Nonprofit AF

Script for Lord of the Rings, if it were set in nonprofit and philanthropy

Posted on March 17, 2025March 18, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A house built from a hill, with a round door, covered in plants, including a tree growing out of it. There’s a sign on the fence that says “No admittance except on party business.” This is a scene from Hobbiton, a set built for the Lord of the Rings movies. Image by Thandy Yung on Unsplash]

Hey everyone, hope you’re hanging in there. I’ve been watching my favorite movies as a break from the horrors of the real world. Some are very inspiring. Lord of the Rings, for example, has lots of parallels to our world, including an all-consuming evil and band of heroes trying to save the world. Which, of course, makes me think about what if LOTR were set in our sector. Below is the sample script. Let me know what you think.

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SCENE 1: RIVENDELL

GANDALF: Despite our best efforts, Sauron has awoken. We have never faced such a threat. As we speak, his forces of foul orcs and Uruk-hai march across all of Middle Earth, laying waste to the land, bringing terror and destruction, especially to the most vulnerable.

ELROND: We must form a fellowship and journey to cast this Ring of Capitalism into Mt. Doom while the rest prepare for war. That’s the only way to defeat Sauron and his evil.

BOROMIR: One does not simply end capitalism. Even with the finest warriors in the land, the odds do not favor us.

FRODO: Still, we cannot stand still and watch the people we care about get slaughtered. You have my organizing skills.

ARAGORN: And you have my advocacy expertise.

LEGOLAS: You have my grantwriting skills.

GIMLI: And you have my logic model.

ELROND: Excellent. Then let us—

SAM: What about you, Mister Elrond sir? You have all the gold and mithril. Will you contribute them to the fight?

ELROND: We have been giving out 5% of our gold every year for you all to fight evil. If we give out more to fight Sauron, we will deplete our cache and then what happens when Sauron is defeated, where’s the funding to rebuild?

SAM: But Mister Elrond, we won’t be able to defeat Sauron if we don’t have enough resources. He’s burning everything to the ground. There won’t be anything to rebuild!

LEGOLAS: He does have a point…Maybe we should increase the gold we give out, from 5% each year to—

ELROND (raises up one hand): We elves do not meddle in the affairs of the lesser beings of Middle Earth. We watch from a distance, giving out 5% of our riches, and then we go to the West to the Undying Lands, the Land of Perpetuity, where as usual none of this really affects us.

Funders, stop bringing spreadsheets to knife fights!

Posted on February 4, 2025February 4, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A hand holding a serrated knife, seeming ready for a fight. Image by Paul Volostnov on Unsplash]

A few weeks ago, which now feels like an eternity ago, Inside Philanthropy gave me the award for Philanthropy Critic of the Year, saying “Through his blog Nonprofit AF, he’s long advanced a critique of funders that is irreverent, hard hitting[,] and often cuttingly funny.” It’s nice to be recognized for my ramblings, even if IP didn’t even use the Oxford Comma in the recognition, which is rather hurtful.

Among the other awardees are two that stood out to me:

Highest Return on Investment: Donating to the Heritage Foundation: “We’ve long argued that public policy grantmaking offers the greatest leverage for funders. Exhibit A is Heritage’s long record of outsized influence, which is set to hit a new peak in a second Trump administration with Project 2025 or its equivalent.”

No Kidding Award: The Generosity Commission: “Debuted with much fanfare in 2021, the blue-ribbon commission set out to study the decline in ‘everyday’ donors and found that, well, yes, small-donor giving is down. There’s more in the commission’s hefty report, but was it worth all the rigamarole?”

While it irks me that the Heritage Foundation gets lauded and platformed, there is no denying how horrifyingly effective this funder has been. What we are seeing now with the destruction of democracy and the rise of fascism can be greatly attributed to the work of the Heritage Foundation and aligned right-wing funders. And it will only get worse, as we will find out when Project 2025, which we failed to stop, gets implemented in full and erodes our rights over the coming years, if not weeks.

Script for The Matrix, if it were set in nonprofit and philanthropy

Posted on January 6, 2025January 8, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A hand, pointing straight at the camera, while concentric circles of ones and zeroes in green text, as well as a curtain of green codes, appear in the foreground and background. Image by geralt on Pixabay]

Welcome back to work, everyone. I hope your holiday break was restful. I was able to hang out with my kids, and when they were asleep, binge-watched all the episodes of Shogun; it was glorious! But now we’re back to the grind, and it is cold and miserable. Sometimes, I think the people who believe we exist in a computer simulation may be on to something, and I find myself looking around, trying to break the fourth wall, hoping whoever is running this simulation would just give us all a reprieve from all this. Maybe they could simulate a world where the forces of good win for once.

Anyway, I’m reminded of the movie The Matrix, where the main character, played by Keanu Reeves, realizes he’s been living in a simulation, trapped along with other humans by sentient machines that are using humans as batteries while creating a fake reality to subdue them and keep them from rebelling. Of course, that makes me think about our sector, and what it would be like if The Matrix were set in nonprofit and philanthropy:

A bootcamp for clueless businesspeople who want to involve themselves in nonprofit!

Posted on October 7, 2024October 9, 2024 by Vu

[Image description: About a dozen people, mostly adults, sitting around a roaring campfire in the dark, surrounded by the silhouettes of trees. One person is holding a guitar. A couple of people are holding books or notebooks. Image by Laura_O on Pixabay]

Hi everyone. Today, a colleague sent me this text: “There’s a CEO of a family foundation who is adamantly against giving unrestricted funding. Do you have a blog post in particular you think would be good for me to send him? He’s a middle-aged white man who has never worked for a nonprofit in his life.” I sent over a couple of posts, including The ethical argument for general operating funds and “How the focus on overhead disenfranchises communities of color and fans the flames of injustice.” There’s lots written on this topic.

Heck, there’s been tons of stuff written about all sorts of topics. But we continue to see colleagues from the for-profit sector come into this sector as donors, funders, volunteers, and board members and have no clue about how things are yet are still adamant they know what’s best for the nonprofits they’re supporting. Worse, like the clueless CEO dude above, they often hold a lot of power.

So, what we need may be fewer articles and webinars, and instead, a week-long immersive overnight boot camp designed to help prepare our friends from other sectors so they can viscerally understand what it’s like for nonprofit professionals. And luckily, because I procrastinated on working on my book today, I already planned out a sample schedule for this boot camp!

Is it just as hard to give out money as it is to seek it?

Posted on May 7, 2024May 7, 2024 by Vu

[Image description: A squirrel with fluffy ears, peeking out from behind the trunk of an ivy-covered tree, looking inquisitive. Image by mariuszopole on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, if you’re interested in being involved with the Crappy Funding Practices movement, please join a special meeting we’re hosting on May 14^th at 10am Pacific Time, where we’ll update you on what’s been going on, and present the different options for you to plug into. Register here. See you then!

A few years ago, I was in Oxford, speaking on a panel at a conference with colleague Jessamyn Shams-Lau, who is the lead author of Unicorns Unite: How Nonprofits and Foundations Can Build Epic Partnerships; we were there to promote the book and discuss how nonprofit leaders and funders could work more effectively together. during the Q&A, a program officer pushed back, hinting that we panelists were unfairly critical of funders, and declaring that giving out funds is just as difficult seeking it. Several funders in room, and a few nonprofit leaders, nodded in agreement.