Nonprofit AF

Foundations, knock it off with the philanthropic Sophie’s Choices and increase your payout

Posted on April 19, 2020April 20, 2020 by Vu

[Image description: A very cute corgi, lying down, looking cute but exhausted. This corgi has nothing to do with this post. I just got worked up writing it and decided I need to look at pictures of of puppies to calm me down. Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone, I hope you are doing ok. I know things are rough everywhere. Last week I talked to an executive director of an international organization. His team faces funding cuts, potential furloughs and layoffs, and a pervasive sense of anxiety. “But we are fortunate,” he said, “transportation systems have been challenged, so there are workers in India walking for hundreds of miles to return to their villages from the city. They barely have money or food, and they’re just walking. Their villages don’t have jobs either, but they have nowhere else to go.”

Luckily, we have many funders stepping up. I want to give a hearty shout out to Open Society Foundations, who just committed $130M in funding for covid relief for many people both in the United States and across the globe. This is amazing! Thank you, OSF, for all the important work you do and the many critical missions that you support.

Unfortunately, I hear rumors that this additional $130M funding is not coming from OSF’s $18Billion in reserves, but from central leadership asking program officers to return up to half of their current 2020 grant budgets to be reallocated to this new fund. Meaning they would have to take back funds that are already committed or would be going to groups doing vital work, who are already facing so many difficulties. Those orgs would be devastated!

This is the wake-up call for nonprofits and foundations to get political

Posted on April 12, 2020April 13, 2020 by Vu

[Image description: Silhouette of a person standing, arms outstretched, in front of a building that is engulfed in flames. Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. A quick warning that this post will be serious and may likely piss off a whole bunch of people. Everything is on fire right now. The entire world. Amidst Zoom meetings, I’m scrambling to provide some semblance of calm for my six- and four-year-old. The news has been bleak. Systemic racism means Black folks are disproportionately dying from Covid. Day laborers and domestic workers are starving. Problems Native Americans are facing are exacerbated. An Asian woman was ambushed, acid splashed onto her face while she took out the trash, one of many examples of the rise in hate crimes against API folks. Domestic violence has increased. Clueless celebrities, meanwhile, from their luxurious mansions, jokingly compare their experience to being incarcerated, oblivious to the racism and cruelty of the prison system.

A few things for nonprofits and foundations to consider in light of the Coronavirus

Posted on March 8, 2020March 10, 2020 by Vu

[Image description: An adorable red panda, staring at the camera. I was looking at pictures of the coronavirus, and even though it would be more relevant for this post, it is nowhere near as cute as this red panda. Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. I know many of you have COVID-19 on your mind. I live in Washington State, where there have been multiple deaths from the virus. Nonprofits have been canceling events, and many companies and organizations are having staff work from home.

We all need to take this virus seriously. Many of you are still in denial. Wash your hands regularly, clean and disinfect surfaces, cancel events if you need to, allow staff to work from home, and use extra precautions if you work with older adult volunteer or clients. Also, check out this catchy and delightful song and video from Vietnam’s health department.

It’s 2020. Be bold or get the hell out of the way

Posted on January 20, 2020January 21, 2020 by Vu

[Image description: People marching int a rally. Many are wearing pink hats. A person in the center, with long blond hair, is wearing a white jacket and pink gloves. Their left fist is raised and their right hand is holding a sign that says “We are better than this!” Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. Today’s post will likely be serious, as it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I know many of us in the sector are reflecting on his legacy. It has been a rough few years, and there were several moments where it was hard for me to believe that the “arc of the moral universe” bends toward justice. But I know it does. I see it on my travels, speaking with various brilliant leaders and organizations. I see it in on a daily basis through the work that you each do to lift up individuals and families and make our world better. Thank you. You give me hope and keep me going.

Unfortunately, however, we still often stand in our own ways, sometimes without even realizing it. A while ago I attended a meeting with group of local leaders. We were talking about equity. Someone said, “What is our definition of equity? Have we defined it? Are we on the same page?” The discussion devolved into a conversation about the definition of equity. I have no poker face, so it slowly contorted into a visage of pure frustration tinged with rage.

Time for our sector to draw a new fish!

Posted on January 12, 2020January 15, 2020 by Vu

[Image description: Profile of a longhorn cowfish underwater. They are yellow with grey blotches and light turquoise blue dots. They have a big blue eye set beneath two little “horns.” They have a pouty light-colored mouth with a grey ring around it. One small diaphanous blue fin rises out of their lower back like a magnificent tramp stamp. Wow, this is the hardest image to describe ever. This is not an attractive fish. I hope they have a good personality…Pixabay.com]

A while ago, I read about an experiment where kids were asked to draw a fish. One group was just told to draw a fish; the other group were told the same thing, but they were also given an example of a fish drawing someone else had drawn. The kids in the first group creatively drew all types of fish. The kids who were given the example, with few exceptions, drew fish that were very similar to the example. (I can’t seem to find this study or article again; if you know it, please put the link in the comment section).

I bring this up because it is yields a good lesson for all of us. And that lesson is: Flossing in an important part of good dental hygiene. OK, that’s not the lesson, but that’s still an important reminder. The lesson is that all of us in this sector have been given so many fish drawing examples—fundraising fish, capacity building fish, leadership fish, board governance fish, hiring fish, etc.—and they constantly and unconsciously affect how we think about and do everything.

If you think about it, so many of the things that we do are done a certain way because that’s just how someone else told us things should be done. There are few legal requirements. Which means most systems and practices are traditions that we pass down, and after a while, we just accept that that’s how we do them, the way the kids who were given a fish drawing example instantly assume that that’s the way a fish should be drawn.