For your supporters, your organization’s blog is a window into your world. It showcases what matters to you, how you’re achieving your mission, and provides insight into the type of organization you are or want to be. Perhaps most importantly, it’s a critical marketing tool to spread knowledge of your work and the issues you prioritize to millions of potential supporters.

So what do you do to have your Non-profit’s message or blog at the forefront of all?

1. It all starts with fundraising :

Behind every successful and influential organization is a team of people finding the money to fund great work. While your blog shouldn’t only be a vehicle to support the development team, every post is a good opportunity to turn a casual observer or activist into a donor. Make sure your blog contributors – whether within or outside your organization – are fully aware of this. After all, money is the fuel of it all.

For More: Managing a Nonprofit is already more than a Full-Time Job

Thank You,

One argument you often see being made by pundits today – particularly those who have a “secular stagnation” view of the world – is that there’s nothing to lose by conducting extreme monetary policy.

Given the risks involved in a deflationary world, it can’t hurt to fight it in any way possible.

But everything has consequences, and you can’t expect to keep interest rates at current levels without distorting the market in some way.

Bottom Line: I strongly believe that central bankers’ actions have put the global economy today in a very dangerous position.

Interest rates are too low. As a result, we’re seeing a replay of the mid-2000s – when interest rates were too low given economic growth, and as a result, the bubble in US subprime property was inflated. And when it blew up, it triggered the global financial crisis.

For More: Are we Facing an Economic Disaster?

Thank You,

My questions are about Hillary’s emails, but they aren’t the usual ones. Everyone is agog about the hubris exhibited by the would-be President and how it reminds us of the First Couple’s dodgy past from not-sex in the oval office to stealing everything they could get their hands on when they left the White House.

However, there are much more important questions: namely the security of our nation’s secrets and Hillary’s role in giving them away.

The current White House electronic information security breach by Russian hackers came through U.S. State Department computers. It turns out State Department computers were hacked earlier and the latest report is that it is not at all certain all intrusions have yet been cleaned out.

News reports say that State was hacked “for months.” Technically that is true, the reports simply don’t say how many months. If you read all the stories carefully it turns out that those months represent years – the years Hillary was Secretary of State.

For More: Hilary’s Emails and our Nation’s Security

It is a fact that water use is today rising at double the rate of global population growth owing to urbanization, more water-intensive agricultural products, growing industrialization of emerging markets and the impact of climate change. The supply of fresh water is relatively static; hence, the rapid rate of demand growth is, not surprisingly, causing some stress.

An estimated 1/3 of the world’s population currently lives in water-stressed or water-scarce countries. On the current trajectory, it is estimated based on most recent population projections (according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Geneva Conference) that by 2025 countries will have water demand in excess of supply and 64% of the world’s population will be under significant pressure.

The Middle East (and North Africa) has the greatest absolute and relative water supply problem, in fact classified as ‘high’ stress compared to the rest of the world which is classified as moderate (Asia) and low (all other regions).

For More: Is Water The New Gold?

Thank You,

The practice of doing business in China has come into question early this year. The disputes between Google Inc. and the Chinese government have been one factor; others have included the continued concerns raised in the West about China’s currency policy, and in China about Western financial policies.

Moreover, questions about intellectual property protection in China have not gone away. At the same time, the consumer markets within the country are more vibrant as its pace of growth increases, and Chinese businesses are becoming innovative, fierce competitors within their country, and increasingly in the world outside. There has never been a time when getting China right is more important — or more difficult.

How do we view China in here at Blackhawk?

What is our investment policy vis a vis China given the increasing tensions that are raising concerns among some businesspeople out there and given our increasing exposure to China through our strategic investments in Linktone and China Security & Surveillance Technology?

For More: Opportunities in China

They say “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”.

I cannot but (finally and after having ruminated the question for years) wholeheartedly agree.

Some of my greatest ideas and projects went nowhere because I didn’t know the right people yet. And some complicated deals went ever so smoothly simply because I knew the “person in charge”.

In my 30 years in business, this famous quote that my father kept repeating to me ever since I was a teenager, is probably the single most potent business lesson that I have learnt.
At the end of the day and no matter what technological miracles are conceived, people do business with people.

For More: Knowing the Right People

Thank You,

It’s the age-old question in the investment world. Truth to tell, no one has a really good answer. There is no true science to investing, and certainly not for Private Equity/VC investments. The ugly truth is that most professional investors aren’t very good at it; That’s one of the reasons so few of them outperform major indexes over any reasonable period of time. VCs, on average, are even worse. Most of their investments are dogs, and few ring up truly superior returns.

Well after 30 years in the money business, dealing with some of the most sophisticated and savvy super investors in the world, here are my 10 tips which I hope will broaden your minds further.

1. Correct conceptual understanding of investing.
There are plenty of investment theories around. Some are valid, others are nonsense. Your ability to choose a solid investment philosophy is critical. Whatever theory you choose, make sure you understand it inside out. As Warren Buffett keeps saying ” Never invest in a business you can’t understand”. So the first step of being an exceptional investor is to know your stuff like a “master”.

For More: WHAT MAKES AN EXCEPTIONAL INVESTOR

Thank you,

On March 18th 2014 the US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen stated the need for “reasonable confidence” in order to effectuate a more conservative monetary policy focusing on interest rate raise.  Chair Yellen has indicated four macroeconomic factors that need to be further monitored.

•    The labor market with further unemployment rate decline;
•    A continued rise in currently slumped wages;
•    Core inflation stabilization (independent of energy ‘push’);
•    A higher “market-based” expected inflation rate.

The Fed’s decision to hold off on short term rate hikes comes one week after its macroprudential bank stress tests. Notable amongst the results was the “conditional approval” of Bank of America’s capital plan, with complete rejection of Deutsche Bank and Santander’s capital plans. It is clear that under Yellen the Federal Reserve is attempting to uphold the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

From a general standpoint, it is also quite glaring that the Federal Reserve as a central bank is fast adopting more of an eco-political role as a quasi-indirect financial system regulator through financial system monitoring. As has been mentioned before, monetary policy is the fastest mechanism to quell financial system defects, as fiscal policy results tend to lag.

For More: Financial Policy Best Practice Framework

Thank You,

First off, thank you for being part of my social media “inner circle”…. You are in here because we have much in common and I always appreciate your insight.

As we’re entering the latter part of the year, I thought I’d share and explore with you ways I can best help you “monetize” your skills and network and see where we go from there.

Basically,

1. I am one of the Founding Partners, President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. a private “family office” that is in the business of originating, structuring and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations and buildups, and growth capital financings, and trading key physical commodities

2. I am the Founder & Chairman of the Board of the Financial Policy Council ; a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization designed to give its select group of supporters the opportunity to have direct face-to-face dialogue with the nation’s quintessential powerbrokers and policymakers along with members of the media at large while educating both as to the implications of the actions being currently taken by the Obama Administration and proposing alternative solutions designed to influence the decision making process when it comes to overall fiscal policy.

For More: Monetizing your skills and network