"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is today." Proverb

Happy Holidays! It has been a few very busy months since we wrote you last. As the fall turned to winter here in the mid-Atlantic United States, our work around the world continued to grow exponentially.

This year, Common Ground staff and subcontractors have worked with hundreds of individuals at an unbelievable 60 organizations in more than a half- dozen countries and 18 states! We've logged 155,000 air miles on 111 flights. Thousands of people have visited our website and blog; and hundreds more have signed up for our email newsletters.

More than 90% of all of our work this year has come from your direct referrals and for that, we are overwhelmed with gratitude. Thank You!

Many of you this year have had the chance to interact with John Palinski who started working with Common Ground last summer following the completion of his graduate degree at The Maxwell School. Though his tenure was intended to be short-term and part-time, John's been instrumental to our growth and quickly became a key part of the team. In the new year, John will be taking some time off to volunteer with Barack Obama's campaign. It will be an exciting time for him (and our democracy) and we look forward to the chance to work with John again in the future.

In fact, you can read several guest posts from John about his time with Common Ground on our blog site.

This month, we'll be welcoming Noah Isserman to our team. Noah has a wealth of real-world business experience and a degree in cognitive neuroscience from Amherst College. He will be assuming many of John's responsibilities and we know you'll enjoy getting to know him as much as we have.

In fact, with Noah's help, this month Common Ground has been approved for membership in the Better Business Bureau (BBB) of the National Capital Region. We're proud to honor the high standards of BBB membership through our work with organizations around the world.

Over the past few months, we've been engaged by several new long-term clients. For example, we're privileged to have entered into a relationship with the Developing Countries Delegation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria--working with the delegates first in Sao Paulo, Brazil; and more recently developing their new website presence. We're looking forward to more work together in the new year.

We're also working now on a long-term project for the FAA Managers' Association and continuing our relationship with the Federal Employees Education and Assistance Fund (FEEA). We're a primary consultant to the Baltimore Homeless Youth Initiative (with federal Compassion Capital funds) and will once again be serving the Department of Education and its many funded youth mentoring programs across the country. In the last few months, Common Ground has provided technical assistance and training to more than a dozen of these wonderful programs.

We hope you'll read our blog for more details about all of these projects and a complete list of all of our 2007 clients. Click on the links to your left.

If you haven't visited our main website yet, we hope you'll also take a look at that. When you get to our site, go to the login area under "Members" on the left, and enter the email address where you are receiving this and then create a password.

After that simple step, you'll have access to dozens of fully downloadable resources (many new resources just added!) to help you in your work. You'll also be able to view our snapshots gallery; and we'll be able to involve you directly in our cutting-edge work around the world!

As the year draws to a close, please accept this heartfelt wish from all of us at Common Ground:

May your life be filled with love, your heart with hope, and our world with peace.

Tell A Friend

If you have a colleague who could benefit from knowing about our work and our free social profit resources, please feel free to forward them this email (Click "Forward this email" below).

If they are interested, they'll be able to sign-up, otherwise, we'll leave them alone. You have our word!

We can't wait for you to get involved in our online community! For almost two decades, Common Ground Consulting LLC has been providing mission-critical consulting services to social profit organizations. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with you.

Remember, "There is nothing like a dream to create the future."

In Community, Craig

	This Month's Hip Tip: Say Thank You! If there is anything we have learned from working in the social profit sector over these many years, it is about the awesome power present in simple acts of gratitude: Taking someone's hand and looking them in the eye while you thank them for their investment of time, talent, or treasure; A hand-written thank you note; A phone call for no other reason than letting someone know how important they are to your organization. You would be surprised at how these simple acts can transform how stakeholders feel about your organization. We promise that more than anything else you can do, learning how to thank people will make a profound difference in your efforts. M. Beattle said that "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." So before the new year begins, take a moment to thank at least three people for their wisdom, support, or investment in your work. You'll feel great about it, too!