leadership

Leadership styles, part 2: Have you flipped your iceberg lately?

Posted on October 9, 2016 by Vu

Happy Monday, everyone. Due to requests, here is some new NWB merchandise based on the mythical creatures leadership styles I wrote about. Now you can proudly proclaim that you are a Dragon, Phoenix, Pegacorn, or Griffin. I changed unicorn to Pegacorn to distinguish from the general nonprofit unicorn, and Lion-Turtle to Griffin because I didn’t want Nickelodeon to sue me. Thanks to the ever-brilliant Stacy, who designs this website, for creating these mugs and t-shirts.

Just to recap, Dragons are decisive and action-oriented and would rather run into traffic than talk about their feelings. Phoenixes have lots of energy and vision and are great communicators, but they’re easily distracted. Pegacorns bring harmony and consensus and are great listeners but are often indecisive. And Griffins ground everyone in processes and data and are great analyzers but can be too perfectionistic and slow to action.Continue reading →

Why we hold on to bad employees, and why we need to fire people faster

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Vu

Hi everyone. This post a little tough for me to write. Because, I love the people in our sector, 93% of whom are amazing, dedicated, wonderful individuals. Getting a chance to work with you every day is one of the biggest reasons I love doing what I do. Knowing you are out there makes it easier for me to get out of bed each day, put on deodorant, wet down my cowlicks, eat a handful of Fudgee-Os, and tackle injustice (not always in that order).

This post, however, as you can tell by the title, deals with challenging staff situations; specifically, why we hold on to people who are ineffective or even harmful to our organizations, what that does to our team and mission, and what we need to do about it. I am not an HR expert, and recommend you go to people who are (Ask a Manager is one great resource). So take my words with a swig of Pepto. But having been an ED for a while now, and being in various venting sessions with colleagues, whom I’m quoting in this post, I’ve been noticing some patterns.Continue reading →

9 traits of the kind of leaders we need in this time and place

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Vu

Hi everyone, this post may be a little more serious than usual. Last week, Seattle lost one of our community leaders, legendary activist Bob Santos. “Uncle Bob” was one of the Gang of Four, also known as the Four Amigos, a group of racially diverse friends who hung out, sang karaoke, and fought injustice. The other three Amigos were Bernie Whitebear, Roberto Maestas, and Larry Gossett. They realized that they, and their diverse ethnic communities, were much stronger together, a philosophy that carried them through countless successful sit-ins, rallies, and other forms of protests in their fights around gentrification, poverty, funding inequity, fishing rights, and other issues. The friendship between these men—who are Black, Native, Latino, and Asian—and their activism, made Seattle better and continue to inspire countless people, including me.

The Four Amigos are a significant inspiration for the founding of my organization, Rainier Valley Corps, which has a mission of ensuring the nonprofit sector has a strong bench of leaders of color. We are building the next generation of 100 Amigos and Amigas. If a Gang of Four diverse leaders bonded by deep friendship can do so much for a community, imagine how much a Gang of 100 social justice leaders can do. This vision is what guides RVC, along with the question, “What kind of leaders do we need in this time and place?”

Continue reading →

25 things awesome board members do

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Vu

Hi everyone. A colleague asked me to write about what board members can do to be helpful to staff. Nonprofit board members are critical to the success of organizations. We rely on y’all for so many important things and are deeply grateful for all the time, skills, connections, and resources you give, especially considering that the majority of board members are volunteers.

However, boards are also the direct cause of 39% of brain aneurysms in the sector, according to statistics that I made up. So I asked the NWB Facebook community to help develop a list of what awesome board members do. This is not a list of board roles and responsibilities, which you can google, or find at BoardSource, but actual, down-to-earth, sometimes seemingly minor stuff. One colleague writes this of one of her board members:

“When your fundraiser is on the same night as an ice storm, he personally salts the sidewalks and parking lot. Then when all the salt runs out he goes to the gas station down the road and buys more salt to finish the job. He also demands car keys from me and coworker at the end of the night to defrost and scrape our car windows. And somehow in the midst of all that he also pays several hundreds of dollars on an auction item and poses for tons of pictures with the kids. #oneofthebest“Continue reading →

Why organizational values are so awesome

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Vu

Hi everyone. Before I delve into today’s topic, I’m going to ask for donations to my organization. Seattle has a day called GiveBig, hosted by The Seattle Foundation. Donate on May 3^rd (not before or after) and the money gets a share of a stretch fund. If you like the rantings on NWB, and especially if you are a foundation or major donor, consider giving to RVC on May 3^rd (you can go there and pledge to give before May 3^rd). We’re trying to raise 10K; 100% of this money will pay for rent and utilities*. As an Executive Director, I freak out a lot about fundraising and being able to pay for rent and utilities. A lot. It basically accounts for 80% of my daily night terrors. The less I freak out about fundraising, the more time I can focus on thinking and writing about important stuff, like Trickle-Down Community Engagement, or the rules of dating in the nonprofit sector.

Today, I want to talk about Values. Values have been like the middle children of the nonprofit sector, wedged between the older brother Vision and the me-me-me baby of the family, Mission, whom everyone has to pay attention to all the time. Or maybe Mission is the bossy older brother, and Vision is the baby. Or maybe Mission is like the mom who makes us eat our vegetables, and Vision is like that cool but aloof cousin.

Whatever. (It’s midnight, and I have a newborn. And in fact, I am at the airport). Point is, few of us pay much attention to Values. Values are the platonic friend who has a crush on us but whom we constantly take for granted while we chase after hotter people. We scatter a few inspiring-sounding words on our website—Equity! Respect! Compassion! Community! Accountability!—and call it a day. A few of us elaborate on our core values with vague sentences like “Respect: We treat everyone with respect.”Continue reading →