The curse of focusing on overheads in charities

I think this is a great talk about charity. I work for two charities and live in the frustration of small scale and the desire to keep the overheads low. Now waste in overhead is always a bad thing but I cringe when I hear people being classed as overheads. Yes trim the budget on the travel by making sure people take the most reasonable train option but don't fire your face to face workers. Just because their face to face work involves talking to donors not clients. Your people are the real strength of any charity. please pay them a fair wage. If we believe non-profits serving communities deserve the best people doing the best they can. Then we need to pay a competitive wage. We can not short cut our way to success in the non-profit sector. We need to invest in growth and advertising.

I have two lingering questions from this talk

"Is there a limit on what is reasonable to pay a charity worker or CEO?"
"Can charities increase giving by they way they work or do we need a shift in cultural attitudes? Is it possible for charities to do this?"

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200 word rpg challenge - entry idea "The labyrinthine library"

For the last few years David Schirduan and Marshall Miller , have run a 200 word rpg challenge . The simple concept is a competition to " Design a role-playing game using 200 words or less ." With a panel of judges going through the dozens and dozens of entries. Reading through previous years entries has inspired me to give it a go. Below is my attempt at writing a simple rpg in 200 words. I would love to hear any thoughts people have after reading it. The Labyrinthine Library Need Scrabble tiles, DM & 3-4 players Players are the Arcanist’s assistants. Sent into the labyrinthine library to find a lost spell scroll. The DM makes up a series of challenges. Character creation Characters have 2 HP. Take 2 scrabble tiles. The Letters are your Initials. Make up your names. The numbers give you 2 abilities from list below. 1 = +1HP 2 = nimble 3 = goodshot 4 = brawler 5 = small animal companion (cat/owl/ferret etc) 8 = academic 10 = 1 (DM approved) spell

First attempt at a one page rpg system using dominoes not dice

Restarting blogging this year hasn't gone very well so far but here is something. I've attempted to write a One page domino based rpg . I was intrigued by the idea of a domino based rpg after reading about Macabre Tales and have heavily imitated their system to attempt to make a one page rpg system myself. I'm sharing this first draft online for feedback for both the rpg system and my attempt to explain the system. Game design is a big personal aim for my 2017 so I am going to try a number of small projects. I have some rpg ideas, board game ideas and card game ideas. This blog seems as good as place as any to share my working progress.

Fishkeeping in a Cambodian Rice Field

Improving subsistence farmers diet with fish husbandry in Cambodia How can a bunch of fish ponds make a real difference? This summer I am travelling around South-East Asia, including Cambodia. In Cambodia I will be visiting some NGOs and voluntary aid projects . I meet with our main contact this week and most of the work is focused on people projects, teaching English, prison visits , drug addiction etc but they mentioned one project where they help rice farmers start fish husbandry projects. These projects are designed to help the local subsistence farmers grow on fish to adult size for increasing the protein component of their diet. Being interested in all forms of fish keeping I hope that when we travel to Cambodia I can visit the project or at least meet up with the team managing the project. It sounds like a fascinating and practical way to help some of the worlds poorest improve their diet and economic situation. It was mentioned that the project specifically look

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