Approaches to Cultivating Individual and Major Donors

With an extensive leadership background in higher education, Andrew Scoblionko is presently studying nonprofit management at Villanova University. Andrew Scoblionko’s studies emphasize strategic planning, and he has a particular interest in fundraising. Charitable and nonprofit entities face major challenges in raising money, with the most successful employing a diversified strategy that encompasses individual and major donor support.

Proven ways of approaching individuals include newsletters, gatherings, direct mail appeals, and online networking through social media. Developing relationships with givers often involves fully explaining what the nonprofit brings to the local community. It also involves laying out the tax deductions that contributors can claim on their IRS forms. As with smaller donors, cultivating a base of major donors involves building strong personal relationships that focus on the nonprofit’s mission. Larger donors are typically best approached through formal meetings, with representatives of the organization presenting a succinct reason for financial support. These meetings often encompass creative ways of recognizing the donors’ gift.

Macbeth Film Adaptations

Andrew Scoblionko is an experienced operations manager who has worked as the Dean of Evening and Weekend Programs at DeVry University and Campus Director for Southwest Florida College. Andrew Scoblionko enjoys reading books and plays in his free time. His favorite play is Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of the most famous plays written in the English language. In addition to the Bard’s original stage version, there are a number of notable film adaptations, including two famous American examples. Orson Welles directed an experimental, Harlem-based stage adaptation of the play before taking a more traditional approach to his 1948 film, which he both directed and starred in. Roman Polanski helmed his version of Macbeth in 1971, shortly after the tragic passing of his wife at the hands of Charles Manson. The film is, accordingly, one of the more violent interpretations of Shakespeare’s words.

International directors who have tried their hand at Macbeth and Macbeth-inspired films include Akira Kurosawa, whose 1957 Throne of Blood sets the play in Japan. One of the more unique Macbeth adaptations came in 2001 under the title Scotland, PA. The film is set in a 1970s burger joint, and stars James LeGros and Maura Tierney as Joe and Path McBeth.

Civil War Battles Fought in Texas

Andrew Scoblionko, a goal-oriented operations manager, previously served as Campus Director at Southwest Florida College in Tampa. Outside of his professional pursuits, Andrew Scoblionko is involved with a number of organizations, such as the Civil War Trust.

While many people associate the Civil War with the northern states fighting the southern states, Civil War battles extended as far west as Texas. In fact, a skirmish that broke out near the Rio Grande in mid-May of 1865. The Battle of Palmito Ranch is recognized as the final armed conflict fought between Union and Confederate soldiers. Colonel Theodore H. Barrett instructed a force of 300 Union soldiers to move up river and attack a number of Confederate outposts. Inclement weather, however, delayed his troops and pushed them slightly off course. Early in the morning of May 12, the Union soldiers reached White’s Ranch, but found the post empty.

The next morning they moved on to Palmito Ranch, and a small battle broke out. Initially, the Confederate men were scattered, allowing the Union soldiers to regroup and feed their horses, but soon after a reinforced Confederate squad pushed them back to White’s Ranch. Colonel Barrett sent reinforcements on May 13, and the Union men returned to Palmito Ranch, engaging Confederates in a firefight. Fighting carried on throughout the day until heavy Rebel artillery fire encouraged a Union retreat. The men who fell at Palmito Ranch number among the final combat deaths of the Civil War.

Superstitions About Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Business professional Andrew Scoblionko has leveraged his skills as an operations manager to head educational institutions such as DeVry University and Southwest Florida College. Alongside his career, Andrew Scoblionko enjoys attending the theatre and he considers Macbeth his favorite play.

One of Shakespeare’s most well known plays, Macbeth also carries with it a long tradition of theatrical superstition. No one knows for certain how this superstition originated, but many actors continue to avoid speaking the word “Macbeth” within the bounds of a theatre for fear that bad luck may ensue. Instead they refer to it as the Scottish Play, or sometimes the Bard’s Play.

Many theories exist concerning the origin of the superstition. Some suggest the involvement of witchcraft, either in that witches laid a curse upon productions of the play or that Shakespeare did himself. Others say it derives from the dangerous sword-play within the production itself. A less fantastic, and possibly more likely, explanation arises from the historic practice of failing theatres using Macbeth in an attempt to regain success.

Ulysses S. Grant’s First-hand Civil War Account

A longtime administrator in the field of higher education, Andrew Scoblionko has a passion for Civil War history and enjoys travel to sites of cultural and historical interest relating to the war. Andrew Scoblionko considers The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant as among his favorite works of nonfiction. In writing this book, Grant did not focus on his less-than-stellar years in the presidency, but on his years of military service and leadership. During the 1860s, Grant doggedly led the Union Army to victory in a protracted war that took a terrible human toll.

The book quickly dispenses with Grant’s ancestry, boyhood, and years in the West Point Military Academy and moves onto a detailed account of the Mexican War. Grant’s observations of this conflict are considered among the best first-person accounts ever written. Grant makes particularly astute observations on expansionist U.S. policies and the divisive issues involved in slavery at the time. Grant then moves onto a detailed, vivid account of the Civil War that helps readers understand the strategic and personal considerations that informed his decisions throughout the conflict.

William Faulkner’s First Novel, Soldiers’ Pay

Andrew Scoblionko is an operations manager with extensive experience in higher education. An avid reader, he considers William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! his favorite fictional work. As a graduate student at Rutgers University, Andrew Scoblionko published an article on Faulkner’s first novel, Soldiers’ Pay, in The Faulkner Journal.

Published in 1926, Soldiers’ Pay focused on the “lost generation” which returned to the United States disillusioned from World War I. Faulkner wrote the novel in New Orleans, drawing on his own experiences in the war, which involved being rejected as a pilot from the U.S. Army due to height requirements. Subsequently training in Canada with the Royal Air Force as cadet, Faulkner did not finish training before the war ended. The novel centers around a fighter pilot who has been shot down by the enemy and is presumed dead. He is found alive in mysterious circumstances with a serious head injury and complete amnesia regarding his past life in Georgia. Burdened by a terrible scar and going blind, the protagonist ultimately takes a wife shortly before he dies. While the prose does not match Faulkner’s later works, critics have noted the novel’s similarity to books such as Light in August, which use sophisticated structural techniques to unify diverse subject materials.