Every now and then I will come across a simple quote that seems to say it all for that point in time. Here’s one from Peter Drucker: “To survive and succeed, every organization will have to turn itself into a change agent. The most effective way to manage change successfully is to create it.” This

How do we know that our work has integrity? I don’t know about you but I struggle with this question a lot. Even when a project or program looks like it is succeeding, there’s always a next set of questions to ask about it. I remember, for instance, when I was directing a battered women’s

Do you ever try to write a simple note and find that it eludes you even after many drafts? So it goes with me today. Actually, this is not really a note but an invitation to an informal tête- à -têtes. If you could just imagine that you are sitting in front of the TV

I don’t know about you but I always come to this point in the summer and marvel at how fast it is speeding by. I look forward to it all winter, making grand resolutions about spending some real time relaxing, and then other things intervene. So I earnestly cram all my relaxing into the end

Oh dear, it’s September already… It’s amazing how quickly we plunge back into the thick of things. Someone sent us a photo titled, “AND YOU THINK YOUR [sic] HAVING A BAD DAY AT WORK !!” Circulated anonymously on the Internet, the photo alleges to show a great white shark attacking a person suspended from a

Sometimes song snippets loop through my head over and over again — until I’m ready to scream . . . Today, as I prepare this letter, Janis Joplin is moaning “I know you’re worried baby and you know (well, you know) I’m worried too.” I realize I might have dated myself and, okay, I may

As many of you know,  I’ve had a somewhat checkered past. I’ve also been blessed with many colleagues with no lack of brilliant ideas for doing the seemingly impossible — some that worked out, and some that did not (at times, quite publicly). My two favorite partners in bright (read, occasionally-bizarre-but-often-successful) ideas were Anne and

I am sensitive to my role as your correspondent. Not long ago, somebody told me that after receiving an e-newsletter she had commented, "Things must be in really bad shape if Ruth is so down." I got the message that I am supposed to "keep a good thought," but sometimes . . . It really

One of my most powerful role models for the past few decades is a beloved friend who, from her perch as executive director of a small community agency in Boston, has had a profound influence both on funding and on housing, homelessness and income policies over many years. Even better, her advocacy positions are consistently

 In the weeks leading up to the war in Iraq, I became aware of how many friends I have that I don't yet know. Many of these friendships, I must admit, are virtual ones, born of Internet technology and involving only the exchange of opinions and online pseudonyms. One Sunday before the war, for instance,

As we move into spring and summer, I have to admit that I’m still vain enough to start obsessing about what I’m eating and what it’s doing to my size and shape. As an individual, I can (I can!) exert some control over what I ingest — and therefore how I look and feel. But

This morning, I heard that the successful 38-year-old network of Head Start programs, which the current administration is trying to creatively dismantle, has been warned to shut up about it. In a May 8 letter, Windy Hill, the Associate Commissioner of the Head Start Bureau at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, attempted