interview. 13 Feb. 2013. Covey, Stephen R.The Leader in Me. New York: FranklinCovey Co. , 2008. Print. â€Å"Five Ways Good Teachers Change Lives. † Passing the Baton. WebSpark Design, 18 Nov 2009. Web. 16 Feb. 2013 http://www. passingthebaton. org Nebor, Jon N. The Role of the Teacher in School-Community Relations [microform] / Jon N. Nebor Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse, [Washington, D. C. ]: 1984 http://www. eric. ed. gov Vartan, Starre. â€Å"How teachers use social media in the classroom to beef up instructions. † MNN, 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2013 http://www. mnn. com.

Monetary Policies in Financial Crisis

Monetary Policies in Financial Crisis i) OECD is the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is an extraordinary gathering where the legislatures of 34 majority rule governments with business sector economies work with one another, and in addition with more than 70 non-part economies to advance monetary development, thriving and reasonable improvement. The association gives a setting where governments can hope to measure up approach encounters, look for answers to normal issues, recognize great practice and direction residential and worldwide strategies. On a basic level, tackling the countrys obligation issues is simple. Very nearly all masters concur that a mix of lessened using and expanded expense incomes is required. Cuts in using and increments in duty incomes equivalent to around 5 percent of GDP are obliged to keep an increment in the obligation to-GDP proportion. The legitimate decision is that just an adjusted methodology to illuminating our obligation emergency, one that incorporates both using cuts and expanded duties, is attainable. That being said, not one or the other using cuts nor expense increments will be politically simple to sanction. Last monetary year, national government using was $3.5 trillion. iii) Credit crunch is the currency market circumstance in which advances are tricky to get. Credit crunch happens typically when a legislature tries to control swelling by forcing limitations on lending’s to customers and little organizations which this can also be called credit press. A credit crunch is regularly created by a maintained time of indiscreet and improper loaning which brings about misfortunes for giving establishments and financial specialists in the red when the advances turn harsh and the full degree of awful obligations gets to be known. Simple credit conditions (in some cases alluded to as pain free income or detached credit) are described by low premium rates for borrowers and loose loaning practices by brokers, making it simple to get economical advances. A credit crunch is the inverse, in which investment rates climb and giving practices tighten. Simple credit conditions implies that finances are promptly accessible to borrowers, which brings about resource co sts climbing if the advanced stores used to purchase resources in a specific business sector, for example, land or stocks. The impact of credit crunch in US is the monetary effect of the home loan emergency and credit crunch will be immense, and it has scarcely started, another study arranged by a few unmistakable economists and discharged Friday has finished up. Criticism from the budgetary business turmoil to the true economy could be considerable, it said. Unless they can rapidly recapitalize, banks are prone to decrease their giving to shoppers and organizations by more than $1 trillion, cutting financial development by more than a rate point throughout the following 12 months. The report was discharged at a gathering on U.S. fiscal approach in New York in which a few senior Federal Reserve authorities and economists were taking part. After an introductory period where a few money related markets appeared resistant from the emergency, the credit crunch is currently assembling storm. The report gauges that the credit crunch is required to push down development by 1.3 rate focuses through the following 12 months. Practically as disturbing is the reports decision that this emergency is remarkable in the archives of U.S. financial history however now may serve as the layout for more emergencies to come. [taken from website- http://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-hit-to-economy-from-credit-crunch-study-says] UK economy had been lending money This credit crunch had led to the fall of the Lehman brothers , the credit emergency emitted in August 2007 with the disappointment of two Bear Stearns Hedge supports, Lehmans stock fell forcefully. Amid that month, the organization dispensed with 2,500 home loan related occupations and close down its BNC unit. Likewise, it additionally shut business locales of Alt-A bank Aurora in three states. Indeed as the revision in the US. lodging business sector picked up energy, Lehman kept on being a significant player in the home loan market. In 2007, Lehman endorsed more home loan sponsored securities than some other firm, aggregating an $85-billion portfolio, or four times its shareholders value. In the final quarter of 2007, Lehmans stock bounced back, as worldwide value markets arrived at new highs and costs for settled salary resources organized a transitory bounce back. Nonetheless, the firm did not take the chance to trim its enormous home loan portfolio, which by and large, would en d up being its last risk. Lehmans breakdown bothered worldwide budgetary markets for a considerable length of time, given the span of the organization and its status as an issue player in the US. furthermore globally. Numerous scrutinized the U.s. governments choice to let Lehman fall flat, as contrasted with its implied backing for Bear Stearns (which was procured by JPMorgan Chase) in March 2008. Lehmans insolvency prompted more than $46 billion of its market worth being wiped out. Its crumple additionally served as the impetus for the buy of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America in a crisis bargain that was likewise advertised on September 15. The solution to credit crunch can be seen through the monetary policy BIBLIOGRAPHY INVESTOPEDIA STAFF. ().Case Study: The Collapse of Lehman Brothers.Available: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/lehman-brothers-collapse.asp. Last accessed 23/11/2014. Gregg rob. (2008).Impact fromcreditcrunch will be huge, study says. Available: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-hit-to-economy-from-credit-crunch-study-says. Last accessed 23/11/2014 Chris Talbot . (18 February 2008).The impact of the credit crunch on British workers.Available: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/02/cred-f18.html. Last accessed 24/11/2014. Andrew Reschovsky. ().solving Americas debt crisis.Available: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2011/11/solving_america_1. Last accessed 24/11/2014.

Nation of Islam and Taking Advantage of People :: Religion

Taking Advantage Throughout history, religions have been created and still today continue to be created. Most people have a common faith that they have inherited from their ancestors; they have and always will practice their religion as long as it seems to be in their favor. Some people go to church to cleanse their conscious of the naughty things they’ve been doing and fear the wrath of their god. Others may have a lot of things going their way and they want to thank their faith in religion for these blessings. Other people might be in a situation where life has handed them hardly a morsel of luck or faith; they may also blame a god for their misfortune or stop believing in religion altogether. These people would be in a prime condition to find faith. Finding faith is a reason why religious studies and practices are so intricately different. People take what they have been told and they mix these views with their own personal life experiences to create an ideal trust in som eone or something. Sometimes people can believe in someone and take their words as the words of god. To do this they have to trust and hold such a person in the highest respect. In return the person who is in supposed contact with God must value this trust and use it to spread their beliefs. This relationship usually works out quite nicely for the people in such a bond. They find a trust in each other and each gain the ability to use one another. In the 1930’s a relationship like this spawned in Detroit, Michigan. Wallace Fard, the leader of a new psuedo-Islamic religion, became acquainted with Robert Poole, a southern migrant with an already growing discontent of self status. Robert Poole saw a rope of faith hanging from Wallace Fard. He became his best friend and in time Fard taught Poole every detail of his Nation of Islam. Fard even declared himself Allah, or God, and disappeared, leaving Robert Poole with a new name and title that would make him the leader of the religious group. Poole’s new name became Elijah Muhammad, meaning the prophet messenger of Allah.

Strategic Marketing Planning for Non Profit Organization

Georgetown University Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership Marketing & Communications in Nonprofit Organizations David Williamson Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program  © 2009 Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership Georgetown University Georgetown Public Policy Institute Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 2Marketing & Communications in Nonprofit Organizations: It Matters More Than You Think David Williamson Marketing gets no respect in the nonprofit world. Program people tend to hold the most senior positions in nonprofits and accordingly have the most status. Fundraisers are often viewed as necessary evils, as are operations staff, including those who labor in the communications and marketing departments. Several factors account for the suspicion or disdain with which many nonprofit managers view the marketing functi on.Mostly, it’s a matter of ignorance. Usually trained in other disciplines, nonprofit leaders often fail to understand what marketing can and can’t do for their organizations. Consequently, they hold some strange assumptions (e. g. â€Å"Our good work will sell itself †), unrealistic expectations (e. g. , demanding to be in The New York Times once a week) and arbitrary funding theories (i. e. , when fundraising is down, cut the communications budget). Compounding the challenge, few nonprofit managers recognize their lack of expertise in these areas.The same people who would never contradict a financial expert or ignore a scientist don’t think twice about overruling marketing professionals on audiences, messages, tactics — the very essence of marketing strategy. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, primarily advocacy or social marketing enterprises where the core program involves communications, outreach and marketing. But in the main, the basic lack of respect accorded marketing comes as no surprise to anyone who tried to apply marketing to mission or build a nonprofit brand — we’re used to it.After all, why is this chapter near the end of this book? Forward-looking nonprofit leaders, however, will recognize what their counterparts in the for-profit sector understood long ago: marketing is essential. And although the marketing function masquerades under many names within nonprofit organizations — Communications, Advancement, External Affairs, Public Relations, or Brand Management — the primary objectives are pretty much the same: to define and then defend an organization’s position, and move it closer to success in its mission. Marketing answers the questions: How is our program distinctive?What do we want to be known for? Why is our work relevant? With the competition for philanthropic resources and public attention fierce, these are absolutely critical considerations for every no nprofit. While the benefits of investing in marketing may not be obvious to nonprofit leaders, the costs of failing to do so are becoming increasingly clear. With nonprofits coming under increasing public and regulatory scrutiny, organizations no longer can afford to relegate communications and marketing to second-class status. It’s a matter of survival.When the investigative reporters are circling your organization (think of the recent unpleasantness that befell the American Red Cross, United Way, and Smithsonian Institution, among others) you will wish that you had a robust, professional communications department to handle the incoming slings and arrows. An expensive outside public relations firm is a poor substitute for people who know your organization and command the trust of the staff. moral: Show marketing some respect. It is essential for mission success, but if you wait around until the need is obvious, it will already be too late.The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Douglas Meyer in preparing this manuscript. Note: The anecdotes herein are intended to illustrate larger themes, and not as critiques of individual organizations. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 3 The Elevator Test Through the years, marketers have invented ever-more sophisticated ways to develop organizational position statements. Lots of these methodologies work, and you can spend big money with consultants on finely crafted and focus-group-tested positioning statements.At the same time, for nonprofits, the simpler approach advocated by the marketing savant Harry Beckwith may achieve much the same result at considerably lower cost and effort. I think of Beckwith whenever I find myself confronted with a classic â€Å"elevator test† moment. You strike up a conversation in an elevator, on the subway, in the line at Starbucks and the question soon arises: What do y ou do? The challenge is how to answer that question in an interesting, compelling manner that invites further questions about your organization, but that does not bog down in jargon or too much detail.You don’t have much time — maybe two sentences at most. So what do you include? What do you leave out? What’s your answer to the elevator test? Lest you think this exercise trivial, recall that everyone on the staff of your nonprofit gets asked the â€Å"what do you do? † question, in various forms, every day. In that sense, everyone on staff is a marketer, albeit rarely trained as such. Do you know how your staff is responding? Do you have any confidence that everyone on the team — program staff, receptionists, board members — shares a common sense of the organization’s brand position?Are they communicating a consistent message? Many nonprofit organizations fail this test. Happily, Beckwith prescribes a very simple formula that nonprofi ts can adapt readily to their needs in developing an elevator test that can double as a position statement. (Note that the elevator test is not a mission statement, nor should it read like one, but instead tries to distill the essence of the organization into relevant, accessible language for the particular person with whom you are speaking. ) The Beckwith formula starts with six basic questions: ho? What’s your name? what? What kind of organization are you (scale and sector)? for whom? Whom do your programs serve? what need? What pressing social problem does your program address? what’s different? What is distinctive about your program? so what? Why should they care? String the answers to these questions together for a nonprofit like Population Services International, a $350 million organization working to improve health in the developing world, and you get something that looks like this: PSI (Who? ) is a global nonprofit (What? that works to improve the health (What need? ) of the poor and vulnerable in 60 developing nations around the world (For whom? ). Combating diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria that kill millions around the world (So what? ), PSI saves lives by using the power of the private sector to distribute and market health products to the neediest people. (What’s different? ) Three red flags about elevator tests. First, ruthlessly eliminate jargon. Every sector has a specialized language, but don’t use it in your elevator/positioning speech. Second, avoid laundry lists of activities.Nonprofits are wonderfully inclusive organizations, with a great sense of fairness and equity between their constituent parts, but this makes for disastrous marketing. The entire point of an elevator speech is to boil your enterprise into a message that is simple, consistent, and most of all distinctive, so make hard choices and focus on the things you do particularly well. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Manageme nt Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 4 Second, and perhaps most important, put some real thought into answering the question: So what?It’s the payoff piece of the speech, the call to action that makes the programmatic work of a nonprofit relevant. And to change policy and behavior, to raise money and build a strong institution, most organizations simply must find a way to make their mission relevant to a broader constituency. Figuring out a compelling â€Å"so what? † response is a good place to start. Third, try to make it â€Å"sticky. † Is what you have said memorable? In their book, Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath identify the common currency of memorable ideas, a good story.And, specifically, they note the importance of simple, true stories with concrete details, unexpected twists and emotion. Does your elevator speech tell a story in a way that helps the listener remember it? For the leaders of nonprofits, the elevator test al so can serve as a shrewd diagnostic tool for determining differences within the management team. Have everyone sit down and simultaneously craft an elevator speech — give them no more than five minutes — and then have people share the results. You will learn a lot about the attitudes of your senior managers and how they are portraying the organization to the outside world. he audience; not coincidentally, that’s why lots of marketing pieces tend to start with the word â€Å"you. † Looked at another way, marketing is a â€Å"pull† strategy that meets the audience where it is, and then tries to steer the audience to the desired action or behavior through incentives or other inducements. Marketing, it has been said, appeals to the heart. Communications, on the other hand, typically appeals to the head. Representing the institutional perspective, sentences in communications materials usually start with the word â€Å"we† or else the organization ’s name; ook at any nonprofit annual report for a case in point. Communications also tend to be declarative, laying out a statement of opinion, a detailed factual case, or an institutional position, and then try to connect those to the audience’s interests. These are classic push strategies in action, with the organization pushing out information (and misinformation! ) about its activities or agenda. Best-practices nonprofits combine the best aspects of both these approaches, and appeal to both the heart and the head.Mothers Against Drunk Driving, one of the most effective advocacy groups of modern times, is famous for the powerful emotional appeal of its advertising campaigns and legislative testimony, which prominently feature the victims of drunk drivers. But supplementing these classic marketing techniques, MADD also deploys equally classic communications strategies — position papers, voter’s guides, legislative briefing books, and on-line advocacy, f or example. Together, this combination of disciplined marketing and focused, issue-oriented communications has made MADD a political force in every statehouse and on Capitol Hill.And it’s not just MADD. Effective organizations of all stripes are taking advantage of both sides of the coin to get the message out about their issue, cultivate donors, and impress policymakers. Take a look next time you go to the web site or get direct mail from the National Rifle Association, the American Heart Association, or CARE. You’ll see a blend of marketing and communications, things to pull you in and also to push out. It’s not by accident. moral: Marketing is the only job shared by everyone in the organization. An elevator speech makes sure your people have a compelling story, they stick to it and it sticks with their audience.Marketing Isn’t Communications, and Vice Versa Nonprofits tend to use the terms marketing and communications interchangeably — another i ndication of the overall lack of sophistication about these issues inside the sector. But there are substantive differences between the two, none more significant than their very different points of departure. Effective marketing generally starts from the point of the view of the audience, or customer, and seeks to anticipate and address their needs. It’s all about you, moral: Don’t just communicate. Market. Essays on ExcellenceLessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 5 Marketing and Communications for Fundraising Fundraising can be the fire alarm that awakens the leader of a nonprofit to the need for marketing and communications, though, chances are, the initial interest will be less focused on strategy, and more focused on stuff: glossy brochures, pretty pamphlets and verbose newsletters that they can use to â€Å"sell† the organization to major donors. Mike Coda, the best fundraising strate gist I have ever known, was famously contemptuous of this type of marketing material. All that collateral is just a crutch for a poor fundraiser,† Mike would say. â€Å"It’s no substitute for developing relationships and listening to donors. † Of course, he was right — but only to a point. The marketing and communications functions can play an important role in helping execute a comprehensive fundraising plan, and the truth is, the marketing/ communications shop can produce stuff to help raise money. But a word of caution here about a lot of the â€Å"stuff† that currently comes out. More than anything, pressures from development account for the proliferation of publications across the nonprofit sector.Our organizations are clogged with annual reports, magazines, newsletters, case statements, working papers and brochures targeted at planned givers, annual givers, alumni givers, givers of every sort. The arrival of the electronic age has not reduced, but instead added to the volume of potential fundraising collateral. Now prospective donors are besieged with slickly produced DVDs as well as blogs, virtual communities, interactive websites, and more. I have always been surprised how few organizations conduct honest assessments of the costs and benefits of producing all this fundraising collateral.It’s not just that it costs a lot to design, print and create it; the real issue for nonprofits is the investment of time. The true cost of a piece of fundraising collateral must reflect the amount of energy and agony that went into its development and often more painful, approval by management and the board. Everybody has a favorite story about absurd bureaucratic hurdles they have encountered to get something approved. One CEO, for example, used to require the signatures of 17 different managers to approve text for use in direct mail solicitations.Needless to say, the impact of the language was much attenuated by the time it we nt through so many editors, reducing the return on investment as well as diverting senior managers from their real jobs. Globally distributed organizations, like the World Wildlife Fund or Save the Children, face particularly tough challenges in getting their colleagues overseas to sign off on collateral materials or joint announcements. It is the job of the marketing and communications function to bring discipline and reason to this process.Smart marketing managers will resist the steady drumbeat from the fundraising staff to deliver new and different materials. Instead, they will put the ball back in the court of the fundraisers by asking some tough questions: Who is your audience and what do you know about them? Why do you believe this is the best way to reach that person? What is the shelf life of this piece? What else could you spend this money on? We will come back to these important questions later in this chapter. An honest recognition of the need for fundraising is required , but so, too, is a healthy skepticism about the demands for fundraising collateral.Certainly, it makes life easier for fundraisers if they have attractive, compelling materials that reinforce the institution’s key messages. But then remember the boxes and boxes of attractive, compelling fundraising materials from previous campaigns gathering dust in your organization’s basement. Once you decide to move forward with a piece of fundraising collateral, however, don’t try to save money by cutting corners. Good marketing materials can be expensive, and you should be prepared to pay to get the kind of products that will send the right message to Essays on ExcellenceLessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 6 your donors. At the same time, you can often mitigate the budgetary impact by substituting quality for quantity. As so often is the case in nonprofits, the key is to focus on the few things that you can do that will have the greatest impact. moral: Fundraising is often a core component of marketing and communications, but not all fundraising collateral translates into more money raised. The success of this campaign can be measured first in lives saved. Drunk-driving deaths are down about 50 percent from all time highs.Perhaps even more enduring, the key concepts of this campaign have permeated the public lexicon. Designated drivers. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. Drink responsibly. When the beer companies spread your message for free in their massive TV advertising campaigns, you know that you have succeeded. Lots of fine organizations run social marketing campaigns aimed at changing public behavior on a large scale: the American Legacy Fund and its anti-smoking efforts; the American Cancer Society, which emphasizes early screening in all its marketing initiatives; and the American Heart Association and diet.Choose to Save seeks to promote personal savings; the Presidential Fitness Challenge to promote personal fitness. The unifying element is the focus on changing behavior, on getting people to stop doing something they presumably like and start doing something else. Nonprofit marketing often aims at behavior change, and social marketing was made to do just this. Marketing and Communications for Mission Impact After a discussion of the way in which marketing and communications can help with fundraising, the opportunity often arises to bring up the potential for it to have a direct impact on mission. Remember the movie Arthur?Dudley Moore plays an affable drunk who spends his time getting in hilarious fixes, many involving driving his convertible while three sheets to the wind. The movie was one of the big hits of the early 1980s — coincidentally about the same time that two housewives in California were forming a new nonprofit called Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Fast forward a quarter century. Do you think that a movie like A rthur, with its tacit endorsement of drunk driving, could possibly be made today? I think not. The prevailing moral winds have swung hard against drinking and driving, making anathema what was once socially acceptable.And the reason for that is MADD. MADD is not only an exceptionally effective advocacy organization that seeks and often secures legislative victories. It also excels at social marketing — using the full grab bag of tricks and techniques from the marketer’s playbook to achieve changes in individual behaviors and social norms that also were directly in line with its mission of ending drunk driving. In the case of MADD, that means orchestrating a sustained, national marketing campaign designed to change the behavior of Americans when it comes to alcohol and automobiles. ase in point: the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, which was founded in the early ‘90s to tackle the surging levels of teen pregnancies. A small organization — only $ 5 million — but with powerful friends, the National Campaign thought hard about best way to change the behavior of teenage girls, the target audience. Research showed that teenagers tended to romanticize parenthood, and did not understand the impact that caring for an infant would have on their lifestyle. But how to communicate this lesson to an elusive audience that is already deeply suspicious of adults?The National Campaign cleverly threaded this needle by reaching out to the producers of the afternoon TV shows targeted at teen girls. With a little persuading, the producers agreed to write into the scripts of these shows storylines that made it clear what a drag it was to have a baby: it ruined your figure, ruined your social life, cost a lot of money, and so forth. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 7If the same messages had been delivered to the same audience but in the form of a public service announcement, the impact would have been marginal. But by merging the message with the content of these shows, the National Campaign managed to get the attention of these kids in a far more effective way. A lot of factors go into the sharp drop in teen pregnancies over the last decade, but certainly some of the credit needs to go to the National Campaign for a textbook case of social marketing in action. Social marketing can’t advance every mission, and is not for every organization.It can be expensive and requires significant expertise, both in-house and out. But it works, and must be part of your marketing and communications strategy if changing the world for your organization involves changing the behavior of people: health habits, purchasing choices, social norms, voting patterns. This is one of those inescapable, brutal facts about the nonprofit world, and thus bears repeating: most people have never heard of your organization, and they probably donâ €™t care much about what you do. And this is even when the work being done is undeniably â€Å"good. This is a hard pill for many nonprofit people to swallow, because we all do care, passionately, about our causes and we want others to feel the same way we do. But you can’t let that passion blind you to the objective realities of trying to carve out a position for your nonprofit organization with your most important audiences amid the clutter of so many competing priorities and so much background noise in multiple media. Strengthening that position — defending your organization’s reputation, the one irreplaceable asset of any nonprofit — is the essence of branding.The key is being disciplined in articulating the distinctive set of attributes that collectively define an organization’s position in the marketplace for funding, ideas, and influence. Komen for the Cure — formerly, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation — provides a great example of the power of nonprofit branding. It’s remarkable enough that this organization has grown in less than 25 years into the largest support group for breast cancer survivors, raising almost $1 billion for breast cancer programs.Even more impressive, however, Komen (and other initiatives, like Avon’s pioneering breast cancer walks) have helped bring this once-taboo disease into mainstream and make it a top public health priority — even though there are other diseases, less well-funded, that kill more people every year. In the process, Komen has turned pink ribbons into instantly recognized symbols of support for breast cancer victims and even managed to co-opt the word â€Å"cure. † No one asks any more, â€Å"Cure what? † In today’s context, pink plus â€Å"cure† has become shorthand for â€Å"cure breast cancer. Little wonder, then, that when Komen revised its name and logo in 2006, the word â€Å"cure† took c enter stage. And what an upgrade! Komen ditched its foundation moniker, which was always a bit confusing to donors and supporters because it did not speak to the organization’s programmatic efforts to support grassroots networks of survivors, promote early screening, and moral: Your mission should drive your marketing. If you are trying to change individual behaviors or social norms it’s time to invest in social marketing.Marketing and Communications to Build the Brand The best of the best are thinking not only of marketing for fundraising and mission impact, but also for brand building. Brands are powerful stuff. Apple, for instance, evokes immediate associations of hip, cool, innovative products with excellent design. Coke and Pepsi have spent decades (and billions in advertising) staking out their relative brand positions: real thing or next generation? Nike has even managed to transcend its name, evolving into a universally recognizable logo.If you work for Apple, Coke, or Nike, you don’t have to explain to anyone what your company does. Everyone knows, both in substance and style. But not so the typical nonprofit employee. Maybe you’re lucky and work someplace like the National Geographic Society, which has name recognition numbers to rival IBM and Starbucks, but the chances are that few people have ever heard of your organization or care particularly about your mission or approach. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate ProgramAdvocacy in the Public Interest 8 improve patient care. The words â€Å"breast cancer,† with all their negative baggage, also disappeared from the name. Instead, Komen has adroitly repositioned itself as the leading force focused on a finding a cure — a positive, future-oriented message that appeals to donors, the public, and breast cancer victims alike. Komen’s rebranding has been successful because its new brand positioning rings true with the organization’s core values, mission, and programs.This illustrates an important point about authenticity for any nonprofit trying to strengthen its brand. In the eyes of your stakeholders, it’s fine to change the various attributes of your brand — your name, logo, messages, and programmatic emphasis — as long as what you’re changing to passes the authenticity test. (Imagine Komen moving into an issue such as prostate cancer — they simply would not enjoy the same credibility and clout that they have earned in the breast cancer arena. The lack of authenticity also helps explain the failure of so many high-profile corporate rebranding efforts; call it Phillip Morris or the Altria Group, in the public mind both are merchants of death, and no new logo can change that. As marketing guru Seth Godin might say, Komen is an example of the tremendous power to be found in telling an authentic story in a low-trust world. So be careful abou t undermining the existing equity in your nonprofit brand.The National Audubon Society learned this lesson in the early 1990s, when the organization’s new leadership decided that Audubon needed to take a much more aggressive political posture. They ditched the revered whooping crane logo (â€Å"the bird image hurts us,† the CEO said at the time), fired the veteran editor of their signature magazine, and launched the kind of political activists campaigns usually associated with the Sierra Club. But that wasn’t what Audubon members wanted. They were birders. They liked the crane. They wanted the magazine full of handsome photographs of warblers, not partisan screeds on toxic waste.The defections were swift, and Audubon’s membership and fundraising dropped sharply. Finally the board had to act and the CEO was ousted in 1996, only three years after launching the revolution. The new CEO wisely returned to the focus on birds, but even so, Audubon has never reco vered its peak membership of the late 1980s. Despite the importance of branding and reputation, nonprofits are notoriously poor brand managers. Building a brand can be difficult and very expensive, and the results are typically hard to measure or not immediately apparent.As a result, nonprofits rarely invest the necessary resources to secure top-flight marketing talent, to produce outstanding marketing materials, to engage the media, to implement a consistent and appropriate visual identity system, and to do all the other supporting activities that fall under the heading of â€Å"branding. † To be sure, branding is no longer a dirty word in nonprofit circles, as it was in the 1990s, but this type of advanced marketing is still the first thing that gets cut when the funding is tight and the last item in the budget to be restored. Such foolishness wouldn’t last long in the private sector.When sales are down, do Ford and General Motors reduce the advertising budget or sla sh the marketing department? Regrettably, about the only thing that compels nonprofit leaders to pay attention to branding is when something goes spectacularly wrong at a high-profile peer organization. And some of the marquee brands in the nonprofit world have taken a real battering in recent years: the American Red Cross, United Way, or the Smithsonian Institution, among others. Ask any of these nonprofits how much their brand is worth to them — and what kind of damage they have suffered and how it could have been even worse.Then you might think twice before taking a red pencil to the marketing budget. moral: Your brand defines your organization to the outside world. Take the initiative and define yourself, before one of your enemies tries to define you. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 9 Developing Successful Marketing and Communications Strategies With the desire for fundrai sing, mission impact and brand building understood, the key question becomes one of strategy, taking you from where you are to where you want to be.And strategy is fundamentally about making choices. This scares the hell out of the typical nonprofit employee. After all, making choices means that you might not choose me! As in Lake Woebegone, we in the nonprofit sector believe ourselves to be all above average, somehow special and immune from the laws of supply and demand that govern the rest of the world. The nonprofit culture — often conflict-averse, participatory, and given to consensus decision-making — further complicates the task of making real strategic choices. No wonder so many decisions inside nonprofit institutions end up as compromises.But making tough choices is not optional when it comes to developing communications or marketing strategy. The reason is simple. No matter who you are, it costs too much for nonprofits to compete in this realm. Even Coca-Cola has to make hard choices about whom it targets with its marketing dollars. For nonprofits, operating with only a fraction of the resources of corporations, discipline and focus become all the more important in developing effective communications strategies. Your chances of success depend both on well-conceived strategy and on the quality of your implementation plan.Brilliantly conceived marketing concepts have failed because of disconnects between planning and doing. A good marketing or communications strategy should flow in a tight logical sequence, starting with a very explicitly articulated objective or goal, all the way through the tactics and accountability. The more measurable the goal, the better — get the state legislature to fund this or that program, reduce teen smoking rates, raise attendance at the museum. You may not be able to avoid such amorphous goals as â€Å"raise awareness,† but you can ensure that your communications plan is driving toward a specifi c outcome.The real guts of a high-quality marketing and communications plan follow directly from the goal. As long as it’s aimed at a measurable result, the time-honored â€Å"audience, message, vehicle† formula has lost none of its relevance: audience: Which individuals or institutions do you need to reach and/or influence to achieve your programmatic objective? Can they be identified according to demographic or geographic, personality or lifestyle characteristics? Are they already aware of your issue and organization? message: What message will motivate each of your vehicle: What is the best means of delivering the arget audiences to take the required actions? After all, awareness matters not if nothing changes. message to the target audience? What combination of tools and vehicles work best? What individuals can serve as effective messengers? Not very complicated, right? And if it’s as simple as that, then how come marketing consultants continue to earn hands ome fees from nonprofits? First of all, it’s not that simple. Crafting a communications plan for a nonprofit that will cut through the background noise requires skill and ingenuity. But compounding the problem, nonprofits infrequently take the time to do this right.Impatient executive directors tend to focus on tactics, obsessing on such things as their column in the organization’s newsletter or signing off on all direct mail copy. Audience research and message testing can be expensive, so often nonprofits will try shortcuts or simply close their eyes and do something even more dangerous: assume. And belaboring the whole process can be the immense self-absorption of so many nonprofits. Mission-driven organizations, with their singular focus on a cause such as human rights or the environment, can come across as cults of the self-righteous, demanding that supporters drink their proverbial purple Kool-Aid.Their communications and marketing materials will ask for buy-in to a full set of beliefs, rather than support for a single solution to an identifiable problem that matters to their audience. This can lead to big problems. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 10 Developing tightly integrated marketing and communications plans with a focus on a measurable goal, and a clearly identified target audience thus can serve as the perfect antidote for the congenital lack of discipline and self-referentialism of so many nonprofits.It will ensure that you spend what you need to spend — and not any more. It will ensure that whatever you do spend will be aimed toward a pre-determined result (and evaluated accordingly). moral: You can’t go far wrong in communications if you stick to the Holy Trinity: Audience. Message. Vehicle. In addition to the general public, a few other hardy perennials seem to pop up onto most nonprofit lists of priority audiences. T here are â€Å"policymakers† — as if county, city, state, federal, and international institutions were all the same.This phrase lumps together elected officials, appointed officials, and legislative staff; the executive, judicial, and legislative branches; and often the media elites, academics, and other key influencers as well. Then there are â€Å"major donors† and â€Å"foundations. † These too are highly idiosyncratic audiences, requiring discrete messages and careful handling. Specificity matters when identifying and prioritizing audiences. The more general and broad the audience, the more difficult it is to tailor and deliver a powerful, compelling message that will resonate with that audience.Political campaigns see this dynamic all the time whenever a candidate has to reach out beyond his or her base. The red meat issues that so inspired the faithful don’t always translate well when packaged for a wider audience. The same logic applies to t he nonprofit sector. The narrower the audience you choose, and the more audience appropriate your approach, the higher the probability that you can move that audience to action. Selecting and ranking your audiences is a bit like solving a puzzle. Start with your objective. Who do you need to make progress?In other words, what group of people (or institutions) will have the necessary clout to make a difference — either to block what you want or else to make it happen? The answers to these questions cannot be based on wishful thinking or guesswork; rather, it requires a clear-eyed and sometimes coldblooded analysis of the world of the possible. I learned about the importance of figuring out the right audience years ago, when I was involved in a campaign to protect the desert tortoise, whose listing as an endangered species threatened to shut down realestate development in Las Vegas.The key to the whole deal was getting the local Board of Supervisors to put up a bunch of money t o acquire habitat for the tortoise way out in the desert. It didn’t take us long to focus like a laser on the target audience of our campaign — the nine members of the board of supervisors. About Audiences I still get splenetic when my nonprofit clients list the â€Å"general public† as one of their target audiences. I remind them that there is no such animal in today’s sophisticated marketing universe, no one — not Proctor & Gamble, not General Motors, not Unilever — tries to sell to the â€Å"general public. And certainly no nonprofit can be in the business of trying to appeal to such an amorphous and diverse audience. Yet all too many nonprofits persist in the fantasy that they can reach and then mobilize a broad audience. If you are the AARP, to be sure, you can easily roust your membership of 35 million to action whenever there is a political attack on Social Security or Medicare. But even if they were to get all 35 million, thatâ€⠄¢s still barely a tenth of the country, and hardly representative of the â€Å"general public. An exceptionally savvy and politically astute institution, AARP instead makes careful, informed judgments about what political coalition they need to achieve their legislative goals, and then methodically reaches out to those audiences. That’s a far cry, and far more strategic, than trying to spread the word about your cause through every possible channel to every possible audience. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 11 But we really didn’t even bother with all nine.Three of them were on our side already, and three opposed. To get a majority, we needed to target the two undecided supervisors — an audience of exactly two. I am happy to report that both of these fine elected officials were deeply impressed by our poll of voters that showed strong public support for protecti ng the tortoises. They agreed to support the appropriation we were seeking. Today a healthy population of tortoises thrives at a wildlife refuge created for them in Searchlight, Nevada. The poll that broke the political logjam cost around $10,000.If we had been less careful in choosing our audience — if, say, we had targeted the voters of — I have no doubt that we would have spent a lot more money and accomplished less in terms of conservation. The alternative would have been expensive and timeconsuming grassroots campaign, with no guarantee of success. With inherently limited means, nonprofits, therefore, should be ruthless in narrowing their target audiences to the greatest degree possible. What’s the irreducible minimum, the smallest audience I can reach and still achieve my objective? It could be two people, as in the Las Vegas case, or it could be thousands.The numbers matter less than going through the exercise of drawing an explicit link between the audie nce and the desired outcome. At the very least, this keeps you from spending time and money trying to engage people who aren’t interested in what you do, and never will be. I’m all for being on the same page. That’s why highimpact nonprofits have a position statement and elevator speech, an organization-wide mission and unifying goals. But don’t confuse or conflate these framing elements of your organization’s positioning with the messages that you are trying to deliver to your target audiences.Certainly, there will be considerable overlap, and messages must be consistent with the overall brand. If you fall in the trap of starting with your message first, you will never really succeed at marketing or communicating about your organization. Instead, the needs of the audience dictate the message. Nonprofits often miss this point and believe that the message should be about them. But it most emphatically is not. More than just slogans, messages should be designed to motivate the target audience to go beyond awareness and take action — to vote one way or another, make a donation or sign a petition, to stop smoking or exercise more.What’s more, messages have to speak directly to the needs, desires, and aspirations of the audience. What’s in it for them? Why should they care? And how might your messages lessen the perceived costs or highlight the perceived benefits of taking action? Messages can evoke emotion (fear or hope, for example) or appeal to reason (using statistics or anecdotes) but in either case, the message needs to address a top-of-mind concern not for you, but for your target audience, and do so in a simple, compelling way.Obviously, the more you know about your audience, the better you can devise messages that will scratch their particular itch. Market research, consequently, plays a critical role in communications and marketing campaigns. Research helps you understand your audience’s attit udes and concerns, their priorities and where your issue stands relative to others for them. Meanwhile, research into language — testing specific words and phrases — can ensure that messages will resonate with the target audience. And market research also plays a role in figuring out how to deliver your message.What are the common characteristics of those in your target audience? How does your target audience get information? Who do they trust for accurate data? What do they read? Do they all watch the same TV shows? moral: There is no such thing as the general public. Find the audience that matters most to your mission, and focus on them like a laser beam. About Messages About 45 minutes into the first meeting on developing a new communications strategy, someone — usually an long-time employee from the program side of the organization — will express frustration with all the attention being pent on audiences. â€Å"Let’s just get our message strai ght and go from there,† this person will say. â€Å"We all need to be on the same page. † Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 12 Brevity is the second success factor in developing effective messages. The more clear and compelling the message, the greater the likelihood of moving your audience to act. In the desert tortoise case, for example, the message couldn’t have been clearer — your constituents overwhelmingly support this. In short, it is a votewinner.By contrast, once you branch out into a more complex message, especially one that requires context, it’s easy to lose the thread and hence the audience. The environmental community had this problem for years with the issue of global warming, which until very recently was a hard sell to policymakers because the story wasn’t being told well. Finally, let me reiterate that effective messages incorpo rate an explicit call to action. A message without an explicit â€Å"ask† may help build awareness of a particular issue or cause, but awareness by itself rarely results in positive social change.The Lance Armstrong Foundation discovered the importance of this lesson when to their astonishment the yellow rubber â€Å"LiveSTRONG† bracelets exploded in popularity by the tens of millions. Within months, the market was awash in different colored bracelets: white, pink, red and so forth. Armstrong’s cause — promoting cancer survivorship — was lost in this technicolor jumble, and not least because they were unprepared to channel the immense initial interest in their work into a simple ask. The â€Å"ask† also has to align with the problem or product.The famous â€Å"Got Milk? † campaign, for example, also got a ton of attention for its innovative approach — hip advertising with milk mustaches on celebrities — and the ask was o bviously there, but it initially and famously failed in its goal of increasing milk sales. It turns out people loved the ads because they were fun and clever, not because they presented a compelling argument to go out and drink more of the same old boring milk. It took better alignment with the actual product — new bottles, different flavors — before milk sales were affected.Back in the nonprofit world, the Lance Armstrong Foundation is now aimed at turning the â€Å"LiveSTRONG† awareness (wear a yellow bracelet) into an ask for united political action (vote for cancer funding), and achieving far more tangible results, such as the recent passage of a $3 billion bond initiative for cancer research in Texas. When the message aligns with the interests of the audience, by contrast, possibilities abound. To rejuvenate membership and participation, in 2000 the Girl Scouts ditched their stodgy Brownie image and adopted a message hierarchy organized around the theme â⠂¬Å"where girls grow strong. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy reached its teen audience by stressing how having a baby resulted in the loss of social status and the addition of many new responsibilities. But the gold standard for effective messaging in the nonprofit world revolves around the â€Å"Truth† campaign, an initiative designed by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids to reduce teen smoking in Florida. Conventional anti-smoking messages aimed at teens asserted that smoking wasn’t cool and stressed the health risks, the smell, and the cost.They preached responsibility and just saying â€Å"no. † And as anyone with teenage children could tell you, those messages were doomed from the start. When you are immortal, like all 17 year olds, you don’t care about developing lung cancer at 65. You also deeply resent insults to your intelligence, so being lectured that smoking isn’t cool just doesn’t fly. Rebels smoke, and always ha ve: Bogart, Bacall, Dean, Che. The â€Å"Truth† campaign started from a whole different place. The ads, funded with tobacco settlement money, were written and produced by teens.Instead of telling kids that smoking was bad for them or somehow uncool, the teenagers in the Truth ads openly acknowledged the right of their peers to make their own decisions about smoking. (Independence being a key motivator for teens. ) Instead, the ads zeroed in on the tobacco companies, and, in particular, charges about tobacco advertising intended to lure children and teenagers into smoking. In essence, therefore, the message in the â€Å"Truth† ads was all about manipulation: did you know that the adults at big Tobacco are trying o manipulate you into smoking? Again, parents will recognize immediately the huge leverage in this message: the only thing kids hate more than sanctimonious adults are manipulative adults. Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Exe cutive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 13 And â€Å"Truth† worked. Florida was one of the few states that actually experienced a drop in teenage smoking rates. Most telling, the tobacco industry absolutely loathed the Truth campaign and did everything in its power to stop it.When you have attracted the ire of the master marketers at Phillip Morris and RJR, you can be sure that you have honed a pretty effective message. moral: Figure out what motivates your audience. That’s the basis for your message, not what the board, management, and staff want. About Messengers and Vehicles When SeaWeb and other ocean advocacy organizations became concerned about the rapid decline of the swordfish and other species known as much for their popularity on our plates as their populations in the oceans, they decided to enlist top chefs, rather than movie stars, as their main messengers.Why? Their research showed that the public looked to chefs for advice on seafood. A nd Paul Prudhomme already had exemplified the way that a top chef, with a catch phrase and heavy seasoning, could take the relatively bland redfish, and create a dining sensation while unintentionally driving a species closer to the point of extinction. The hope was that those who set the nation’s menus would take a step in the opposite direction, and stop promoting a popular fish that was now in trouble. The organizations enlisted hundreds of leading chefs from across the nation in a campaign to â€Å"give swordfish a reak. † The media liked the messenger, picked up the message, and policymakers listened, taking action to protect swordfish back in the sea. The messenger alone is not enough, but the right messenger carrying the right message can do wonders to motivate an audience. Of course, that message also needs to reach the audience in a way they trust. For SeaWeb and the swordfish, the focus was not only on the media outlets that reached the policymakers who contr olled fishing regulations, but also on arranging one-on-one meetings directly with those policymakers.With the advent of the Internet, the number and variety of arrows in the marketing and communications quiver has increased exponentially. Once an audience is identified, there are now more paths than ever to their proverbial doorstep. While personal meetings, printed materials, earned media and advertising remain important in many cases, increasingly the centerpiece of an effective marketing strategy is no longer offline, but online. The best web sites have evolved from being simple online brochures to nodes on larger networks.Blogs offer an opportunity to send and receive more sophisticated and nuanced messages, especially to those who follow your issues with rapt attention. And email systems are becoming so cost effective that savvy organizations can now do the sort of differentiated marketing and information exchanges with large groups in a way that they once had to reserve only for use with VIPs. The catch, of course, is that for organizations to make the most of these new tools, they need to relinquish some control and allow the public to participate.The networked nature of the Internet is at the core of a small â€Å"d† democratic revolution in the creation of distribution of information. In keeping with the title of Jed Miller and Rob Stuart’s influential article, network-centric thinking certainly is a challenge to ego-centric organizations. If a nonprofit leader still wants to employ a 17-step approval process for every bit of information going out the door, that organization will simply not thrive in the Internet age. moral: Put the right messenger in the right vehicle and let it fly.Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program Advocacy in the Public Interest 14 Managing a Communications Crisis The recurring nightmare of every communications manager starts with a phone call. â€Å" I’m calling from 60 Minutes,† the nightmare begins. â€Å"I’d like to come over and ask you a few questions about your organization. † These words typically trigger a series of immediate reactions on the part of recipient: panic, a sinking feeling in the gut, the sweats. And with good reason.When you hear from investigative journalists, it’s generally not because they are interested in all the good work you do. To the contrary: their job is to expose what you aren’t doing well. To paraphrase a reporter who covers the nonprofit sector for a leading newspaper, â€Å"‘Foundation gives grant’ is not news. ‘Nonprofit helps people’ is not news. ‘Nonprofit misuses foundation money’ — that’s news. † This attitude infuriates the boards and staff of nonprofit organizations. It’s so unfair, they wail. Journalists don’t understand all the great work we do on behalf of our mission.W hy don’t they go get a â€Å"bad guy†? Rather than indulge in self-pity and anti-media resentment after the fact, nonprofits would be wise to prepare themselves in advance for communications crises that may never come. Planning and forethought represent your best, perhaps only hope for mitigating the institutional damage that comes from a full-blown reputational crisis. When it hits the fan, you won’t have time to do anything but react, and by that time, you will have already lost. At the same time, how can you prepare for something that hasn’t happened yet or that you don’t know about?Nonprofit staff, just like their peers in the private sector and government, are loath to acknowledge error and in many cases do their best to bury mistakes far from the light of day. How can the poor communications director possibly know which of these little disasters is going to burrow out of the bureaucratic morass and land on the front page of The New York Times ? Two kinds of stories in particular seem to agitate the media when it comes to nonprofits. The first has to do with the compensation and behavior of nonprofit managers.Much of the mainstream media has unfortunately bought into the idea that those working in the charitable sector deserve to be paid much less, and should act much better than their private-sector counterparts, and thus the spate of stories in the press about lavishly compensated nonprofit CEOs or a personal indiscretion that would go unnoticed in the for-profit world. Whether these criticisms are valid or not is irrelevant. The fact, the appearance of nonprofit â€Å"profiteering† or inappropriate behavior remains a huge red flag for the press.Hypocrisy is the second big trigger. If the media finds out, for example, that your anti-smoking coalition has been accepting money from tobacco companies, your reputation is basically toast. No explaining that decision away. The same holds true for children’s prog rams that actually benefit adults or when a high-profile televangelist is discovered with his pants down. The press holds nonprofits and others working in the charitable sector to a higher ethical standard, and when organizations violate that trust, the journalistic response is usually swift and merciless.So what can the nonprofit marketing professional do? Is the only choice to take the punches? Actually, that’s not such a bad strategy, depending on the severity of the media attack and the depths of your organizational culpability. If you don’t argue — if you just admit that you made mistakes and assure your stakeholders that the problem is being fixed, oftentimes the press will get bored and move on to a new story. It’s no fun picking a fight with someone who refuses to fight back.This kind of institutional jujitsu works best for dealing with cases of employee fraud or theft, accidents, or other isolated incidents. Higher-stakes assaults on your reputat ion — ones that suggest a pattern of inappropriate behavior — merit a more aggressive response. No one has thought more deeply about this than Lanny Davis, who helped Bill Clinton fend off media inquiries into White House Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate ProgramAdvocacy in the Public Interest 15 fundraising practices. Frustrated both by the lawyers inside the White House, who fought releasing any information to the public, and the press, who were convinced of a massive cover-up, Davis conceived a set of three simple rules for handling crisis communications: Tell it all. Tell it early. And tell it yourself. tell it all: Since Watergate, generations of media relations professionals have cleaved to the mantra that the cover-up is always worse than the original sin.The reason is simple: nothing keeps a story in the news more than having information dribble out slowly, with each new revelation allowing the press to rehash everything that has gone before. What’s worse, each new revelation only confirms the suspicions of the press that you aren’t being straight with them. So why do so many organizations violate this basic tenet of crisis communications? First, as noted earlier, no one likes to admit error. For nonprofits, which depend on voluntary contributions, there is also real fear that owning up to mistakes will damage their reputation and thus hurt their fundraising.Even more fundamental, though, it’s often very difficult to gather and get straight all the facts about a tricky situation in time to meet the deadlines of the press. This leads to incomplete or evasive answers that often have to be â€Å"corrected† later — with predictable results. Who can ever forget Richard Nixon’s press secretary saying â€Å"that information is no longer operative†? The only possible defense against accusations of a cover-up is to get to the bottom of the is sue internally and then make a complete and frank accounting externally.Even the most embarrassing details are better told up front than leaking out later. Or as Davis says: tell it all. But the most important reason to tell it early is so that you can control — or attempt to control — how the issue gets framed. If something has gone terribly wrong inside your organization, you want to be the person announcing it to the press, rather than the other way around. It gives you a chance to play a little offense, not only to reveal the transgression but also to announce what you’re going to do about it.In such circumstances, your best hope of avoiding a media feeding frenzy is to acknowledge the full extent of the error (tell it all), take full responsibility for what happened (passing the buck infuriates the press), and lay out a series of action steps to prevent recurrences. tell it yourself: There’s no guarantee, of course, that telling it all and telling it early will suffice to call off the media. Some will always question whether you’ve taken strong enough action, or whether the responsible people have been appropriately disciplined.But the alternative — waiting for your dirty laundry to be aired in the press — is invariably worse. And make no mistake: your unsavory organizational secrets will eventually come to light. Bad news is too juicy and has too many avenues for escape. I learned this lesson the hard way when I was running communications for The Nature Conservancy. Disgruntled with the new directions of the Conservancy’s president, at least three different people from inside management were leaking documents to The Washington Post.This is every reporter’s dream: multiple sources with access to inside information — and a grudge. As a result, the Post spent months asking questions to which they already knew the answer, hoping to catch the organization in a contradiction. You can’ t just worry about an errant employee, though. Even if you believe down to the depths of your soul that your organization is beyond reproach, both in its mission and its actions, there is, without doubt, someone out there who would like to see you stopped in your tracks.Identify those potential enemies in the same way you would identify your potential allies, and be prepared for when they come knocking. tell it early: In the public mind, stonewalling equals guilt (just as most people instantly interpret the classic â€Å"no comment† as an admission of error). The longer you wait to respond to charges, the more validity those charges assume. These factors alone provide a powerful incentive for nonprofits to get their side of the story out fast. moral: Don’t pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel. Instead, learn to take your medicine and follow the Davis Rules.Essays on Excellence Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program A dvocacy in the Public Interest 16 About the Author David Williamson is Managing Director of the consulting firm of Bernuth & Williamson, serving nonprofit clients in the areas of strategy, marketing, and communications. He previously served for 13 years in senior management positions at The Nature Conservancy, the nation’s 10th largest nonprofit, including six years as Director of Communications (1997–2002) and terms as Vice President for Marketing and Director of Conservation Marketing.He is an adjunct professor of business administration at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and has lectured on nonprofit management at Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, among others. Williamson, a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, serves in leadership positions on three nonprofit boards in addition to his work with clients. David Williamson