Race, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

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

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Vu

[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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The Tide is Surging: The No King Protests and the Beginning of the End of Fascism in the US

Posted on June 17, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: Protestors on the streets of Seattle, holding various signs, including ones that say “Defend Democracy,” “When cruelty becomes normal, compassion looks radical,” “True Americans love and support our immigrant friends and family,” “Education not deportation,” and a few American flags. Image taken by Vu]

Hi everyone. Thank you for all your support when I announced the publication date of my new book last week. I really appreciate it, especially as I was overwhelmed with a feeling of inadequacy upon submitting the manuscript to my editor. Apparently, self-doubt and even dread are common in the book-writing-and-promoting process, but all your encouraging messages and pre-orders have been very helpful, so thank you.

This weekend, I attended Seattle’s No King protest. I went because I felt terrible about everything. Over the past few months, there has been one crisis after another. The ICE raids in LA and everywhere, the assault of Senator Padilla, the assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, the continued attacks on trans people, the ongoing support of genocide. Right before the protest, I had read about the deportation of 160 Southeast Asians, including 93 to Vietnam, where I grew up. Many of these people have been in the US since they were children or have never even set foot in Southeast Asia.

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Resistance Is Working! A Roundup of Recent Wins!

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A dandelion growing out of some dried, cracked mud. Image by klimkin on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, happy AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander) month. If you’re free this Wednesday May 21^st at 9am Pacific Time, here’s a great free virtual panel featuring Asian women entrepreneurs discussing the intersection of business and social justice.

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I hope you are hanging in there despite the daily bouts of chaos and cruelty. With everything going on, it’s easy and understandable to fall into despair. But we need to remind ourselves that amazing things are happening daily. There are stories of hope, community, and resistance. Good people are fighting back against injustice every day. Here are a few good things that have taken place recently. Thank you to colleagues and to Zann Zsuzsannika (on Facebook), who let me know of them:

Omaha Nebraska has its first Black mayor, as Democratic candidate John Ewing Jr. defeating a transphobic three-term Republican candidate. He won by double digits.
In Montana, 17 Republicans crossed party lines to join Democrats in defeating a horrible Anti-Trans bill that would have criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender youth, including classifying doctors, nurses, and parents as felons.
In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul signs a bill that would force fossil fuel companies to pay for the damage they cause to the environment.
The Supreme Court rules 7-2 against Trump in the Alien Enemies Act case, preventing the administration from deporting Venezuelan nationals with little notice.
A federal judge orders ICE to restore the legal status of the 133 students whose visas they revoked.
Maine Governor Janet Mills, who told Trump she would “see you in court,” successfully sued the administration after it froze funds as punishment for the state not complying with Trump’s orders to ban transgender athletes on girls’ sports teams. And she’s getting an award for it!
Ranked-choice voting is making progress, including in Boston, Multnomah County Oregon, and in Maine.
In Alabama, Trump-appointed federal judges ruled that Alabama’s 2023 congressional map is racially discriminatory and is in violation of both the Voting Rights Act and the 14^th Amendment.
In Seattle, 63% of voters voted to support social housing, despite tech giants spending big money to oppose it.
In Michigan, a judge struck down three of the state’s remaining abortion restrictions, ruling that they are unconstitutional.
In Australia, center-left prime minister Anthony Albanese won reelection over Trump-like Peter Dutton, who also lost his own seat!
That follows Canada, where Trump-like Pierre Poilievre, who had be poised to win as prime minister, also lost that election and lost his own seat.
In Tarrant County, Texas, several right-wing-backed candidates lost elections, including conservative Julie Short, who was defeated by Michael Evans, Mansfield’s first Black mayor. Right-wing Tammy Nakamura got ousted from the school board; she had helped passed a policy to allow schools to ignore kids’ preferred pronouns, even when their parents approved.
In Naples, a judge granted a preliminary injunction against the City when it tried to prohibit drag shows at the Napes Pride Fest.
In Columbus, Ohio, the City is taking a stand in support of local LGBTQ+ youth, unanimously passing an ordinance to provide 100K in funding to Kaleidoscope Youth Center.
Washington State became the first state to pass a law to increase access to hormone therapies, an important protection for trans people.
Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri has been released from ICE detention. He was taken as part of Trump’s targeting of pro-Palestine activists. A US district court judge ordered the Trump administration to release him.
Chicago’s city council passes “Green Social Housing” plan, which will create more affordable housing in the city.
The Episcopal Church takes a stand against racial injustice, calling out the government for its preferential treatment of white Afrikaners from South Africa.
Salt Lake City and Boise leaders, in response to Republicans passing laws to prohibit the Pride flag from being flown on government property, creatively found ways to fly the flags anyway, by redesigning the flags and voting them in as official flags. Brilliant.

I am sure there are plenty more good news. Please list any additional ones I missed in the comment section. Let’s remind ourselves that good people are fighting against cruelty and injustice every day, and are winning!

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

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Vu

[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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Foundation trustees, help save democracy or get out of the way

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A light-grey bird, standing on a wire, looking to the left with a rather serious expression. Image by balouriarajesh at Pixabay]

Hi everyone, I’m thinking of all my friends and colleagues in Canada, who just achieved a resounding election victory against their version of MAGA; this came after the horrific tragedy over the weekend at the Lapu Lapu Day Festival.

Last week, I gave a keynote at a conference of funders who were mostly awesome and fired up to advance DEI and fight to save democracy. During the Q&A, however, a program officer asked, “How do we make change happen when the people with all the power at our foundations are not in the room?”

By that, of course, he meant foundation board members, aka trustees. This is a dynamic we see across the sector: Foundation staff who get it, who want to do things differently and better, and who leave these gatherings inspired only to be quickly demoralized when they go back to their workplaces and must deal with their foundation trustees, who are often the biggest barriers to progress in our field.

Foundation trustees, if you are reading this, thank you; just the fact that these words somehow reached you is a miracle, as we don’t ever see or hear from many of you. Right now, everything is on fire as the right-wing dismantles every institution keeping democracy and society intact. Nonprofits and foundation are trying to work together to fight this authoritarian regime. You play a vital role. But for you to be effective in that role, there are a few things we need you to understand. These are things your program officers want to tell you but usually can’t due to power dynamics:

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