To the Editor:

As a nonprofit development consultant who has worked in the field for almost 40 years — and loved the Grateful Dead even longer — I appreciated Eboo Patel’s recent op-ed “I’m a Deadhead and a Nonprofit Leader: The Two Have a Lot in Common” (August 20).

I have another lesson the field can learn from the band: Fundraisers need to pay attention to conversations with donors and be willing to let them go in ways that aren’t planned. They need to improvise.

I recently saw a 1992 interview with Jerry Garcia who said he could never learn a song “note for note and play it that way more than once.” In the same vein, conversations with donors should be different each time and unscripted. Enjoy the journey.

Randy Gorod
President and CEO
Pisgah Consulting

To the Editor:

Eboo Patel’s op-ed on the Grateful Dead is the most incredible piece I have read. What a great analogy.

Not only does it depict how a nonprofit should run but also illustrates the greatness of the Dead. I applaud Patel for explaining this in such an ingenious way.

As the Grateful Dead song “Scarlet Begonias” goes: “Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” I felt this when I read Patel’s article, which opened my eyes up to how a nonprofit can create an effective culture.

Susan Rode
Foundation Executive
Palm Coast, Florida