Nonprofit AF

Dear business community: Please remember these 10 things about nonprofits

Posted on January 27, 2014October 8, 2014 by Vu

My friends from the business community:

As an Executive Director of a nonprofit, I want to say that I love you guys. Almost as much as we all love the Seahawks (Go Hawks!). You do so much to sustain our work—volunteering countless hours, donating funds to programs, and telling your friends about us so they can help too. We rely on you. The work is not possible without you. Whenever we get one of you on our board or development committee, it’s like Christmas.

However, there are a few things I’d love to remind you of, stuff like fundamental differences between nonprofits and for-profits and the challenges we face. I know, you probably have heard some of this already. But it’ll be really good for us to go over them again, so we can more effectively work together to make the world better:

Nonprofit funding is restricted. That is something we repeat over and over, but I’m not sure you actually understand how restricted it is. Imagine that you have a business selling software for $100 a pop. I buy a copy, and I give you $100, but then I say “You can’t spend any of this money I’m paying you on your salary, or on your rent or heating for your business. It can only be used to for you to buy copy paper and no more than 80 binder clips.” Now have all your customers say stuff like that to you each time they buy your software. That’s how it works in nonprofit, but replace “customers” with “funders.” It is not fun trying to figure out who is paying for what and how to work within this structure, but luckily it only takes up 60% of our time.
(Hilarious side story: Speaking of copy paper and binder clips, one of my ED friends sometimes “dumpster dives” for office supplies. On her last dive, she scored a roll of masking tape and an unopened container of poster paint (woohoo!)—and her board still complains that her organization spent over $1200 in supplies in 2013).
No one wants to pay for unsexy “admin” things. These are things like HR, marketing, fundraising, the ED or Development Director’s salary, etc. This is why we don’t have an HR department, or an IT person, or a marketing person, why our database (if we have one) may not be as cool as you want and why some of our marketing materials look like they were designed by bonobos. You’re frustrated that our infrastructure sucks sometimes. Well, we are too! Unfortunately, because of our funding restrictions, we can’t do much about it except to beg for free services from you and your friends.
(Hilarious side story: One time I was at a conference, and a business was leading a workshop on building a website. “We asked our bosses for $25,000 to develop the website,” said the presenter, “and they said, ‘Hey, we actually have extra funding.’ So they gave us $50,000!” Back then, 50K was half my organization’s operating budget and about four times my Americorps yearly wages, so I left the workshop and cried silently in a bathroom stall).
Our funding is unstable, and it’s not our fault. It fluctuates depending on factors such as funder priorities, the situation in Iran, the value of the Yen, and the alignment of celestial bodies. Grants are usually only for one year. So year-over-year budget comparisons are often useless, and predictions on future funding sources are educated guesses at best. Please try not to be upset when you ask us questions like “What are your budget projections for next fiscal year” and we give you seemingly wishy-washy answers like, “Well…will Mercury be in retrograde at the end of this fiscal year…?”
The better a job we do, the more costs we incur. That’s right; it’s weird, but it’s true. If our after-school program, for example, is awesome, more kids will attend, which means more costs. But the funding does not also increase automatically, meaning we have to serve more people with fewer resources. So then we have to spend more staff time on fundraising, which, remember, is not sexy, so people hate paying for that. If your product is awesome, your business can become stable and continue as long as demands remain stable. Not so for us nonprofits! This is why we live in a constant state of stress and fear. And why we need you on the development committee!
Our community members (the people we serve) are not economic units. As one of my ED friends says, “You can’t run a cost/benefit analysis on the worth of a human life, and every human being is a miracle worthy of respect and kindness and compassion.” That sounds very sappy, but we genuinely believe in crap like that, and it very frustrating when people forget this stuff and reduce human beings to numbers and statistics.
Success is difficult to measure. We throw around terms like “outcomes” and “metrics,” but things are so much more complex. When we’re working with people who are homeless, or mentally ill, or kids at-risk for failure, it is challenging to define success and what part we play in it. So it gets very annoying when you come in trying to impose a business framework on our programs, or get upset when we can’t give you clear answers to questions like “What’s the impact of your programs?” We’re trying to figure all this out.
Things can’t be “scaled” as easily as you think. Some of you are really impatient about scaling up our work. You see a great program, and you want it to be bigger, to help more people. We do too. But the clients we serve and their challenges are complex, and we work within structures that severely limit what we can do. We are constantly thinking of ways to help more people, while trying to keep our organizations from collapsing, all the while hoarding supplies for a potential zombie apocalypse (That last part–it may just be my organization that does that).
If you want to help, roll up your sleeves. We get plenty of advice. If you want to be helpful, roll up your sleeves and actually do something. It’s frustrating when business leaders or consultants come in and provide a report of recommendations of things we should do. These reports are often left on shelves to gather dust, since we often have no time or resources to tackle them. If you want to help, take lead on a few of these things you recommend.
We chose to do this work. That’s right, we chose jobs that are unstable, under-appreciated, challenging, low-paying, and high-stress. That does not mean we’re not as smart as people in other sectors. Once a while we meet young professionals in other professions, and their smugness and condescension are palpable, and we want to grab them by the collar and shake them. But we think of our clients and swallow our pride. Our society places much higher value on jobs like doctors, lawyers, movie stars, business owners, etc. However, most of us did not go into the nonprofit field because we failed at other professions. We do this work because we want to kick inequity’s butt, no matter how difficult it is.
(Hilarious side story: At my organization, which serves low-income immigrant and refugee youth and families, the clients are often amazed that I do this full time. One woman at an event asked when I will find a real job; her son was studying to be a pharmacist, she said.)
Finally, just because you’re really successful in one area, it doesn’t mean you are automatically great in another area. If you’re an amazing heart surgeon, it doesn’t mean you’re automatically a great singer. If you’re an awesome dancer, it doesn’t mean you’re now a really kickass chef. And yet we meet so many of you who are successful in the business sector who now think that you automatically know how to run a nonprofit, or lead an education reform movement, or counsel us nonprofit folks on how to do our work. One of the most irksome things we experience is when business people, after a limited time trying to understand the organization, start giving advice. We’ll try to be thankful, since you’re a potential donor and volunteer, but seriously, the you-guys-should-do-this and you-guys-should-do-that are often irritating and not helpful at all. We don’t go to your business and tell you how to…run…quarterly reports…or, uh…improve assembly line efficiency…

At a meeting a month ago, a bunch of people and I were providing input and advice to Seattle’s new mayor as he starts his administration. A community leader stood up and said, “You have to remember that poor people are not just rich people who don’t have money. And black people are not just really dark white people.” Ahaha, that’s so true, everyone thought. They laughed. (Each of those profound statements deserves to be discussed in its own post later). I want to use the same line of thinking to remind you all that nonprofits are not just chaotic businesses with really nice employees. Until we have the same flexibility and stability of essential resources that successful businesses have, comparing one with the other is like comparing an apple with a porcupine.

Thank you for reading, and for all that you do.

Go Hawks!

***

Nonprofit’s ultimate outcome: Bringing unicorns back to our world.

The sustainability question: Why it is so annoying.

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Distancing language, what it is, and why you must crush it

Posted on January 13, 2014January 20, 2014 by Vu

Last week was rough, as we received not one, not two, but…ok, two grant rejection notices (so sweet and thoughtful of people to wait until after the holiday break to send rejection letters). Whenever I get stressed, my face breaks out, which causes me stress, thus perpetuating a vicious pattern that I call the Pizza Face Cycle. During these times, to avoid scaring small children or potential donors, I usually hole myself in my cubicle, away from the world, listening to 90’s Hip-Hop, coming out every once a while to feed on ramen while avoiding the gaze of cruel or indifferent passersby.

And that’s what happened last week after getting the grant notices. Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid several meetings and thus had to bring my face, like a minor Jackson Pollock painting, out in public. It was during one of these meetings that I noticed the nuances of the words we use during meetings. Specifically, how people unconsciously use inclusive or distancing language and how it affects the rest of the group.

Simply put, inclusive language indicates that you consider yourself a part of a team (e.g, “We need to revise our mission statement to include unicorns”) while distancing language indicates that you see yourself not a part of the organization or effort (“You need to revise your mission statement to include unicorns.”) This may seem trivial, you guys, but it is not:

New board members will use distancing language when they first join the board. As they identify more and more with the organization, they should start using inclusive language pretty much all the time.
If you do a good job at your programs, the clients should see it as THEIR programs, and they will use inclusive language when talking about these programs.
Consultants for short-term projects will use distancing language. The longer they are with a project, the more likely they will lapse into inclusive language.
Donors and volunteers who are especially invested in the organization will sometimes unconsciously lapse into inclusive language. This is a great sign. I was inviting one of our donors to our holiday party. “We should have beer at the party,” she said. “We totally should!” I said.

Distancing language can be a symptom of a greater problem. For instance, if after a year serving on the board, one of your board member says something like, “So when is your annual dinner this year?” something is not right.

It is also extremely contagious, and if left untreated will infect an entire group. I was on a committee made up of people from several organizations. We were brainstorming ideas about outreach. “I have an idea,” said one person, “you should make a list of all the organizations in the area and then call them individually.” “Great idea,” said another person, “you should also visit the community centers.” “Yeah, face-to-face is really critical for relationship building,” another person chimed in, “you’ll get better results that way.” It was a surreal meeting.

And that’s why you should be on the lookout for distancing language, and when appropriate you must crush it like an overcooked lentil! Here are some ways to do that:

Counter with inclusive language. If you use “we” often enough, especially after every instance of distancing language, it will likely stick in people’s minds.
Counter with your own distancing language. If you are the lead of a committee, people may direct all their ideas and feedback at you, unconsciously implying that you are going to do all the work. Use distancing language back at them might shock them out of it. E.g., “I completely agree. You should visit the community centers!”
Gently call it out. Say something like, “Hi everyone, I notice that we’ve been using ‘you’ a lot. This is a collaborative effort, and all of us are on the team, so let’s try to use ‘we’ more often?” It is helpful to pair this speech with inclusive body language, opening your arms wide and sweeping them toward yourself to emphasize “we.”
Follow up individually with people whom you notice use distancing language often and ask for their thoughts on the project. Chances are, they are not yet fully committed, and their language reflects that. The more you communicate with them, the more invested they’ll feel.
Be more direct. After several gentle reminders, I just correct people on the spot: “You should have a graphic design student work on the logo—” “We, John, WE should have a graphic design student work on the logo. Don’t make me have to remind you again…”

Once you start paying attention to this, it can be very helpful. Just a quick word of caution, though. At one of the meetings this week, the finance committee, we were discussing VFA’s financial management system. “You should revise your charts of accounts,” said one of the members of the committee, “and you should start developing a dashboard of financial health for the organization.” I knew from experience that I had to put a stop to the distancing language before it went too far. “Whoa, whoa, what’s with the distancing language, lady?!” I said, “You’re a part of this organization, aren’t you? What’s with all the ‘you should do this’ and ‘you should do that’ here, huh?!”

Apparently, that is not how you’re supposed to talk to a board member, especially a very dedicated one who had given months of notice in advance that she may be taking hiatus from the board to focus on taking care of other important things, so I would like to apologize.

10 psychological principles I learned from getting conned out of money

Posted on January 6, 2014January 6, 2014 by Vu

Happy new year, everyone. I just came back from visiting in-laws in Louisiana, in a little town called Greensburg, which is so small that the local newspaper’s front page headline read “Man arrested after bar fight.” I probably could have made the headline too, something like “Seattle man tries to recycle, gets laughed at by locals, faints from lack of vegan nourishment.”

There was not much to do in Greensburg, so we took a day trip to New Orleans, which was two hours away. We were walking down Bourbon Street, which is a magical lane filled with food and drinks and strip clubs, when a lady from a balcony called to us. I looked up. She was holding some beads. “You gotta do something to get these,” she said, winking. So I did what anyone who wanted cheap plastic beads would do. I lifted up my shirt and flashed her.

All right, I didn’t do that, since no one wants to see eight vegan ribs, except a 60 or 70 people on Craigslist. We blew her some kisses, and she tossed down the beads, which I wore proudly while I drank my 20-ounce Hurricane adult beverage, sauntering down the sidewalk.

On the way back, we stopped for gas. It was New Year Day, and there were barely any people around. I saw one of those carnival game stations with giant stuffed toys hanging all around. It was the only one there. It looked empty, sad, the stuffed bears and alligators staring into the cold air with vacant, empty expressions, the kind that we see on EDs when they get grant rejection notices. It was here, at this game station, that I got conned out of money. It still haunts me till now. At night and on long drives I think back at what happened, wondering what I could have done differently.

Upon reflecting back, I realized that this gas station game booth was a very sophisticated machine, designed to swindle people out of their hard-earned cash. They deployed psychological principles proven to work on people, even smart, sexy people who direct nonprofits. Since there is no way I’m getting my money back, I might as well use this opportunity to learn something, so I am going to dissect the psychological tricks they used and how they could be applied to our nonprofit work. I know, I know, we’re not con artists and it’s crass to compare our work to this little con game, but I lost money and I must make some sense of it.

Principle 1: Hook them in with something free. “Here, honey, maybe you can win a toy for the baby,” said a lady who hovered around the parking lot. She handed me a card that said “1 free play, no obligation.” Free, I thought, I love free! That was how it started. Application to nonprofit work: Figure out something free that could pull in potential board members or donors or volunteers. Tickets to events, for example. I am tempted to go around with cards saying, “Help 1 low-income kid for free, no obligation.”

Principle 2: Humanize yourself. I walked to the station, where a twenty-something blond kid popped up from napping. “Hey, I’m Bobby,” he said, setting up the game, “what’s your name?…Vu? That’s a cool name. What do you do, Vu?…Work for a nonprofit? That’s noble, man, helping people.” Application to nonprofit work: In our rush to get people to donate money and stuff, we sometimes pass over getting to know them. Especially during the beginning of relationship building, slow down, ask about their kids, tell them how and why you got into the field, tell them about that rash that’s been bothering you, etc. People are much more likely to invest in your organization if they see you as a human being. A human being with a weird rash.

Principle 3: Make sure the objective is obvious and attainable. “The game is simple,” said Bobby, presenting a small board with a hundred holes in it, each hole marked with a number from 1 to 5, “you scatter these 10 balls, see which holes they land in, then add up the numbers.” The sums correspond with squares on a chart, most squares having numbers, some positive, some negative. “The goal is to reach 100 points, and you can win one of these prizes, or $100, up to you.” I rolled, he added up the numbers, and I got 15 points. Application to nonprofit work: Make sure stakeholders know clearly from the beginning what your organization’s mission and goals are, and make sure the goals are measurable and sane.

Principle 4: Start with low stakes, then ramp up. “That was free,” he said, “the next roll will cost you a dollar.” I paid a dollar and rolled again. I got 50 points for a total of 65 points!! Application to nonprofit work: Hook in potential volunteers, donors, and board members with something simple and low-stake, such as helping out with a small one-time project or buying a “Men of [your organization] Calendar” or something. (What, you don’t do an annual calendar? You should. It works for firefighters).

Principle 5: Provide frequent rewards, small and large. “Let’s see,” said Bobby, counting up the balls I just rolled, “that’s 25, and that corresponds to 15 points as well as a 2-for-1 on the point chart.” I looked puzzled. “That means you have a total of 80 points, AND I give you back double what you bet,” he said, “so here’s 2 dollars!” 2 dollars, I thought, I’m rich, rich! Application to nonprofit work: Provide stakeholders with rewards for their efforts, such as newsletters or mailings detailing successes your organization has achieved thanks to their help.

Principle 6: Provide a sense of safety. Since I had made a net profit of 1 dollar, I wanted to continue playing. I rolled, and the numbers added up to 28. “You got 28!” said Bobby, “That is the insurance number! That means from now on, your points can’t be taken away if you ever land on a negative square on the point chart.” Application to nonprofit work: Make sure you have director and officer insurance to cover your board members, and an umbrella insurance policy to cover volunteers and everyone else.

Principle 7: Get them close to the goal. I had gotten up to 80 points. So close! Soooo close! Only 20 points away! It would have been foolish to quit! “OK,” said Bobby, “but the following rolls are now 5 dollars each.” (See Principle 4 about ramping up the stakes). Only $5 more for a chance to win $100! I didn’t realize it, but I was addicted. Application to nonprofit work: We use this principle all the time, such as during annual dinners where we say “We are only $5,000 from meeting our goal of raising $100,000.” People like to achieve goals, so make sure you keep everyone updated of your organizations’ measurable goals, especially at the end, when things are down to the wire, e.g., “We have 93 bone marrow donors registered out of our goal of 100! We just need 7 more!”

Principle 8: Play nonchalant. With the last roll, I got 5 point, for a total of 85. So close. I knew I was in dangerous territory. Stop right now, my brain was telling me, this is obviously a con…but wait, what if it isn’t? What if I am just lucky? I could earn a hundred bucks today! That’s a lot of vegan dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa mass…“I think I’m done,” I said, reason winning out. Bobby wasn’t fazed. “Suit yourself,” he said, “but I don’t know why you would quit with a score like that, plus insurance.” I sighed, then handed him another $5. Application to nonprofit work: Sometimes we get way too eager and thus overwhelm people. For instance, one time we were doing a Saturday morning program tour with 4 potential donors, and we had 3 board members there along with 4 staff. I think being outnumbered like that freaked out the potential donors. It’s a great program, we should have just let it speak for itself.

Principle 9: Distract and confuse. On that cold January day, holding my little 9-month old baby at the empty gas station, I reached into my pocket for another $5…I had gotten a negative 15 points, but thanks to the insurance card, I didn’t lose any. I was so close. Only 15 more points. Only 15 more points. I played until the horror set in, and I finally looked Bobby in the eye and said, “I’m done for sure this time.” But by then, it was too late.

Now, days later, thinking back on it, I realized that I never added up the balls’ values myself. I scattered them, but it was always Bobby who added them up. I never double checked his math. He counted fast, and I was too trusting. I am sure he manipulated me using the numbers, making me think I was lucky. Application to nonprofit work: There is none. We must never distract and confuse people. We must always be transparent with our supporters and community.

It was a bitter, painful lesson, this experience. It feels awful to think that you are a sucker. It haunts me till now. And now I realize there is a terrible Principle 10: Exploit people’s compassion. I only came to the booth because it was New Year’s Day, and I felt bad for that family, probably not making much money at all. We shouldn’t apply this principle to nonprofit work either.

So I got conned. It feels awful, but I have learned some great lessons, and life goes on. You might be wondering how much money I lost in total. It was $10. Yeah, 10 dollars, which may not seem like a lot of money, but remember, I work for a nonprofit.

10 Nonprofit New Year’s Resolutions…for Other People

Posted on December 30, 2013January 8, 2014 by Vu

Hi everyone. I am in Alabama visiting in-laws for the holidays. It looks like the nonprofit funding landscape: dry, barren, everything withered, a few ravens squawking on brittle, gnarled branches.

Every year, I make a list of resolutions. Not for me, though, since I will invariably fail at all of them. So I make a list of resolutions for other people to improve themselves. It’s very therapeutic, and way more fun than making resolutions for yourself. Try it.

Nonprofit with Balls’s 2014 New Year’s Resolutions (for Other People)

People who use “literally” wrong. Seriously, you guys. It has become a pandemic scourge on society. On TV some woman said something like, “After I got my bearings, I was literally the eye of the tiger.” That makes no fricken sense! In 2014, you will learn to use literally right, or just avoid talking to me.

Staff who leave dishes unwashed. They are gross, and you fill them up with water so that the food doesn’t get stuck, which is great but then you don’t wash them in time, so the standing water becomes rancid and starts breeding mosquitoes or hipsters. In 2014, you will wash your dishes as soon as you are done using them. Unless you’re the ED, in which case, you can leave them for as long as you want.

Staff who leave food in containers in the fridge for months or years. After a while, the food start developing molds, and if left a while, the molds start evolving and becoming advanced civilizations capable of space travel. Then they go colonize other foods. Eat your food, or take it home right away.

People who use other people’s research/presentations without permission or without crediting the original source. This lackadaisical attitude in nonprofits’ use of data and research must stop, all right? We produce all sorts of awesome reports and presentations, taking hours to gather information. If you’re going to use it, ask first, or at the very least give credit to whomever you got this data from. Otherwise, my friend Director Mona will punch you in the neck.

People who have terrible paper formatting skills. In 2014, you will be more conscientious of how you format your handouts. Here are the worst offenders: PowerPoint handouts where there is one presentation slide per handout page. No one wants a 30-page package with with 9 words in 48-point font on each page! Condense your handout to 4 or even 6 slides per page, and use both sides! Also, the “dangling sentence,” knock that off. That’s when you have just one sentence on the last page of a handout. You are wasting an entire page because of one sentence! In 2014, preview before you print, and reduce your font size or margins so you don’t continue wasting paper. Or I will punch you in the neck.

Program officers and contract monitors who don’t respond to emails or phone calls. I know everyone is busy and overwhelmed with emails. But when people are emailing you three or four times, respond to them! Even if to say, “Sorry, I have no interest in your project about a nonprofit musical.” We are used to rejections, so that’s fine. But the radio silence is aggravating. In 2014, you will respond faster, even if it’s unfavorable. You are missing out on this awesome musical I’m working on.

“Color-blind” people. Listen, you guys, it’s 2014. Being color-blind went out of style along with Vanilla Ice and parachute pants. Maybe it’ll come back later, who knows, which is why I still keep my parachute pants in storage just in case. Until then, saying you don’t see colors just makes people look at you funny, like you just showed up in a bunny costume to a non-costume party. The thing now is to see colors and to appreciate diversity and stuff.

People who contact our agency asking for help. Every week we get random people who call asking for help on varying sort of non-mission-related stuff. We got one guy once who called requesting help with a business he’s trying to start in Vietnam. And there was one dude who thought we were a dating service. Read the website, and stop asking us for help. We’re trying to help people!

People who automatically add my name and email to their newsletter mailing list. I get hundreds of emails each week, literally. 25% of those are from other organizations automatically adding me to their mailing list without my permission. Then I feel bad unsubscribing. So now I just don’t give out business cards any more. I don’t know what the solution is, since all of us are trying to build our base, and in some ways, I kind of envy how efficient other orgs are about adding people to their database. In 2014, maybe you should keep doing that, but leave me out of it?

Finally, people who wear skinny jeans to nonprofit meetings and functions. Please knock it off. You may think it’s stylish, but you look ridiculous, and there are very serious health problems such as constricted blood flow and pinched nerves that you might want to look into. But mainly, nonprofit events are a space for people to think about making the world better. We should not be forced to spend mental energy gazing at your skinny legs and wondering how you got into your pants. On that note, in 2014 also stop wearing scarves when it’s not cold. There is no room for style in the nonprofit world. We gave that up when we entered the field.

All right, there’s more stuff, but I’m hungry, so I am going to try to find some vegan food in Alabama. What other resolutions can you think of for other people? Write it in the comment section.

Song of the Executive Director

Posted on December 18, 2013December 20, 2013 by Vu

Last Friday, 9 EDs got together for our monthly ED Happy Hour (EDHH), a time for us to discuss the challenges of our field and brainstorm ways to collaborate so that we can shift the paradigm and move the needle on collective impact around systemic change. Or something like that. OK, we just drink a lot and complain about stuff. It’s very therapeutic.

We were at a sports bar, and the basketball game on the TVs around us cast streaks of light on the shiny black tables.I was sipping on my WTM, which the waitress told me stood for “White Trash Mimosa,” a combination of orange juice and beer, and looking around the table at my fellow EDs, at their salt-and-pepper hair and their button-down shirts that they probably got at a Ross Dress for Less.

“Sad story time, you guys,” said Director Margaery, “we applied for a major grant. It failed.” (I’m using pseudonyms, since the second rule of EDHH is that everything that is said at EDHH stays at EDHH. (The first rule of EDHH is that you can’t ask an ED to be a table captain at your event.))

“That’s 10 ED Points!” I said. We have a system of ED points, which you can earn for doing different ED things. The points add up and earn you awesome titles. For example, for 100 points, we earn the title of Cat Herder. When we reach 1000 points, we are bestowed the highest rank, Equity Ninja. No one has yet reached the status of Equity Ninja. I think one person has achieved the third highest rank, 800 points, Synergy Harvester.

“I talked to a foundation and requested $40,000, and it seemed really positive” said Director Catelyn, “they came back with an offer for $10,000. That’s $10,000 we didn’t have before, but still, it hurts…”

We spent some time sharing sad stories, about funding and sustainability, about board members we have to wrangle, about the overwhelming number of emails we each receive every day, about the staff we loved whom we had to lay off because we didn’t get a grant, about the complete lack of separation between our work life and personal life.

I looked around at some of the smartest and most dedicated people I know. Their faces were gaunt and hollow, ravaged by time and countless special events. These visages, once vibrant and full of life, are now tired, leathery facades, crumpled like a stack of cobbler’s aprons that have fallen off a truck and been run over by a motorcycle. An ED’s face is like a tree trunk: You can tell by the number of wrinkles how many fiscal years this person has survived. “Ah,” you might say, “this wrinkle is especially deep. This must have been the year when they weren’t able to meet the goal for their annual fundraising dinner. What a sad and noble fella.”

The challenges of the position may explain why no one wants to be an ED. Seeing our tired, weather-beaten faces every day, most staff would rather eat their own arm or marry an opossum than become an Executive Director.

“I gave notice,” said Director Olenna, “I quit. Five years of full-time work without health benefits, that’s enough.”

We looked at her and took swigs of our respective drinks. Director Olenna brings so much energy and fun. Each time an ED leaves, it hurts. All of us are fighting the long and difficult fight against inequity and social injustice, and when an ED quits, it’s like having a comrade fall in battle. This is the 2nd ED I know who is leaving in the past two months.

“Where will you go?” I asked, “What will become of you?”

“I think I’ll take some time off, go to Japan, visit the 88 temples for a year,” she said, “and then I’ll come back and figure out something.”

At a previous EDHH we talked about what we would do if we weren’t in this line of work. One director wanted to be a wedding photographer. One wanted to make documentaries. I would love to work for the Travel Channel in a show called “Vegan Bizarre Foods,” where I travel the globe and sample wacky, but completely vegan, foods.

“Can I tell a happy story?” said Director Ned.

Sure, we said, we’d love to hear a happy story. We don’t always just complain about stuff. Most of the time, we are loud, laughing and cracking jokes and talking about “Storage War.”

“So someone contacted us,” said Director Ned, “and asked if we took stock options as a donation! Stock options, you guys!”

What, we said. No way, we said. Shut your face, Director Ned, you bastard, I said. While all us EDs look haggard and cobbler’s-apron-ish, Director Ned always looks fresh and full of energy, and for that I want to punch him in the face a few times so he would look like the rest of us.

Each time we gather for EDHH, it would last four or five hours. When it’s at another ED’s place, we would bring snacks and wine leftover from other meetings and events. Sometimes we sip on our beer or wine and stare into the distance, imagining a better reality, a reality where grants are multi-year general operating, which would allow us to focus on improving our programs instead of merely trying to survive. We imagine these things called “holiday bonuses” for our staff, like we see people getting in the movies. We imagine a world where children say “When I grow up, I want to be an executive director.”

No kid ever says that. I don’t think any of us thought we would end up as an ED. The profession calls to us like a siren, beautiful and haunting and madness inducing. And, while we lament about the challenges of our field and age twice as a fast as the general public and daydream about being a wedding photographer or whatever, the reality is that we still choose to heed the call, to listen to this song.

A new Director arrived, her first time at EDHH. She seemed nervous, but the group was welcoming, offering to share our hummus plate. I had to leave early to go to our office holiday party. On the way out, I was thinking how lucky I was to get to know and work with such amazing leaders. And I calculated that I had earned 12 ED points that day, which means I was 12 points closer to being an Equity Ninja.