A number of people who have read The Can Do Chronicles have commented to me about my courage during the “tough times.” Here is a wake up call for a Monday Morning – tough times come back again and again like the alarm clock in the Bill Murray movie. Ned’s job was eliminated – again – effective this Friday. We are getting over the shock of it. We are grateful for the outpouring of support from friends. We know to do what we CAN DO: he is networking and I am working.

I offer this proposition for a Monday morning: I believe that a Can Do framework is sorely needed in the nonprofit sector, where there has been heavy and unending competition for shrinking dollars. Twice in Ned’s work in the last three and a half years, organizations have eliminated the Director of Development position because they cannot afford it. Understandable on some tactical levels – absurd on strategic levels. A fact of life in a sector, actually in a world, that has seen much short-sighted decision making that has kept this economy in the sad shape that it is in.

At the core of CAN DO are three simple, yet powerful questions: 1) What CAN I DO? 2) If not that, what else CAN I DO? 3) Just because I CAN, DO I? They guide me every day, no matter how “tough” the time is. I believe that these three questions keep courage at my fingertips and can help change the world.

I hope you will use them today.