3 Priorities for Avoiding the Potholes on the Road to Recovery

"When you look to 2011, the words to describe the economy are glum, lousy, subpar," Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State University's Economic Forecasting Center, told the Associated Press late last year.

Some nonprofit executives have reluctantly accepted such downbeat forecasts and planned accordingly, calling their tepid numbers “reality-based budgeting.” Real leaders, however, have resisted such temptation and purposely charted a more aggressive course — not blindly, mind you, but carefully and strategically. They see opportunity where others only see problems, and they lay out detailed and crystal-clear plans for exactly how they plan to achieve that growth.