Nonprofit AF

9 lessons from Breaking Bad we can apply to nonprofit work

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Vu

Hi everyone. Thanks to the long weekend, I was able to completely catch up with Breaking Bad. We were in the midst of Season 3 when the baby was born, so we had to stop, a decision I’ll regret for the rest of my life. But this weekend, while the baby was sleeping, we binge-watched the rest of the episodes, and they were totally awesome. Breaking Bad is about a high-school chemistry teacher named Walter White who is facing cancer. Wanting to leave his family with something after he’s gone, he ends up making meth with one of his former students, Jesse. Walter gradually rises up the ranks to become a total bad-ass in the insanely scary underground world of drug cartels. Not only is this a riveting show, with wonderful acting and complex human emotions, but there are tons of lessons we in the nonprofit field can glean.

[SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen the show or are not caught up at all, stop reading this right now and do something else, such as read this NWB post “How to Schedule a Meeting Without Being Punched in the Pancreas.” Or go watch the show. It is that good. I mean, I have an infant, and that hasn’t stopped me from watching this show and others].

Lesson 1: Change can be good. Walter’s cancer triggers his existential/midlife crisis, forcing him to reevaluate his entire life and what he has been doing with it. We in nonprofits tend to like settling into routines. But maybe, once in a while, it’s good to shake things up and make us some meth, yeah! OK, maybe not make meth, exactly, but, you know, do something different, like plan an annual luncheon instead of an annual dinner. Or have happy hour meetings at 10am instead of 5pm.

Lesson 2: Risks pay off. One of the most awesome scenes in the show is when Walter uses his knowledge of chemistry to threaten a drug king pin, Tuco, who had beat up Jesse (using a bag of cash, ironically). Walter carries these explosive crystals right smack into Tuco’s lair, threatening to blow up the entire place, including himself. The risk paid off, as they began a long and rewarding partnership that only ended up with a few people getting killed. We nonprofits need to learn to take more risks. Sure, sometimes, probably most of the time, we’ll probably get beat up by a bag stuffed with cash, but once in a while, it might work. So yeah, open that side business as an earned-income strategy.

Lesson 3: Pick your partners carefully. It turns out Tuco is a complete psychopath with a penchant for beating the crap out of people, including his own goons. Later, Walter and Jesse have to try to kill him. Now, if they had spent some time vetting him first, they might not have collaborated with him in the first place. This is a good lesson for us in nonprofit to learn: Choose partner organizations carefully, or else one party is inevitably going to try to poison the other with ricin.

Lesson 4: Never settle for less than the highest quality. Walter rises up through the ranks because his meth is 99% pure, unlike the rest of the meth out there, which are usually only 60 or 70% pure, mixed with baking soda or sawdust or whatever and might give you, like, terrible hallucinations or syphilis or something. We nonprofit organizations should always strive to ensure that our programs and services are as high quality as Walter’s meth.

Lesson 5: Use the right tools. At one point, Walter and Jesse have to dispose of a body. Jesse is sent to pick up some specific plastic containers so they could dissolve the body with acid. He picks up the wrong kind, and Walter is angry, saying the plastic needs to be a certain type, or else the acid would just eat right through it. Jesse, being an idiot at this point, decides to dissolve the body in his bathtub on the second floor while Walter is away, and the acid just eats right through the tub, making a terrible mess in the hallway. Lesson for us nonprofit folks: Whether it is the right donor database or copy machine or file backup system, use the right tool.

Lesson 6: Keep ego in check. Walter is brilliant in chemistry, but is oftentimes a complete idiot when it comes to real life. As his fake name, “Heisenberg,” gains notoriety, his ego gets bigger and bigger. The Drug Enforcement Agency, where his brother-in-law Hank works, finally discovers the body of someone they think is Heisenberg. This body is actually Walter’s lab assistant, Gale. Hank, over dinner, is saying how Gale is a genius and that he is definitely Heisenberg, case closed. Walter, being a moron, and drunk, blurts out that he thinks Gale is not a genius and that Heisenberg is a genius and he is probably still out there, triggering Hank to search even harder. Lesson for nonprofit folks: No matter how talented or experienced we are at being an ED or Development Director or Operations Manager or Board member or Program Coordinator or whatever, we should keep our egos in check in order to get even better.

Lesson 7: Be indispensable. Several times in the show, Walt is able to save his and Jesse’s life because only the two of them know how to make meth of that high a caliber. At another point, Gus Fring, their very professional and totally evil boss, walks out right into the middle of a sniper attack from a rival cartel, daring the sniper to fire at him. He knew that he is too valuable for their enemies to shoot down. Lesson for us to learn: Our nonprofits and its programs are more sustainable if they are absolutely vital to the community and people understand this. So we should ensure programs are excellent, and our communications to funders and to the rest of the community are constant. (Of course, once someone else understood how to make meth that was 99% pure, Walter and Jesse had to kill him to retain their indispensableness, but that’s a lesson for another day).

Lesson 8: Balance work and family. As Walter gains notoriety, his family suffers. He is never around, or he shows up naked in a convenience store with fake amnesia. He misses the birth of his daughter because he chooses instead to go drop off his meth to a distributor for money. Obviously this is a great lesson for all of us in the field, who tend to work too much and have poor work-life balance. No matter what we do, whether it’s making the world better or making crystal meth to sell to junkies, family is important.

Lesson 9: Understand what your goals and line in the sand are. As Walter White gets deeper and deeper into the business, he loses sight of his original goal, which was to provide for his family. The lines he is willing to cross also change. Now he is fixated on building an empire, even at the expense of his family, and this once-innocent chemistry teacher is willing to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, and kill to build that empire. For us nonprofit folks, a regular refresher on the mission and vision of our organization is a good idea, and also what our values are, to ensure that we are actually making the world better, and not just building a nonprofit empire for its own sake.

There are more lessons to learn from this awesome show, but I’m exhausted. Future posts will discuss those lessons, as well as ones learned from The Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead.

Letter to my newborn son, in case I die early

Posted on June 16, 2013September 21, 2015 by Vu

Hi everyone. I have been thinking of my son and what would happen if for some reason I die early. I don’t plan to, but who the heck knows what Fate has in store. Having a kid, and running a nonprofit, makes you think about your own mortality a lot. So I wrote him a letter. I am posting it here so that it doesn’t get lost. If Fate doesn’t want me around, please make sure the baby gets this some time.

Dear Son,

By the time you read this letter, I am probably no longer around, and you’ll probably have a hover board and a flying car. That would be awesome. No, not the part where I’m no longer around, but the part about the hover board. If time machines have been invented, please bring me back a hover board.

Your mother and I have had you for two months now. I still remember when we were waiting for you to arrive, anxious to meet you. One day you had the hiccups, and I rested my hand on your mom’s stomach and could feel you jolting every few seconds. Despite all the ultrasound pictures we had of you, you had always seemed distant to me, like a baby unicorn, cute but mythical. But with every jolt of your tiny body, it became clearer and clearer to me that you were real, and that you would be here soon, and that I would get to hold you and sing to you and watch you grow, and maybe use you as an excuse to avoid many, many evening meetings in my nonprofit work.

The past two months have been more difficult and wonderful than I could imagine. I stare at your hands and feet and can’t believe how tiny they are. We have been sleep deprived and exhausted and smelling like spit-up and hand sanitizer, but there are moments—when you smile or talk or fall asleep on our chest or shoulders—when your mother and I just stare at you and selfishly wish for you to remain this small forever. The other day, when you were soundly sleeping, you started laughing, and I wondered what you were dreaming about.

You’ve been appearing in my dreams a lot, probably because I’m thinking about you all the time now. You were about one, and I was holding you, and you got distracted and started squiggling around and tried to climb down the bed. You were too small and the bed was too high and you were afraid to let yourself drop the four terrifying inches down to the floor. You looked up at me with your big liquid eyes, and at that moment, like any good father would, I ignored your plight and frantically tried to find my phone to take a picture of you.

Not all the dreams are as happy. Recently I dreamt I had a terminal illness and only a week left to live. I was sad, one because I would not get to continue watching Game of Thrones, a great television series that I hope you will get to enjoy when you’re old enough, like 30. And two, because I would only have a week left to get to know you. In my dream, I sat down and started to write a letter to you listing out some important life lessons I wanted to teach you, hoping that you would read it one day and know that your father thought of you and loved you more than Game of Thrones, more than the Walking Dead or Arrested Development, more than his own heartbeats, which he needs to watch his favorite shows. Yes, your father sometimes refers to himself in the third person; all fathers must refer to themselves in the third person when they’re writing these types of letters to their children. You’ll understand one day when you have your own little ones.

I woke up from that terrible dream and was happy that I had more than one week left to live. But then I thought of how ephemeral life is. Any of us can go at any time. I should write you a letter any way, just in case. This is supposed to be a private letter to you, and that’s why it’s so long, but your mother and I have poor record-keeping skills, so I am hoping one of my friends on my nonprofitwithballs.com blog will be able to pass this on to you should anything happen to me.

My son, these below are the lessons that I want to pass down to you. These lessons are not original. I’ve learned them from many people, especially in my work in nonprofit, which has some of the coolest people ever, in case you ever decide to go into this field. Through experience and sometimes painful failures, I have found them to be helpful to live by. Depending on when you read this letter, they may not even apply to you at all. I hope you will read this from time to time, and maybe it may make better sense at different points in your life. Read once a while and let these principles guide you to a long and meaningful life that I wish for you:

Never judge anyone for anything ever. Unless you are in the same context, with the same upbringing, the same genes, the same brain structure, unless every atom of your existence is the same as theirs, you have no basis to judge most people. Try not to judge anyone. Even people who create stupid commercials, like those Subway commercials with the annoying adults with kids’ voices, what the hell were they thinking? Also, people who don’t know how to correctly use “literally.” They say ridiculous things like “that meeting literally made my head explode.” It’s easy to judge them, but try not to, since it doesn’t make you any happier in the long run.

Always assume the best intentions in people. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Some people will prove to be unpleasant to deal with and you will encounter many, many people that you will just want to punch in the mouth, but most people are good, and we all have bad days. Don’t burden yourself too much being angry at people and thinking they intentionally mean to hurt you. Most people are also just trying to make it through the day, to get home to their family and a cold drink and their favorite TV show, so if they cut you off in traffic or bumped into you on the sidewalk, they probably didn’t mean it.

Find beauty and humor in the world around you. Sure, it’s really crappy sometimes, with bad things happening to good people all the time. But like Don Quixote said, “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams, this may be madness…Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.” This is one of your father’s favorite quotes, and I hope that you will always try to see life as it should be.

Never think you are above anyone. No matter how successful you are, a major part of your success is the context of your existence. You are born to us, including a very cool dad, in this country, and we are lucky to have so many rights and privileges, but you could have been born elsewhere under different circumstances, and your fate may have been completely different. Be thankful, and never look down on anyone.

Never think that you are beneath anyone. By the same measure, never think that you are beneath anyone. It is normal for you to go through a period where you see others being more successful than you, and you may feel like crap when you compare yourself to them, especially when your family is all like “why aren’t YOU a successful real estate investor like your brother or a doctor like that Nguyen kid?” Use others’ success to motivate you, but again, everyone’s circumstances are different, so comparisons are often meaningless. Be thankful, work hard for what you believe in, and don’t waste time with self-pity.

It is not talent or genius that leads to success, but hard work and perseverance. 95% of the time, those who have C+ talents but A+ perseverance will always be more successful than those who have A+ talents but C+ perseverance. Pursue your dreams, pursue them hard. You will face countless rejection and failure and naysayers who naysay things like “Vu, a teeth lacquer-tattoo business is a bad idea,” but keep trying, because the road to success is littered with geniuses who give up.

Follow your life’s passion, but give back to your community. While you pursue your dreams, don’t forget that you belong to a community, a society. You will never achieve happiness, even if you achieve your dreams, unless you contribute back to the world in some way. Volunteer. Donate. Join a nonprofit board. Help your friends when they’re moving.

Always keep your word. Few things build respect as quickly and consistently as when you do what you say you’ll do. Not just for the big stuff, but also for the small things, like when you say, “I’ll send you that recipe” or “we should get coffee, I’ll email you to arrange a time” or “I’ll drop by your office with Season 6 of Burn Notice.” We have too many let’s-get-coffee’s that never lead anywhere. Your word is your promise. Never promise anything that you do not plan to follow up on.

Acknowledge people. Everyone has an important story that you can learn from. Try to learn people’s names and their hopes and dreams. You may forget, and that’s understandable, but try to really “see” the people around you: your family, friends, co-workers, teachers, bosses, but also your mail carrier, neighbors, waiters, grocery baggers, bus drivers, etc. Be genuine and present when you talk to anyone, no matter if you will encounter them again in your life or not.

Don’t be restricted by labels: The world is complicated, and we are tempted to categorize ourselves and others: Democrats, Republicans; Male, Female; Gay, Straight; Orange juice with pulp, orange juice without pulp. But the world and you are much more complex and interesting than that. Try not to label others, and apply labels to yourself only if you find them helpful. Otherwise, explore the awesomeness of life and existence and do what makes your life meaningful, as long as you don’t hurt others.

Never be too certain of anything: Life is full of uncertainty, and reality is weird and unpredictable, and that’s what makes it both terrifying and interesting. If you become too certain of anything, you may close yourself to the possibilities that may exist. Keep an open mind; listen to others’ perspectives. Otherwise you become that annoying know-it-all that no one really wants to hang out with.

The right things to do are usually the hardest: For example, getting up to go to work, apologizing to someone you wronged, calling up your parents and asking how they are when you just want to go partying with your friends in college, not taking that fifth glass of red wine at an annual fundraising dinner. Try to always stand up for what you believe in, and always do the right thing, even if it’s uncomfortable, even if people dislike you, even if they think you’re an idiot. It is always better to be an idiot who did the right thing.

One person can make a difference: Never listen to anyone who tries to convince you that the things that you are trying to do is too big and that you are just one person. It always starts with one person, who through courage and perseverance inspires another person, who inspires another, and so on. That is the only way things happen. Always do the right thing, even if you are the only person doing it.

You can get a lot of things done if you don’t mind who takes the credit: I know very few people whose life goal is “to get a lot of credit for doing something.” The people you should get to know are those whose goals are to achieve something, to change the world for the better somehow. The argument over who gets the credit can oftentimes be distracting or even destructive. Fame and approval should be a bonus, or the tools for achieving your goal, not the goal itself. This can be a hard lesson to absorb, but I’ve learned it works well when everyone buys into it…Of course, there’s a limit to this, so if anyone continually steals your credit and it distracts you from your goal, don’t hesitate to kick ass.

Never forget your family and heritage. Our family has gone through a lot—several wars, countless heartbreaks. Your paternal grandfather was sent to reeducation camp. Your paternal grandmother pedaled her bicycle for 30 miles each day to sell grains and feed your aunts and uncles and me. I’m sorry that you never got to meet her, as she would have loved you more than you can know. They, and your mother’s side of the family, have gone through things that you and I can only imagine. These things, and our families’ tireless perseverance, led to me and to your mother and to you. For whatever reason, you are born to us. Learn where you come from, and as much as you can keep and pass down your heritage. You will go through some times when you are frustrated at your family. It’s OK. You can love people, and not like them from time to time. But just remember that no one loves you more than your family.

Be generous with yourself and others. You will make mistakes, and so will others. Your father has broken many of these rules that he has written down here in this letter to you, and likely he will do so again in the future. He has screwed up lots of times. You will also screw up from time to time. Learn from your mistakes, and forgive yourself. Try your best to be a good person. Don’t expect perfection in yourself or others.

Appreciate the little things, the small moments, in life. Finally, the last lesson I want to make sure to pass down to you, is also one of the most important: Don’t take the details for granted. The little things, that’s what life is made of. I was visiting Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee)’s grave, and this was carved on it:

“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” (Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky)

I have known of this lesson, but only in the last couple of months having held you and gotten to know you and getting spit up on by you, that I really understood it. I have learned this lesson from you. I have learned that time does not stand still. I start thinking of how many more times I will get to hold you and read to you and swaddle you and rock you to sleep on my shoulder and place you gently down in the baby swing. Soon you will be walking and talking and going to kindergarten and getting your first job and going to high school and entering college and experiencing your first heartbreak, hopefully in that order.

I am writing this to you on my first Father’s Day, and you are only two months old, but if you are reading this, then you are already much older. We may have already gotten into arguments about how dangerous hover boards are. You may have already run away from home once or twice and stowed-away on a shuttle to the moon colony or something. You may already have been embarrassed multiple times by your dad showing up in his beat-up hydro-powered car to pick you up from your underground school, spouting some stuff about social justice and cultural competency.

I do not know how many more Father’s Days we will have together. If Fate is kind, it will give us our afternoons, and the twenty or so times where we can watch the full moon rise. I would like that very much. And hopefully I will be there when you have your first little one. If Fate is not so kind, if my life is cut short for any reason, I want you to know that your father has had a good life so far, made much more complete now that he has held you and listened to you laugh in your sleep, and that he loves you more than he ever thought he could love anything.

Dad

10 Steps for Writing a Kick-Ass Nonprofit Organizational Budget

Posted on June 3, 2013June 4, 2015 by Vu

Every year, at about this time, I start having night terrors. A lot of this is due to watching Game of Thrones and seeing all my favorite characters killed to death in gruesome ways. But it is also because my org’s fiscal year ends in June, and we must go through the annual budgeting process, which is about as much fun as juggling baby porcupines.

Actually, no, baby porcupines are cute. Budgeting is about as much fun as juggling open jars of spicy chipotle mayonnaise. It’s messy and painful.

So I thought I would write down the steps to developing an awesome budget for a small to medium organization. This is not a guide for those who are starting a nonprofit, but rather for new EDs or board members of organizations that have been in operation for at least a year and will need to develop next year’s budget, or anyone who needs a refresher. Follow these steps below, and you will have a kick-ass budget that you can proudly show to your friends and family.

Step 1: Rally your team. This may be your finance committee. If you don’t have a finance committee, assemble a Budgeting Task Force. Make sure you call it “Task Force,” since Task Force sounds cool, like a team of superheroes who are called into action when the organization sends a distress signal (and at the end of every fiscal year, we are all sending distress signals). Include your board Treasurer, your Accountant/bookkeeper/finance person, one or two key staff, and an astrologer.

Step 2: Have your finance person provide data on up-to-date spending actuals for each program, as well as administrative and fundraising expenses. It is important to know how much you’ve been spending in each category this year, so that you can ignore all of it while you develop next year’s budget.

Step 3: Talk to your key staff to figure out the programming expenses for the next fiscal year. Ideally you will have a strategic plan on which to base next year’s staffing and programming (I’ll write later on how to develop a kick-ass strategic plan). If you don’t, it is important to get an idea from your staff what it is they need to make their programs successful next year. They are in the trenches, so they know best about programming stuff. Be aware that putting all staff into a room together to discuss their needs for the next year may lead to what I call “Mad Max-Budget Thunderdome.”

Step 4: Unfortunately, many requests can only be fulfilled in a mythical magical world with sufficient unrestricted funds, so you must bargain with your staff and be creative to reach middle ground. For example, a staff may say, “I need a unicorn in order to effectively do my work,” then you say, “we can’t afford a unicorn,” and your staff will say, “without a unicorn, I can’t do so and so and I am burning out,” so then you say, “how about a work-study unicorn instead?”

Step 5: Personnel expenses are the biggest and most critical category in your budget, since it takes staff to make things happen. It is important that your staff are paid a fair and decent wage that are increasing with cost of living. Go borrow the United Way’s Wage and Benefit Survey from one of your nonprofit friends (or order it online if you’re one of those big nonprofits who can afford it). Look up all the positions you plan to keep or develop, and it’ll tell you what on average those positions are paid in organizations your size.

Step 6: Put your computer on hibernate, close your door, and gently weep for five or ten minutes, thinking about all your wonderful staff and how horribly underpaid they are, according to the Wages and Benefit Survey, and about all the stuff you could do if you only had more resources. Then dry your eyes, open your door, and if any staff happens to ask what’s wrong, just give them a hug and tell them you’re proud of them and that the work they do is so important and that they’re making the world better, then go on a walk to clear your head.

Step 7: Now that you have all your projected expenses down, you must look at the potential revenues. Review all the funders who supported you this fiscal year, and categorize each of them by “will not renew since it was a one-year grant,” “possibly renewable, but is so restricted that it may actually cost the organization more to administer than the grant is worth,” “long-shot,” and “no clue, since they’re in the middle of a strategic planning process and we’re not sure what their priorities will be next fiscal year.”

Step 8: It is now time to put your astrologer to use. Have them create a chart of where the planets are this year in relation to your organization, as that is the best way to predict where the rest of your funds will be coming from. Mercury (representing foundations), Venus (representing individual donors), and Saturn (representing government funding) are in rare alignment right now, which may mean that it is time to focus more fundraising energy on those areas. The tiny and distant Pluto, representing general operating funds, is no longer a planet, but it still greatly impacts nonprofits, so make sure your astrologer includes its trajectory in the charts.

Step 9: It is unlikely that you will have enough projected revenues to meet projected expenses, so start cutting things and finding creative ways to obtain resources. For example, can you ask for donations of food for programs from local restaurants? Can the children in your programs spend one or two hours a day making products such as shoes or backpacks that could then be sold? And do staff REALLY need dental and vision insurance?

Step 10: Once your Task Force agrees on the draft budget, voila, you’re pretty much done! Forward it to the rest of the board to review and approve. They’ll likely be shocked at how much they’ll have to help raise through individual donations and the annual dinner and will likely ask you to cut down expenses even further. Resist the urge to break down weeping. Just smile, give an inspiring speech about working together, and reassure your board that you won’t be submitting any grants on any day when Mercury is in retrograde.

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Feng Shui for Nonprofits, Part 2: The 7 Basic Meeting Formations

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Vu

When I was growing up, my mother always told me to study hard. “Study hard,” she said, “so that you can work in an office one day and go to meetings and push paper, and not have to do manual labor like me and your dad.” Then she would add: “And eat some food. You look like a pale exhausted monkey and are the second least attractive member of our extended family.” (Thank God for cousin Nghi and her one twitching eye).

Anyway, Mom got her wish, because I do work in an office and I go to a lot of meetings, and sometimes those meetings are even useful. Our field does a lot of meetings, and yet we don’t stop to think much about them. Today, we’ll talk a little about the layout of the room and how it impacts the dynamics between participants. We barely notice, but simple things like where tables and chairs are placed and where the meeting participants are sitting in relation to one another makes a huge difference in power dynamics, and thus, the outcomes of the meeting.

First, let’s talk about large meetings with multiple people. The results of the meeting can be determined before anyone even walks into the room by how the tables and chairs are arranged.

The Power Formation. The front of the room is the seat of power, and people in the front are perceived to be more powerful than everyone else. This is why we naturally place politicians, panel speakers, and other experts and authority figures in the front of the room. This can be tricky, though, because sometimes you do not want them to be perceived as more powerful than you. One time, I was attending a community meeting designed to hold some higher-ups in Seattle Public Schools accountable for the inequity among our schools. This meeting was organized by the community. I entered the room and saw 8 seats in the front, facing the audience of 15. While the intent was to place the officials in the “hot seat,” the reality was that they now seemed like authority figures towering over the rest of us. By the end of the meeting, they got us to promise that we’ll work harder to close the achievement gap.

The Circle Formation. Having everyone sit in a circle (or square) conveys a sense of democracy and community. It is also is the appropriate diffuser of power, forcing authority figures to recognize unconsciously that they are just like everyone else, the toiling, unwashed masses. This is what we should have done instead of the Power Formation in the situation above. Plus, the Circle Formation is the most efficient formation for snack distribution.

The U Formation. Arranging tables in a U shape conveys a sense of regalness. The person placed at the head of the table cannot have a diametric opposite, meaning this person has ultimate power. This formation best used when there is a very special guest of honor present, such as the Queen or an Iron Chef, in which case, break out the fine linens and hire some butlers. Otherwise, this formation is pretty stupid and should be avoided at all times.

The Small Groups Formation. Having people sit in small groups fosters both teamwork and competitiveness. It reminds people of high school, when they had to sit in small groups and do projects together, occasionally teasing that one lanky vegan kid who with the bad haircut because his dad always cut his hair. Well, oh yeah, David? Look who’s a nonprofit executive director now while all you got is a “JD”?! What is that anyway, some sort of degree you made up?!

Sorry, I got distracted. This formation is a great way to get people to know one another, especially if you throw in a competitive game or two. It is also an effective diffuser of power. When you have multiple authority figures, scatter them across different groups. When more than one is present, their power combined is not additive, but exponential, along with how annoying they are, being all chummy with one another and saying stuff like, “Yes, let’s get lunch soon” and “Vu, why isn’t the draft of next fiscal year’s budget done? The board must approve it at the next meeting.”

Many of our meetings are one-on-one. For those meetings, it is important to analyze with whom you are meeting and for what purpose. Then determine the appropriate formation to take:

The Adversarial Formation (aka The Interrogation Formation). Sitting directly across a table from someone sends the message that you want to be formal. We use this position when we are playing competitive board games, like Chess. This is a good position when you want to keep your distance or seem imposing. Sometimes it becomes the Interrogation Formation, where a panel of people sits across the table from one person, usually to glare at them while asking interview questions and looking cryptic. Generally I avoid sitting directly across a table from anyone in a one-on-one meeting, as it is unconsciously intimidating. It is useful though when you’re dealing with unsolicited visitors, people you’re meeting for the first time, staff who want to meet with you to complain about their health insurance not kicking in even though it’s been eight months or some other ridiculous reason. Or you are just trying to hide a fifth of whiskey. The bigger the table, the more formality is conveyed. If the table is small, though, such as at cafes, the effects are greatly minimized.

The Intimate Formation. Sitting on the same side of the table as someone sends the message “We’re on the same team” and is really creepy. Unless you know someone well, never ever sit on the same side as they are sitting. It’s like giving an awkward hug, but for an hour, or however long the meeting lasts. Exceptions can be made if you need to look at some documents together, or if for some reason the two of you are on the porch with a cold beer each, sharing war stories or something.

The Corner Formation. Sitting across from someone in such a way that there is one corner of the table between the two of you is a great middle ground between the intimidating Adversarial Formation and the creepy Intimate Formation. I like to use this position as the default when I am meeting with people one-on-one. It makes me seem approachable, but there is still a buffer between me and the other person, allowing them to feel a sense of security. This is a great formation to use when interviewing people for jobs, as it allows them to feel relaxed in a formal setting. It’s also great to use when you have to give bad news or feedback.

Those are the 7 main meeting formations. Learn them well and you’ll be able to greatly affect the outcomes of any meeting. But there are other formations, for more advanced meeting goers. For example the Flanking Formation, where two people from the same organization will flank someone from a different organization, causing disorientation and intimidation. Then there’s the Wagon Wheel Formation, the Intervention Formation, the Fish Bowl Formation (aka the Thunder Dome Formation), and the Lemmings Formation.

But we’ll discuss those later in a future post. We’ll also discuss the different snacks and how they affect power dynamics. Hint: Hummus is an effective tool when deployed strategically.

Ask a Nonprofit Director, Episode 2: Advice on child rearing, family dynamics, and halitosis

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Vu

Welcome to another episode of Ask a Nonprofit Director. As we all know, EDs are excellent problem solvers. That’s why we are paid so well. But why stick to just nonprofit problems? We would make kick-ass advice columnists for everyday dilemmas! (Check out Episode 1)

Dear Nonprofit Director: We recently moved to Seattle from Texas, and my 14-year-old son has been having challenges adjusting. He has no friends, spends all his time in his room, and just looks sad and miserable all the time. It breaks my heart to see him like this, as he was always an outgoing and cheerful boy. What can I do? Beginning to Lose All Hope

Dear BLAH: Huge changes can severely affect the morale of any team. Take your son to lunch to express your concerns and listen to his side. Oftentimes, just knowing that you care can do a lot to raise his spirit. Work with him to figure out a strategy to ensure he has a meaningful and productive experience while in Seattle. For example, perhaps he can join a gluten-free baking club, an artisanal urban farming chicken raising class, or an organic biking meet-up group. If things do not improve, you may want to consider counseling. In any case, express to your son your expectations that he meet the outcomes you and he agreed to when he joined your family.

Dear Nonprofit Director: My four siblings and I live in the same city. We used to be very close until last year, when our oldest brother decided to spend Thanksgiving with his partner’s family out of town. So then my younger sister figured it would only be fair for her to spend Christmas skiing with her friends, which led to my other brother deciding to go to Vegas. My mother was very hurt, and now no one is looking forward to this year’s holidays. I’m trying to be the bridge-builder but I’m getting tired. Stuck in the Middle

Dear Middle: Your family may benefit from a weekend teambuilding retreat to reenergize and develop a strategic plan for how you spend the holidays. Determine your objectives and budget, then draft up an RFQ to hire a facilitator. During this retreat, make sure you do some trust falls and other team dynamics activities involving blindfolds. Do not leave the retreat without a one-year action plan as to who will spend which holiday where, along with specific metrics and evaluation instruments to determine if each holiday was successfully enjoyed.

Dear Nonprofit Director: I am thinking of giving my seven-year-old a small weekly allowance to teach him financial responsibility. My husband is reluctant, insisting that kids should just be kids. Who is right in this situation? No Clever Acronym

Dear NCA: A team cannot function if each of its members does not have clear roles, responsibilities, and autonomy to make decisions. Giving your son an allowance and a clear line-item budget along with an orientation on which items he has full control over will increase his skills in financial management, develop his sense of ownership and investment, and relieve some of the burdens on you and your husband to take care of certain lesser purchases, such as food and clothing. Make sure your son documents all his spending with receipts so that you can do final accounting at the end of the fiscal year.

Dear Nonprofit Director: My daughter seems to favor her 10-year-old son “Billy” over her 12-year-old daughter “Abby.” It is sadly obvious. Abby gets into trouble all the time for the littlest things, while Billy can get away with anything and is rather spoiled. Abby confided to me that her mother is unfairly biased toward Billy and asked me to intervene in her behalf. I told my daughter this, but she became resentful and said I was intruding on her rights as a parent. What should I do? Concerned Grandma

Dear Grandma: The children are your daughter’s direct reports, so she does have the right to supervise them without intrusion, within reason. You made the mistake of intervening in your granddaughter’s behalf, which now creates tension between your daughter and granddaughter. What you should have done, and should do next time, is to encourage Abby to give feedback directly to her mother. This helps to increase respect between the two and helps Abby learn to problem-solve. If this does not work out, you may have to consider if your daughter is the right driver for this bus.

Dear Nonprofit Director: My boss has severe halitosis, smelling of a toxic combination of rotting garlic, sardines, and compost. Plus, he’s a “close-talker.” I dread any one-on-one meetings with him. How do I politely tell him without hurting his feelings or putting my job in jeopardy? Hate It Down in Ellensburg

Dear HIDE: Most people do not know that they have bad breath, which may be a sign of dental or even heart problems. They tend to appreciate the feedback, since very few people are courageous enough to deliver it. Let your boss know in private, and also tell him that he’s too close when he talks. If you feel that being direct might put your job in danger, it may be helpful to bring in a consultant to survey all the staff about the work environment and write up a report. Oftentimes, you can say something for months and get nowhere, but a consultant comes in, says the exact same thing using a report with some colorful graphs, and your boss will think it’s pure genius.

“Ask a Nonprofit Director” is the premiere syndicated advice column on life issues from the perspective of an Executive Director. Send your questions to askanonprofitdirector@gmail.com and it may be published in Episode 3. Also, check out Episode 1 of “Ask a Nonprofit Director” for even more awesome advice.