[Image description: Two hands resting on a laptop keyboard, as if they’re typing. The laptop is on a wooden table. The laptop screen displays a list of file and what looks like an open chat screen. There is a phone on the left of the laptop and a black to-go coffee cup on the right. Around the table are blurred torsos and hands of other people. Gosh, this is so much less interesting than trying to describe a baby animal. I miss baby animals. Image from Pixabay.com]Hi everyone. There has been a lot of conversation lately about unpaid internships, and colleagues have asked me to weigh in. OK, I guess I will have to save “10 Summery Cocktails Inspired by Nonprofit Work” for another week, because this is an important topic.
While our sector works to end inequity, we still adopt many practices, often from the for-profit sector, that perpetuate the very injustice we are fighting. Whenever we engage in these things that run counter to our values, it makes unicorns, the symbol of our sector, sad, and bad things happen to them. When we don’t disclose salary range on a job posting, for example, they lose their wings. And when we use the horrible and unethical practice of basing pay on salary history, they lose their horn. Continue reading “When you host an unpaid internship, a unicorn is very, very sad*”
[Image description: black silhouette of a unicorn standing on its hind legs in front of a huge full moon. It’s beautiful and majestic, like a foundation that provides multi-year general operating dollars (MYGOD!). Image from Pixabay.com]Hi everyone. I have been on vacation for the past couple of weeks and have reached “peak lazing.” This means I may or may not have not showered in three days and that this post may be pourly edited. Before we begin though, a couple of quick announcements. There’s a crew of fundraisers of color in Seattle who has been working on developing the concept of Community-Centric Fundraising, which I wrote about here and here, with more posts coming out in the next few months. We have an all-day summit that’s open to all fundraisers on September 27th. We are still figuring out the location and other logistics; please fill out this quick interest form if you want to get updated as we plan this event.
There is also a pre-summit specifically for fundraisers of color on August 23rd from 1pm to 5pm in Seattle. Please sign-up here (space is limited). Right now we are mainly focused on local fundraisers of color (anyone who raises money and is of color, regardless of their title), but I plan to write about what comes out of these summits in case you would like to host your own gatherings in your cities.Continue reading “9 examples of funders being awesome partners to nonprofits”
[Image description: A tan and white horse in a field of wheat. The horse looks pensive. Maybe it’s actually a unicorn who just lost its horn because someone asked for salary history. Image by Donna at Unsplash.com]Hi everyone, we need to talk about salary history. Imagine you are hiring two fundraisers for your growing development team: Edna has had nine years of experience raising money, and has a record of bringing in over $10 million dollars. Joe has two years of experience fundraising and has brought in $300,000; before that, he worked for a bank. Because Edna is more skilled in fundraising, you have her supervise and mentor Joe. Things work out well for a while, until Edna found out that Joe is paid 10% more than she is. The reason: Joe had worked at a bank, so he had a stronger salary history. So now we have someone who is more qualified, with a better track record, and who is doing more work—supervising and mentoring in addition to fundraising—getting paid less than another person who is less qualified.Continue reading “When you base pay on salary history, a unicorn loses its horn”
[Image description: Three adorable baby ducklings floating in the water. There’s a yellow one, a white one, and a black one. This relates to a related post I wrote earlier called “I’m a duck, you’re a duck, we are all ducks.” Image obtained from Pixabay.com]Hi everyone. I am in Oxford, England for the Skoll World Forum, where I’m speaking on a panel. I’m super excited because this is the home of the Oxford Comma! (I think) I just got to my hotel ten minutes ago and am jetlagged and possibly hallucinating a bit. Yes, Paddington, I would love for you to join my board! Anyway, I’m not sure how lucid this post is going to be.
Before we start, though, today April 9th is International Unicorn Day. If you haven’t done so, get your official nonprofit unicorn name and title. Even better, I’m excited to announce that the book Jessamyn Shams-Lau of the Peery Foundation, Jane Leu of Smarter Good, and I are writing is done and will be ready soon! Pre-orders are available on Amazon, for May 15th release, but in the meantime, you can learn more about the book through this Medium article. For bulk orders, please email bulk@redpress.co.uk. Thank you so much to everyone who supported this project.
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The concept of mission-driven has been well-beaten into all of us. It seems that nothing is more important to our work than our mission. This idea has been baked into everything we do: fundraise, communicate, run programs. Concepts like “mission creep” (which sounds like the name of a really boring super-villain) are designed to instill in us this sense that our individual mission is pure and sacred, and that all of us must have as our highest imperative the unwavering devotion to it.
[Image description: A diagram from the book, featuring drawings of cartoon unicorns holding bullhorns, illustrating the cycle of distrust between foundations and nonprofits]Hi everyone. About a year ago, I mentioned I was co-authoring a book with two brilliant colleagues, Jessamyn Shams-Lau of the Peery Foundation and Jane Leu of Smarter Good. Many of you backed our Kickstarter project, and guess what? We actually wrote the book! OK, Jessamyn and Jane wrote the book, while I tagged along and tried to offer helpful suggestions like “instead of writing this book, how about we take the money and invest it in this awesome tech start-up I just heard about called Juicero, then get rich and start our own foundation but have headquarters in Oaxaca?”
