Nonprofit AF

Exploring the fun and frustrations of nonprofit work

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Office Culture

7 New Rules of Workplace Professionalism: Post-Pandemic Edition

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Hi everyone, a couple of things before we get started: If you’re free on 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 the pushback against DEI, and what we need to do about it. It’s free, and auto-captions will be enabled. Register here.

Also, around the summer solstice, June 20th this year, is when folks in our sector host PEEP (Party to Enhance Equity in Philanthropy) events, where funders and nonprofit leaders can get together in casual, no-agenda settings just to chat and see one another as human beings. Let folks know in the comments if you’re planning to have one.

The past few years have been eventful, and by that, I mean brutal and horrifying. And I am surprised by how all of us continue to follow the same rules of professionalism we were used to following. A colleague, for example, wrote on LinkedIn about the importance of “writing handwritten thank-you notes after job interviews”!

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Let’s de-normalize alcohol consumption in nonprofit, and let’s be more considerate of colleagues who don’t drink

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[Image description: Four ice cream cones, three filled with brown ice cream and one filled with a cream-colored ice cream, standing in a white mug. Three of the four ice cream cones are topped with peanuts of crushed nuts. Image by silviarita on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, next week we have PEEP (Party to Enhance Equity in Philanthropy), a series of fun events where nonprofit and foundation staff and board members get together and stare into one another’s eyes while the wind rustles through the leaves and the warm sun paints the afternoon with shades of rose-gold, heralding the beginning of a long, languid summer.

Or something like that; I might be romanticizing it a bit. It’s basically an agenda-free get-together. It won’t solve the power dynamics and systemic issues, of course, but it’s nice to find time for nonprofit and philanthropy folks to connect, and maybe cool stuff may result. Details for some of the events are listed at the end of this post. If you are having an event that’s not listed, fill out this form and I’ll mention it next week.

Some of you may recall that PEEP’s original name was Beverage to Enhance Equity in Relationships (BEER), which I came up with years ago. Lots of people found it amusing, and before the pandemic, BEER events were taking place in different geographic areas. But I was getting the occasional feedback from colleagues who are in recovery, or who have loved ones in recovery, saying that “BEER” was normalizing and possibly glorifying drinking. So the name was changed through a vote.

Over the past few years, I’ve been supporting a family member with alcohol addiction. The experience made me realize how awful this illness is, and also how ingrained a culture of drinking is in our society and in our sector. Our galas and other events are often saturated with booze. Drinking is often core to our hangouts. We joke about drinking all the time. I myself have made numerous jokes about alcohol on this blog, during meetings, and during my keynotes and panels, without stopping to think about how this may affect colleagues.

Considering how so many of us are so thoughtful of others in so many ways, this is an area I hope we can improve on. Here are some things we can all do:

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We need to talk about our toxic obsession with productivity

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[Image description: Two doggy, or possibly tiger, paws on the keyboard of a laptop. On the screen are eight other animals (cat, giraffe, tiger, dolphin, horse, sheep, dog, cow), each in their own square, as if they’re on a video conference. There’s a logo with the words “zoo conf” in the lower right corner. Surrounding the laptop is a cup of coffee, cell phone, and notebook with pen. Image by Brian Cragun on Pixabay.]

At the beginning of the pandemic, I texted a friend, an executive director, to see how he was doing. “I share this in confidence,” he texted back, “current sitch, watching Frozen 2 in bed with [my daughter].” He sent over a picture of his TV, on which Anna was huddled against a rock, despondent, about to launch into a song about doing the next right thing. When everything was chaotic and stressful, it was nice to imagine my friend spending time with his little one.

It’s been more than a year since the pandemic started. All of us are overwhelmed and traumatized. And unfortunately, I still see many of us falling into the same terrible habits we had during the Before Times, when we met for lunch and dinner, orchestra music swelling as we embraced one another in slow-motion, golden sunlight burnishing our eyes into twinkling coins. (At least, that’s how I remember it).

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Guidelines for higher education programs that require students to do special projects with nonprofits

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Hi everyone. Quick announcement before we launch into today’s post. The Peery Foundation, whose CEO Jessamyn Shams-Lau and I co-authored the book Unicorns Unite (along with the amazing Jane Leu of Smarter Good), is having an Ask Me Anything on 2/14 at 11am Pacific time. They’re trying to “pull back the curtain on foundation decision-making. No question is off-limits and our host’s favorite question will win a box of chocolates.” Find out how philanthropy sausage is made.

Also, I’m on a webinar on 2/5 at 9:30am PST, called “Fundraising from a Different Point of Vu.”

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I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for a while. Thanks to colleague Theresa Meyers, Chief of Staff at DC Central Kitchen, for bringing this back to my attention. Every once a while, we nonprofits get requests from students, usually from a nonprofit management program. The requests often go like this,

“Hi, I am a student at so-and-so college. I am taking a course on organizational development this quarter. Part of our curriculum is to interview several leaders at a nonprofit, and then develop a series of recommendations on how your organization can improve. May I interview you and your team? This project is due next Friday. Thank you for your time.”

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Toxic Self-Marginalization: How our unconscious addiction to being underdogs harms our work

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[Image description: Two super cute little dark brown or black chihuahua puppies, or possibly three. One is facing the camera. The other one is resting their head on top of the first one. Actually, I’m pretty sure there are three now. The other one is also resting their head on the first puppy. They’re adorable and were chose to help you remain calm as we tackle a difficult topic. Hope it’s working. Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. This post is long and will deal with a serious topic that may rile you up.

Lately, I’ve been seeing more and more of us who are supposed to be on the same “side” attack one another. “We progressives are eating our own” is a refrain I hear often. I wrote about this earlier, in a post called “Hey progressives, can we stop using the tools of social justice to tear one another down?” This was followed up with a post to balance things out, called “Hey people with privilege, you need to be OK with making mistakes and being called out.”

The last four years have been rough on many of us. There is generalized anxiety caused by the relentless cruelty, racism, and inhumanity of this administration. My mental health professional friends have been getting more business than they can handle. All of us to a degree feel helpless against the overwhelming forces of hatred that we read about on a daily basis. Our dedication to the fight, though, means that we often channel this energy toward targets that are easier and closer in proximity. And thus, we sometimes turn on one another. As one colleague said to me, “People need closer targets, and ones they can successfully take down.”

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