Nonprofit AF

Exploring the fun and frustrations of nonprofit work

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Annual performance reviews suck. Here’s how to make them better. Or maybe we should just ditch them.

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[Image description: A black and white lemur, with orange eyes, staring directly at the camera, their hands on a wooden pole. Image by Stephen Hickman on Unsplash]

In my several decades as a nonprofit professional, there are a couple of harrowing occasions that have seared themselves into my soul, causing me to wake up in the middle of the night, filled with rage. One of these occasions involved cryptocurrency, some sock puppets, and 12 gallons of bleach, but that’s a story for another time.

The more relevant occasion for this topic was when I sat facing several grim-looking board members as they chewed me out during my annual review. I came into the meeting so proud of what the team and I had accomplished that year, and left feeling like garbage, a mixture of confusion, shame, and sadness. I was seriously thinking of quitting and finding a new job. Or possibly becoming a hermit. A hermit with reliable Wi-Fi to watch Game of Thrones (It was still a great show at that time).

Annual reviews are done so horribly in our sector, because they’re often done thoughtlessly, taking toxic processes and philosophies from white corporate models. What works over there in a competitive, profits-oriented environment doesn’t mean it’ll work here in a sector where a lot of people are trying to make the world better while being underpaid, wearing “multiple hats,” using Mesozoic-era printers, and burning out. Throw in the shitstorm that is our socio-economic-political situation, and people are barely hanging on by a gossamer thread.

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It’s time for progressives to be arrogant, messy, and unapologetic

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[Image description: A hyena, which looks kind of like a dog, with golden fur, staring at the camera. This image has nothing to do with the post, except that I think this hyena, using random chance to make decisions, would be more qualified than most of our executive branch. Image by tommileew on Pixabay]

There’s been various articles written on the phenomenon of Imposter Syndrome, such as this one by Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey called “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome” and this one by our colleague Esther Saehyun Lee, titled “You’re not feeling imposter syndrome, you are an imposter: Identity and belonging in nonprofit work.”

I’m glad to see the pushback against the concept of Imposter Syndrome, since it often places the burdens on individuals who are often already marginalized to examine themselves and change their behavior, instead of forcing systems to stop being so inequitable.

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Courage and conviction

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[Image description: A tree with green leaves, standing by itself in a calm body of water, touching the water with a branch. It is surrounded by a snow-capped range of mountains in the background. Image by Robert Koorenny on Unsplash]

Hi everyone, this will be the last post for a while, as I’ll be taking July and August off from blogging and social media to focus on spending time with my family and possibly beginning writing a new book. I’ll be back on September 2nd with a new post. Funders, donors, boards, and others with positional power, please keep shenanigans to a minimum while I’m away.

Meanwhile, this week on Thursday June 27th at 10am Pacific Time, please join me and Common Future’s Co-CEO Jennifer Njuguna in a conversation where we discuss our sector’s propensity for fear and risk-aversion, especially in light of the pushback against DEI. It’s free, and auto-captions will be enabled. Register here.

As I enter this break, I just want to acknowledge that I am exhausted. I’ve never felt so tired and beaten down in my career. I know many of you can relate. We did not sign up for this work—the work of making the world better—thinking it would be easy. Many of us have been doing this for decades, and we’ve seen some horrendous things. But I don’t recall a time when things were this bad, when morale was this low, when the whole world is in crisis, and our efforts to stop the chaos and inequity and injustice feeling so futile.

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An apology to everyone I’ve offended for speaking up against g3nocide

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[Image description: A cute brown and white dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, with their head down, looking up with big, liquid eyes. Image by PicsbyFran on Pixabay]

My esteemed colleagues,

Since October 17th, when I published my first blog post talking about IsraeI and PaIestine, I have received many, many comments, emails, texts, and private messages on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook from many of you, expressing sadness and disappointment in my words. Over the next several months, I doubled down, condemning Israel’s relentless slaughter of untold children and civilians. I encouraged actions such as contacting elected officials and demanding they support a permanent ceasefire. I called for us in this sector to support an end to Israel’s settler colonial occupation and apartheid regime, and for a Free Palestine.

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When nonprofit staff are paid so low they qualify for their org’s services

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[Image description: A whitish/orangish kitten, lying on the ground, their face scrunched up with eyes nearly closed. They’re either sleeping or resting. Image by Naturell on Pixabay]

A while ago, at the request of some colleagues, I talked about “Nonprofit Math” and created a little video that went viral. One of the examples I brought up was “paying your staff so little that they qualify for the services your organization is providing.” That line got a lot of chuckles.

It’s so great how we can laugh at ourselves! One of my favorite pieces of humor is an Onion article called “Nonprofit Fights Poverty with Poverty.”

But OK, a lot of humor is rooted in at least some fraction of truth, and it’s time we confront this one. Although the idea that some people are paid so little they could qualify to be a client for their own or another nonprofit’s programs seems ridiculous, the reality is that it does happen. And probably with more frequency than we realize. Last week, a friend of mine who lives in a very expensive area of the US texted me this:

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