Category: Community Engagement

Reflections for Thanksgiving

Posted on by Vu

thanksgivingLast week I received a severe drubbing from a program officer for unintentionally breaching protocols with her foundation while seeking funding for the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition (SESEC), which I chair. I’ll explain the whole thing later in my book “Unicorns, Equity, and General Operating Funds: Quest of the Nonprofit Warriors.” (It’s a working title). Suffice to say, I apologized profusely and left the lunch meeting feeling very much like crap.

On the way back to the office, I walked by Panha, an elderly Cambodian woman who sells fish and vegetables on the sidewalk. Seven days a week she is out under a makeshift tarp awning, sitting on a short stool, her eyes framed by crows’ feet and greying hair. “Yellow mushrooms yet?” I asked. She shook her head. “Not yet!” For the past several weeks I have been waiting for the chanterelle mushrooms that Panha’s friend harvests for her to sell. Despite the heavy rain, still no signs of them. “You buy leaf?” she asked. Panha speaks broken English and does not know the vocabulary for many of the vegetables laid out in front of her. All the greens—kale, collards, bok choy—are “leaf” to her. She pointed at some greens that I did not recognize. “What can I do with them?” I asked, knowing what the answer will be, since she does not have vocabulary like sautee, braise, steam, etc.

“Make soup!” she said, and we both cracked up. It has become an inside joke between us.

In my cubicle, I composed a short email reiterating my apologies to the program officer, then started working on some grants that were due, thinking of how nice it would be to have four solid days off for Thanksgiving. I was still feeling pretty crappy.

Then I thought about Panha sitting out there in the rain and cold, like my mother may have once sat long ago, selling her wares at the market, which we transported for miles on her bicycle. It made me realize what an ingrate I was being. I started thinking about the things for which I am thankful. They range from small things (wine, The Walking Dead), to big things, like friends and family and good health and shelter. I am thankful for all these blessings.

But I am also very thankful for my work. In all the daily craziness, I forget sometimes how lucky I am to be able to wake up each day and be engaged in meaningful work. Three decades ago I was a kid growing up in a small mountain village in Vietnam. The War had recently ended and my parents would struggle to feed us. In my fractured memories of that time are images of our wood-burning stove, the dirt floor, the smell of pine and red earth, and the monsoon rain that battered our rusty, leaking tin roof.

It was luck, or Fate, or maybe Karma, that brought us to the US. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if we had not made it here. I was a frail and timid little kid. I did not know anything of the War or what it did to our family. Now I realize that my father’s role as a soldier on the losing side of this War would ensure that none of us kids would be able to make it into college. We would end up repairing bicycles or farming a tiny plot of land or, if we were lucky and clever enough to navigate the network of corrupt officials, maybe opening a small business. All noble occupations, and we might have even been happy.

But I like the work that I am doing now. I don’t think many people in the world get to do what they find fulfilling. This work, strengthening a nonprofit, advancing a community, is challenging and often crazy driving. We face obstacles constantly. There are days when I get bad news from a funder, or an elder lectures me for an hour on what I did wrong, or our cashflow is awful because a reimbursement-based grant payment is delayed and we might not be able to make payroll.

But there are also days like this Saturday, when I dropped by our SES program to find 80 kids experiencing Thanksgiving for the first time in their life. It was also moving to see two VFA board members there, serving these kids their inaugural portion of turkey. Later in the same day, at a different location, our Youth Jobs Initiative program brought in guest speakers with different occupations to inspire a different set of our bright kids who face so many barriers.

The work is constantly challenging, oftentimes aggravating, and infinitely rewarding. I get to meet and collaborate with awesome, dedicated people all the time. I have the best and most amazing team in the world. And my actions, perhaps in just a small way, may be helping to make a difference in the world, to make it better. For the chance to do that, I am very thankful.

I took a break from grantwriting and ran downstairs to get Panha some Vietnamese coffee. She loves Vietnamese coffee, steaming hot, with condensed milk. The rain still fell, and she was huddled under her blue tarp awning when I approached her. “Oh, thank you, honey,” she said, her eyes lighting up when I handed her the coffee. I asked her how business was going. “Not good,” she said, “raining, raining too much. Nobody buy.” The winter would be worse for Panha. But she is always in good spirit. “You buy pumpkin?” she said, gesturing at some green squash. What can I do with it, I asked.

“Make soup!” she said, and we laughed, and I went back to my office.

The case for nonprofit partying

Posted on by Vu

WDPIn a month, we’ll be having World Dance Party, a giant multicultural dance party and potluck. It’s free and usually draws over 200 people of all ages and backgrounds. Of all the projects VFA takes on, this one is unique. There is no fundraising, no programming. No one will present on cultural competency. There will be no surveys or focus groups. No one will be asked to put dots on a flip chart. People will eat and dance. That’s it.

So what the heck is the point? Fun. The point is fun. We as a society are stressed as all-get-out, and those of us in nonprofits are probably even worse for wear. The pay could be higher, the workload lower. We spend all our times calculating, with every meeting, every event needing to have some sort of agenda. No wonder we are burning out, with some of us considering running off to raise llamas in the Andes.

World Dance Party started two years ago, when I was invited to an Aging Your Way event held by Senior Services. I had no idea why I was invited; despite my rapidly greying hair, I’m actually not a senior. But it was a good way to avoid work and get free food, so I sat in a room with 50 other people as we envisioned a community in which we would like to grow old. Most of us do not think about our own aging, preferring to be in denial about the cadence of time and the looming approach of the Inevitable. But during those four hours, we confronted the existential and realized there can be joy and hope in growing older, no matter what our popular culture leads us to believe.

“We should have a time bank where we could help each other out using our talents,” said one voice. “We should have more handicap-accessible spaces,” said another. One by one, people stood up to shout their ideas. More gardens. More bike lanes. A multicultural heritage festival. Then, a man rose to his feet, an Asian man, his shabby clothing and unkempt hair indicating that he worked for a small nonprofit. “We should have a giant multicultural dance party, where elders and kids and people of varying backgrounds can get together and teach each other different dances. Seniors can teach youth Disco. Kids can teach seniors to Pop-and-Lock. Salsa! Merengue! Bollywood! Everyone brings a dish to share. Booze. There will also be booze for those of age!”

“Well, those ideas are just brilliant,” said the facilitator, “Now, we’re going to break into groups to actually work on implementing them.” If that man who suggested the multicultural dance party knew he would have to do actual work and organize it, he probably would have remained silent, munching on his pita and hummus.

We have put on seven World Dance Parties now, several organizations working together to coordinate each one. Each event has drawn 150 to 250 people of all ages and ethnicities. We have had dances from multiple countries, from the Horah to Bhangra to Eastcoast Swing to Tinikling. At each World Dance Party, I get a vision of what our society should be like: diverse, everyone interacts with everyone, joy radiating from every face, a giant plastic bucket of cheese puffs on the potluck table. At one point, I stood back to observe the crowd, sipping on a beer. 150 people were holding hands, engaged in an Israeli dance, while others in the room were talking and laughing. Kids were dancing with older adults. Asians were learning West African dances. It was moving. That’s the kind of community I would like to grow old in.

I wasn’t the only one who was awed by the magic in the room. A lady who was also standing back to take in the scene came up to me. “Isn’t this wonderful?” she asked, gazing at the crowd, who had now moved into a line dance called the Wobble, “we should send this out to the universe, this energy, this pure happiness. If you and I were rich, if we each owned a yacht, could we be any happier than we are tonight?”

I thought about it for a second. Then I turned to her, slightly misty-eyed, and said, “How the heck would I know?!” I work for a nonprofit, I said. How would I ever know what it’s like to own a yacht? I mean, how much do those things cost anyway? $5,000? $10,000? I’ll never have that much money! Oh, God, I’m going to die without having paid off my student loans!

OK, maybe I had one too many beers. My new friend’s point was well-taken. Seldom do we see such joy. Our organizations work to fill critical needs; rarely does a nonprofit mission statement include the words “to increase happiness.” We do not prioritize it. Oftentimes we feel guilty, as if providing happiness is less important than basic needs. A party is frivolous, we think. But isn’t happiness ultimately what our work is about? I would say that bringing people a sense of community, of joy, of humor, of connection to their neighbors, is just as important. That is why VFA will always help organize events like WDP.

***

A few months ago, we posted an announcement on our website, selling off the naming rights to our cubicles:

Let’s face it, life is short, and all of us are on a quest for immortality. People with the means can have their names on buildings and stadiums: Carnegie Hall, the Trump Tower, the Monsanto Lab for Frankensteined Produce, etc. Naming buildings costs millions, which none of us have. However, with only $1,000, you can have your name on Executive Director Vu Le’s cubicle forever. That’s sixteen square feet of immortality, and every time someone passes by, they’ll be reminded of your greatness.

Well, I’m happy to announce that we have sold off our first cubicle, thanks to the generous donations of two amazing SVP partners. The ribbon cutting for the “Emily Anthony and Julie Edsforth Cubicle for Youth and Community Engagement” will happen at VFA’s first annual Halloween party on October 30th at 6pm at the VFA office, and all friends of Emily and Julie are welcome to come and witness this historic event. If you are interested in immortalizing yourself or a loved one by having your name emblazoned on a cubicle, please let me know. Hurry! These cubicles are selling like hotcakes! (If hotcakes sell at approximate one cake every three months.)

Being a nonprofit with balls, part 3

Posted on by Vu
[Part 3 of the Nonprofit with Balls series. Read Part 1 and Part 2 before you read this]

batmanAfter several months, I was able to meet with Ted, Luke’s multi-millionnaire friend. It had taken a while to arrange this meeting, and the coordination was done through Ted’s assistant, leaving me to conjure up the image of Ted as an elusive genius, like Batman inside his Bat Cave devising plans and building awesome gadgets to combat injustice.

I got there 20 minutes early, parked my car, and started re-googling Ted and his accomplishments. They were numerous and very impressive. Obviously he is a very smart man. And he’s trying to improve education. Since I chair the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition (SESEC), which is trying to rally community-based organizations and schools to work together to help all the schools in Southeast Seattle succeed, my primary objective was to learn what he’s doing, and to tell him about what SESEC has been up to, and see if there is any ground to collaborate.

The secondary objective was to convince him to give Southeast schools a gazillion trillion dollars.

He had a modest office, a small room tactfully decorated, and all around were pictures of his family. What a nice man, I thought.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” I said, “I know you are extremely busy, and I am very appreciative of your time.” He nodded. Behind his high-quality but simple desk, Ted described his effort with Luke to reform education. I asked him question after question, and he was open and articulate, the easy confidence of a man who has earned his laurels. One day, I thought, I too shall have the easy confidence of a man who has earned his laurels. And I’ll also have a high-quality yet unostentatious mahogany desk.

Ted is trying to build a movement that will change the educational tides, pushing agenda items that many would agree to. As he talked, however, I was getting a little concerned. Not so much about his policy agenda, but about his approach to building the base.

“Our strategy is to target the low-hanging fruit,” he said. I had heard this term before from Luke. Low-hanging fruit are families that are already engaged, have the language skills, don’t work several jobs to make ends meet, etc. “Basically, White families, and some Asian families,” Luke had said.

“So then high-hanging fruit,” I said to Ted, “are people like immigrant/refugee families, or others who have language, socioeconomic, transportation barriers and other stuff they have to deal with that make them hard to reach?”

He nodded.

“Don’t you think, though, sir, that these families have been historically left out of these types of discussion, even though we know they are MOST impacted by our flawed education system?”

He sighed. “Yes, but we only have so much funding.” He paused. “However, we do everything with them in mind.”

I argued that this low-hanging fruit approach is one of the weaknesses of current educational advocacy efforts. How could you inspire people to action when you see them as passive fruit on a tree, waiting to be picked? And doing things with people “in mind” is patriarchal and condescending, which might even be OK if it were actually effective. It hasn’t been. For several decades we have had this “achievement gap,” and this approach has not been closing it.

Having worked in the community for a little bit of time, I understand the temptation to go fast, to go big. We get pressure by funders who are driven by regional, global reach. But it is counterproductive if in our urgency for change and for scope of impact, we leave behind the very people who most need this change. SESEC, comprising over 25 organizations and growing, take our time building relationship and trust and agreeing to a collective agenda. We are rallying diverse communities who speak different languages, who face all sorts of historical and political traumas, who are still trying to navigate a very complex system. We will not be able to quickly agree on anything. It is complicated and sometimes frustrating and always challenging.

It is also inspiring. We are starting to see the SE communities starting to work together. Funders and education advocates need to understand that it takes lots of time to build bridges. It takes years and a series of small victories, leading to medium ones, leading to big ones. It takes belief in the premise that those who are most impacted by anything should be leading the efforts to change it, no matter how messy that process might be.

For forty-five minutes I sat across from Ted. Debating with him didn’t get me anywhere. I also realized nearing the end of our meeting that he never asked me once why I wanted to meet with him. He never asked me a single question about anything, in fact. I started telling him what SESEC is doing, which is precisely trying to engage these “high-hanging” fruit. He nodded, asking no follow-up question. He seemed both focused and bored; focused on his own methods, and bored by my attempts to argue with him and also present the work that SESEC has been doing. He was meeting with me probably only as a favor to Luke.

I thanked him for his time and left the Bat Cave disappointed. Ted seemed intellectually uncurious, as if his admittedly impressive success in life made him immune to ideas that run counter to his own. In The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne has vast resources to invest in new technologies that he uses to fight injustice. He is influential, connected to others who are just as powerful. Together they can change the world for the better. Batman becomes a symbol of hope for the city. I don’t think that was whom I met.

Or, who knows, maybe Ted just had a bad day. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. Still, I wrote him the customary thank-you email and have yet to hear a response. Maybe I should hang lower.