`It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen remarked.

`What sort of things do you remember best?' Alice ventured to ask.

`Oh, things that happened the week after next,' the Queen replied in a careless tone. `For instance, now, ... there's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.'

`Suppose he never commits the crime?' said Alice.

`That would be all the better, wouldn't it?' the Queen said.

Alice felt there was no denying that. `Of course it would be all the better,' she said: `but it wouldn't be all the better his being punished.'

`You're wrong there, at any rate,' said the Queen. `Were you ever punished?'

`Only for faults,' said Alice.

`And you were all the better for it, I know!' the Queen said triumphantly.

Celebrate Lewis Carroll's 179th birthday by mastering the White Queen's trick of remembering forwards.  Plant yourself in the future for a few moments, and then look back at how you got there.  Visit 2013 long enough to watch a donor making out a check twice the size or your organization's annual budget.  Watch the donor scrupulously write the amount in words, glance at the calendar to check the date, sign the check with a flourish, and beam with satisfaction as he or she hands it to you.  Then come back to 2011, and make a list of the preliminary steps that will make happy moment possible.  Do you know who the potential writers of that check are?  Do you know why they support you?  Do they know that you have plans that are bust-out-of-your-current-reality aspirations?

Mastery of the White Queen's trick of remembering forwards helps you avoid the fate of subjects of the Red Queen, for whom "it takes all the running you can do to keep in one place."