Nonprofit AF

Exploring the fun and frustrations of nonprofit work

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ED Life

We need more shows about nonprofit work

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Like most executive directors, I come home exhausted from hours of telling staff what to do and taking credit for their work. To de-stress, I’ve started watching ridiculous amounts of television. And I started noticing something. There are plenty of shows about lawyers, doctors, detectives, cooks, servants, zombies, etc., most of them featuring attractive actors who spend endless episodes in frivolous romantic triangles with one another (except the zombies).

Unfortunately, not one of these shows is about nonprofit directors. What kind of example does that set for our kids? Do show producers think we are boring? Do they not realize how incredibly exciting our work is? In either case, I am going to write to David E. Kelley with an idea for a show, called “ED,” featuring a group of Executive Directors of several nonprofits. The show will explore their struggles helping to improve the world while balancing family and other obligations. It will chronicle the hard choices they have to make; the triumphs and challenges; and the friendships they develop, usually through happy hours. There are tons of exciting stuff to mine from the nonprofit world.

Pilot episode: A meeting room at the Coalition for Excellence (CFE). Tension so thick you could carve a statue out of it. Maria, the ED, prepares to present a cashflow report. Things do not look good, and she knows it. Meanwhile, at another nonprofit, Think of the Children (TOTC), Troy is furiously typing. He cries out in pain, cursing his email-induced carpal tunnel syndrome. But this grant is due tomorrow, and it’s a general operating grant! At another nonprofit, Unicycles for Guns (UFG), Vinh, a particularly dashing Asian ED, has a flashback. He is sitting in front of his parents at dinner. He tells them he is pursuing a Master’s in Social Work. They are silent, the sound of their chopsticks clinking on porcelain bowls mournful and ominous. He snaps back to the meeting he’s having with his Development/Human-Resources/Finance-Director/Janitor, Loan. She is tired of having multiple responsibilities and wants to a clearer work plan.

Episode 2: Maria’s board has voted to apply for a line of credit. This is a small victory, short-term. They did not seem to understand that fundraising efforts will need to increase. Staff morale, meanwhile, is down. She calls her Program Director, Arlene, into her office to plan a teambuilding retreat with no funding. At UFG, Vinh’s back hurts from endless hours of meetings. He holds in his hand a grant letter. He is afraid to open it; it could be a rejection. He decides to get it over with, when his phone rings. It’s Troy from TOTC; he got the grant he wrote and is calling, ecstatic, to invite Vinh to happy hour. Vinh looks at the letter in his own hand. “While we had many qualified applicants…” He retraces steps in his mind. Did he talk too much during the site visit? He felt like a failure, imagining all the kids now who couldn’t trade their guns for unicycles.

Episode 3: The Coalition for Excellence wildly succeeds at its annual dinner, and Maria has a good night’s sleep for the first time without Ambien. At TOTC, Troy welcomes an influential board member that he had been pursuing for months, Louis, whom he does not know had a relationship with Maria. He also does not know that Louis has loyalties to Think of the Children’s competitor, Care for the Children (CFTC)! The smart and inexplicably sexy Vinh, meanwhile, finds a coupon for 20% off reams of copy paper. He rushes to Office Depot. Little does he know that at that moment Loan is plotting with the board Treasurer to get Vinh fired.

In the season finale, viewers are left with cliff-hangers: Will Maria get together with Louis? Will Louis destroy Troy’s organization?! Can Arlene find a pro-bono facilitator for the team-building retreat??! Will Vinh be able to carry a ten-ream box of copy paper with his bad back and carpal tunnel???!

If that’s not compelling television, I don’t know what is. I’m going to develop a more detailed script for the pilot episode. Maybe I should add a zombie or two. If they don’t like “ED,” I also thought of another show, one from the perspectives of spouses of Executive Directors and what they go through. It’ll be called “Living with ED.”

Site visits: uncomfortable, yet terrifying

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officeThis week, VFA had a site visit. Whenever we apply for a grant, the second-best outcome is a site visit (the best outcome would be a funder saying, “We’re funding you, and in fact, doubling your request and sending the kids in your after-school program a laptop and a bunny each!”)

I always get excited about site visits. We write these grants telling people about how cool our programs are, but to have funders actually come down and visit is affirming. And terrifying. It’s a weird contradiction, like it’s your birthday—yay!—but you’re also getting a colonoscopy.

Before the visit, we try to prep as much as we can. Making a good impression is important. This includes tidying up the place and putting away our fold-out cot, which staff use for naps during particularly long days, or just weekdays. I also gather up all the papers on my desk and shove them into the overhead bin.

The staff’s personal appearance is also taken into consideration. “What kind of site visit is this?” one of them asked, “how should we dress?” The more funding is at stake, the better we dress. Less than $10,000, we dress a little better than normal, but are still generally shabby. At $10,000 to $19,000, we wear button-down shirts and tuck them into our jeans. $20,000 to $49,000, we wear slacks and a nice shirt, maybe a tie. $50,000 or over, I might require some of the staff to get Botox.

“$80,000,” I responded. “Ooh,” they said, “you better get a haircut.” A year ago, an hour from a visit with a major foundation, I checked myself in the mirror. Normally I look like a movie star, an Asian Steve Buscemi if you will, but this time I had a greenish complexion overshadowed by cowlicks so unruly, they were really goatlicks. Quickly I ran downstairs to a barber shop and got a trim. I made it to our program on time but was horrified to see that my face, neck, and shoulders were covered with bits of hair. “Quick, grab some tape,” I said, and for the next ten minutes, two staff used masking tape to remove offending pieces of hair. We got that grant, but the staff have never let me live that down.

On the day of this recent site visit, I was at a Leadership Tomorrow training. “Tidy up office, prepare slideshow,” I texted James, our Director of Youth and Community Engagement, who would be managing the project if we received this grant. This was only an office visit, not a program visit. Program visits have special challenges. We want our funders to see our programs in their natural state, so we don’t prep our students too much, except to tell them that a few people might be visiting and that if they don’t behave, Justin Bieber will stop singing forever.

When these visits go well, everyone leaves with a good feeling. The staff feel affirmed; the funders feel warm and fuzzy. Once in a while, though, they coincide with a crappy day, when kids have low energy, or some staff are absent, or the ED is hungover. Funders are usually pretty understanding and sympathetic when that happens, but I haven’t yet seen a bad site visit that has resulted in a grant or even a second-chance visit. It’s a horrible feeling watching a group of funders leave after an uninspiring tour. It’s like when you’re a kid and you’re practicing for hours at a yo-yo trick and it’s awesome and you’re excited to show your older brother, but then the trick doesn’t go right, and he tousles your hair and says “That was a nice try, Vu, I’m sure you’ll get it eventually,” and you’re mad at yourself because you already got it, dozens of time, so then you hide his car keys under the couch cushions.

Office visits are challenging in that funders don’t have the visceral experience of our programs, a chance to meet our kids and stare into their big, liquid eyes brimming with hope and potential. So we create a slideshow to give them an impression. Two hours before the site visit, I texted James to “make sure only cute kids w big eyes are in slideshow.”

On my way back, I got a text from James. “They are here thirty mins early! They in conf room relaxing!” Crap, I thought, I don’t have time to clean up my desk! The previous evening, I had eaten some Morningstar vegan barbecue ribs and left the plate out on the desk. The office had been cleaned, so my cubicle would be the only messy area. They’re going to think I’m disorganized and sloppy! How could they invest in an organization when the ED can’t even clean up his mess after eating vegan BBQ ribs?!

I arrived at the office with twenty minutes to spare, but somehow felt late and anxious. I ran up the stairs and burst into the conference room to greet the four visitors. This was $80,000 on the line and I was blinded by their radiance. Program officers are on average 27% more attractive than civilians, and like Galadriel the Elven Queen from Lord of the Rings when she nearly held the One Ring of Power, they can be both beautiful and terrible to behold.

“I’m so sorry for being…early,” I said, breathless. They cracked up. Maybe they’re just humans, too, after all.

Reflections for Thanksgiving

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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 ED vacation

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vacationI am in Vietnam on vacation and have been looking forward to lounging on the beach, a cold coconut in one hand, and in the other: Fundraising: Hands-On Tactics for Nonprofit Groups, by L. Peter Edles, Second Edition. This is not my ideal book for leisure-time reading, but there is no other time to read it, and VFA’s new part-time Development Director, Rachel, insists I read it. Like other effective Development Directors, she can be bossy and scary, always saying stuff like, “Sign this stack of acknowledgement letters by Friday” or “Are you really going to meet a program officer wearing that shirt?” or “Go comb your hair; here’s a Tic-Tac.”

I think there are several reasons for EDs to take long vacations. First, it is a stressful job, and we need time to recharge and de-agify. Second, it is good to put some distance in order to get a clearer perspective on work. And third, it’s a good test for staff in working together to solve problems, and a good leadership experience for whomever is in charge while we’re gone.

Still, it is not as simple as most people think. There’s all this preparation that has to happen first, such as establishing a chain of command. “Hong is in charge,” I said. He smiled, starting to put his fingers into the “power tent” position. “However, you can override him with a two-third majority.”

Then there’s a whole bunch of important projects that have to happen. “UWKC’s outcome reports are due on July 23rd and the demographics reports are due a week later. SVP is still waiting for our program outcomes as well, now that the school year is over. HSD’s contract renewal package should be coming in while I’m gone, but that can be signed electronically, so ensure that if I don’t get to it, find a way to get a hold of me. And of course, don’t forget the CAPACD and Medina grants, which we are still behind on—Actually, you know what, I’ll just cancel my ticket…”

“Go!” they said. Maybe a little too eagerly.

I am now in the beautiful city of Da Lat, in the mountains, 4,500 feet above sea level, at an internet café, because I knew this blog post was due. On my right is a snot-nosed little teenager who is smoking, and his fumes are wafting over as I type this. “Son,” I said “blow your smoke the other direction! I’m trying to work!” There are no laws against smoking indoors here, so I have to suffer. “It’s not me, it’s the wind!” he protests. “I don’t care, knock it off,” I said.

I don’t think EDs can ever truly have a real vacation. We constantly think about the thousands of emails breeding like rabbits in our inbox, about the important time-sensitive stuff we might be missing while we’re away, about how our staff are doing and whether they are planning a mutiny, and then—deep down—all of us are always kind of hoping that they are planning a mutiny. It has made for a very tense few days, and everywhere I go, I hunt down WiFi so I can check my emails on my smart phone. Three days ago, I was in my home village, up in the mountains, where pine trees grow out of red earth, beautiful and tranquil. And where there is no WiFi! For three days I couldn’t check my email. I was going through withdrawal symptoms, twitching and scratching. But then, I started relaxing a little bit!

For almost all my vacations, the first five or six days are spent with a severe cold. This seems to happen with other EDs. I think the constant high level of stress keeps our immune system working, and as soon as we relax, it also takes a vacation. This year is no different. I have been sick two days now, hacking and coughing and stuffed up. Last night, we went to a pharmacy, where they prescribed four different kinds of medicines, and I have no idea what they are. This idiot next to me continues to smoke. I am irritated. It’s no fun being sick. But I have only myself to blame. I shouldn’t have gotten so relaxed! Stress keeps me from getting sick. There’s only one thing to do: I’ll go back to my hotel and open Fundraising: Hands-On Tactics. I’ve tucked a copy of VFA’s cash flow chart in the book.