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Thoughts from
the Field
Conversations about purpose, proof, and the people
working to make good work thrive.
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Trust-based philanthropy works best when nonprofits meet it halfway
Most of the conversation around trust-based philanthropy focuses on what funders give up. The thirty-page application. The line-item budget oversight. The restricted grant. The quarterly report nobody read. All of it—rightly—being reconsidered. What gets discussed less is the other half of the trade. Trust-based philanthropy, done seriously, doesn’t mean nonprofits face fewer expectations. It means the expectations move from the funder’s desk to the nonprofit’s. If a foundati
Michaela Rawsthorn
4 hours ago3 min read


The B2B content problem isn’t a writing problem. It’s a research problem.
Most B2B firms trying to improve their content start in the wrong place. They hire a better writer. They redesigned the blog. They commission a brand refresh. They build a content calendar. None of that is the actual problem. The actual problem is upstream of the writing. The firm doesn’t know, with any specificity, what its buyers actually believe. It doesn’t know what the competitive conversation sounds like in the rooms where decisions get made. It doesn’t know which of it
Michaela Rawsthorn
2 days ago2 min read


AI didn’t lower the bar for B2B writing. It raised it.
Most of the worry about AI and content sounds the same. The robots are coming for the writers. Marketing will be flooded with slop. Quality will collapse. I think the truth is stranger and more useful than that. AI didn’t lower the bar for B2B writing. It raised it. What it lowered is the cost of producing mediocre content — the trend statement, the listicle, the framework that turns out to be a list. That kind of writing was already mediocre when humans were producing it. No
Michaela Rawsthorn
5 days ago2 min read


Most B2B thought leadership isn’t thought, and it isn’t leadership
It’s a content category. And the buyers it’s aimed at have stopped reading. I’ve been reading a lot of B2B thought leadership lately. Not for fun. To see what’s out there. Most of it is a category, not a piece of thinking. You can spot the template in the first paragraph. A trend statement that no one would disagree with. A statistic from a report nobody cites by name. A three-part framework that turns out to be a list. A closing line about “embracing transformation” or “lead
Michaela Rawsthorn
7 days ago2 min read
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