A prolific author, Dr. Drucker wrote some 31 books on topics ranging from management to society, economics and politics. In one of those, Managing the Non-Profit Organization he writes:

"The non-profit institution is not merely delivering a service. It wants the end user to be not a user, but a doer. It uses a service to bring about change in a human being.... Non-profit organizations that do well used to think they didn't need marketing. But, as a famous old saying by a great nineteenth-century con man has it, 'It's much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away.' Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free. You need to market even the most beneficial service. But the marketing you do... is quite different from selling. It's more a matter of knowing your market... of segmenting your market, of looking at your service from the recipient’s point of view. You have to know what to sell, to whom to sell, and when to sell. Although marketing for a non-profit uses many of the same terms and even many of the same tools as a business, it is really quite different because the non-profit is selling something intangible. Something that you transform into a value for the customer.... That's a concept—an abstraction—and to sell a concept is different from selling a product."

We say "Amen!" You can't get a whole lot closer to the heart of what Personality™ is about. Our experience with and renewed focus on cause-based organizations seeks the marriage of the incurable idealist to the wisdom and shrewdness of strategy.

Want to know more about Peter Drucker?

• He consulted many of the world's most successful non-profits, corporations, and countries. (Yes, you read that right. How many people can say that?!)
• There's a school named after him which shares his reputation for excellence.
• He was a prolific author--35 books in all.
• He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.
• Professor of management at the Graduate Business School of New York University for more than 20 years.
• Hailed in the U.S. and abroad as the seminal thinker, writer, and lecturer on the contemporary organization.
• Featured on the cover of Forbes magazine in 1997.
• Heralded by BusinessWeek as: "The most enduring management thinker of our time."
• Together with his lovely wife, Doris, he was blessed by 4 children and 6 grandchildren. (...always end with the personal, because life is more than work.)

Still hungry? Check out a more in-depth bio or an appreciation piece from Fortune magazine.