Once you take the unconscious seriously you undermine virtually all quantitative market research and its focus. This is very good news for the creative part of the advertising world, and bad news for the number-crunchers.

Source: Malcolm Gladwell

Service is where transactions are transformed into relationships. Where Respect meets Love. It is the first moment of truth.

Source: Lovemarks, Kevin Roberts, CEO of SAATCHI & SAATCHI

In his work, On Moral Obligations, Cicero (106-43 B.C.) cited three caveats for giving. Cicero asserted: first, the gift should not be prejudicial to the recipient or others; second, the gift should not exceed the donor’s means or impoverish his family; and third, it should be in keeping with the merits of the recipient, taking into consideration character, relationship, and attitude to and services to the donor.

Source: Giving, Robert Bremner

Translated from the French, noblesse oblige means “nobility obligates.” Originally, noblesse oblige was used to suggest that certain requirements of behavior could be legitimately imposed upon persons of noble birth. Noblesse oblige in modern English parlance is a broad literary concept. It suggests that anyone who possesses special talents or gifts is required by society to make the best use of those gifts; that he or she is duty-bound to do his or her best. The concept has been extended to include corporations and even entire nations: a December 14, 1992 article in Time magazine about U.S. involvement in Somalia was titled, “Noblesse oblige for the sole superpower.”

Historic Roots - A fairly recent term, noblesse oblige was first used in 1837 by F. A. Kemble who wrote in a letter, “To be sure, if ‘noblesse oblige,’ royalty must do so still more” (OED, p. 453).

The connection between noblesse oblige and royalty continues to this day. It was the title of an April 25, 1994 article in Forbes magazine that profiles Bostonian Martin Lobkowicz, the son of a Czech aristocrat, who fled the Czech Republic at the age of 10. With Czech democratization, Martin Lobkowicz was able to reclaim his family’s estates. He now owns eight castles, artworks by Canaletto, Rubens, Velazquez, and Brueghel and 40 Spanish portraits from the 16th and 17th centuries. He possesses a library of 70,000 volumes and original musical scores, including Beethoven’s original score for the Third Symphony and Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. And he also owns thousands of acres of forests, a brewery dating to 1466, a vineyard, a spa, and a letter from Beethoven begging the family to increase his pension. But, he says, “We are merely custodians of the cultural treasures that must be preserved for future generations” (Berman, 1994).

Source: Nobles Oblige, David R. Murray

Reciprocity is defined as a mutual exchange (Agnes 2003). Serial reciprocity is exactly what one might expect – a series of sequential exchanges between parties. This set of exchanges is unique because they do not occur between two people in a closed quid pro quo arrangement. Instead, serial reciprocity is “when people repay the benefits they have received – for example, from a parent, friend, mentor, anonymous stranger, or a previous generation – by providing benefits to a third party, someone other than their benefactor” (Moody, 1994, 4).

Serial reciprocity differs from other forms of reciprocity because the original donor or volunteer does not receive anything tangible, measurable or immediate in return for his or her initial good deed. Philanthropic scholar Robert Payton explained serial reciprocity as, “the principle that says we should repay the good works done for us by the good works we, in turn, do for others” (Payton 1990, 1). Thus, in serial reciprocity, individuals “pay it forward” instead of paying it back.

Source: Serial Reciprocity: Pay It Forward, Genevieve Shaker

Stewardship vs. Donor Relations – Stewardship is focused on the gift, not the giver. It is not shepherding the donor along to the next gift. You steward resources, not people. Using the term to describe the ways fundraisers relate to donors or encourage them to make additional gifts is disrespectful because it reduces donors to resources. Stewardship is an ethical responsibility, the requirement and expectation that a nonprofit is accountable for careful, effective use of contributions for the purposes for which they were given. It is an end unto itself, regardless of whether the donor ever makes another gift to the organization.
Source: Stewardship & Donor Relations, Eugene Tempel & Timothy L. Seiler 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Clear Ideas – If your data has fewer than 20 pieces of information, a graphic presentation is not needed.

Speaking – When writing a speech, never include a word you have to look up.

Rule of 9: The product of anything multiplied by nine will have digits that add up to nine or to a number divisible by nine.

Estimating Crowd Size: To get an accurate estimate of a crowd at an event, add the maximum number reported by the supporters of the event and the minimum reported by the detractors and divide by three.
Anders Sandberg, computational neuroscientist