In the late 1960s, I worked for a not-for-profit agency in rural Missouri that cared for kids who were separated from their parents for various reasons. Back then our job was to love the kids and provide a safe and structured home for these children so they could hopefully return to their families and become […]

The Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita, Ks. (funded by the Kansas Health Foundation) fosters civic leadership. Its initiatives are designed to inspire, educate and connect Kansans from all areas of civic life, including business, government and nonprofit organizations. Periodically they publish “The Journal” which includes interesting stories about leadership issues and often they tell the […]

Think of a recent major event. How did you find out about the tornado in Joplin, MO? I was driving home and saw a status update on Facebook from a friend. I grew up in the area, so for the next 48-hours I was glued to Facebook, following friends’ status updates to get the latest […]

When I was in college I was fortunate enough to meet Tom Butterfield who had started a residential home for troubled boys in Marshall, Mo. Tom’s vision for helping youth grow to be responsible adults captured my heart. In many ways, meeting Tom changed my life. I worked for Tom while in graduate school and […]

I used to work in the for-profit sector as a banker and as a publisher of a business newspaper. It was customary for us to regularly conduct focus groups or surveys of our customers to find out what they were thinking about our product or services. Based upon this input, we would redesign our products […]