Nonprofit AF

Advice for white allies going through existential crises while doing DEI work

Posted on October 16, 2022October 16, 2022 by Vu

[Image description: A single barren tree, standing on a green hill, overlooking a sunrise or sunset. Image by jplenio on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, if you haven’t registered for the free webinar “Where Has All the Money Gone?” on October 19^th at 1pm Pacific, please do so; it’s an important discussion. Also, on October 28^th at 10:30am, I am giving a virtual keynote “A Better Normal: Reimagining Nonprofit and Philanthropy.” It’s FREE, thanks to ONEplace at Kalamazoo Public Library, but there is a cap on the number of attendees so please sign-up right away. Both events will have captions.

? ? ? Meanwhile, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a contest, so I’m announcing the Nonprofit Scary Story Contest! Write (or record) and submit a story of up to 250 words, by 10/27. 10 winners will have their stories published here on Halloween, as well as receive a package of assorted NonprofitAF swag. If you need inspiration, here are some terrifying stories. ? ? ?

A while ago, a mid-age white male colleague emailed me asking to meet over lunch, and I said yes, because I used to never turn down free vegan food (and I still don’t!). He asked me to connect him with young professionals that he could mentor. “I’ve been learning about DEI. I just want to be helpful, especially to younger leaders of color. I’ll do it for free.” I sat with him, trying to find a way to gently let him know that few, if any, leaders of color would take up his offer to mentor them. Not that white colleagues can’t ever mentor people of color (some of my mentors are white), but the young leaders I knew would not go for it.

Let’s gear up for the midterm elections and save democracy!

Posted on October 2, 2022October 2, 2022 by Vu

[Image description: A crowd of people holding various signs, including “We demand voting rights now!” Caption from Unseen Histories on Unsplash: “Marchers with signs at the March on Washington, 1963. Original black and white negative by Marion S. Trikosko. Taken August 28th, 1963, Washington D.C, United States (@libraryofcongress). Colorized by Jordan J. Lloyd. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://www.loc.gov/item/2013648849/”]

Hi everyone, I am in Aotearoa (New Zealand), and embarrassingly forgot to bring an adapter for my laptop charger, and the hotel doesn’t have one, so I have about 1.5 hours of power and this blog post will likely be short and full of typos. I’ve been learning so much from my experience here and will do a proper reflection for a future post.

Before we get into today’s topic, though, a couple of announcements. Please join me, Susannah Morgan, Ray Madoff, and Chuck Collins on October 19^th at 1pm Pacific for a webinar on Donor-Advised Funds, how they’ve been used to hoard money, and what we need to do about it. It’s free, and will be captioned. Register her e.

Also, please fill out Building Movement Project’s Race to Lead Survey 2022. It is a bit long, but this survey provides vital information about our sector, and the more of us fill it out, the more accurate and useful the data will be. Thank you in advance.

Aotearoa has been amazing. The people here are wonderful and kind, and it is spring here, so the flowers are blooming everywhere. It almost makes me forget (or want to forget) that back in the United States, we are getting ready for probably the most consequential mid-term elections of our lives.

The Personal Integrity Paradox and how it affects our sector

Posted on September 25, 2022September 25, 2022 by Vu

[Image description: A cute little light brown mouse, peeking out from a crack between some light brown rocks, staring straight at the camera. Image by Image by RolandKuck on Pixabay]

Hi everyone. My plane is boarding for Aotearoa, so apologies for any errors or clumsy wording in this post.

When I was in high school, I took AP Psychology. A few weeks into the class, my teacher, Mr. Henderson, approached me to ask how I was doing in class. I said I didn’t think I was doing OK, that I was nervous about the AP exam, and that I was afraid I would fail it. He then told me that we would be learning about the Dunning-Kruger effect (DKE) and gave me a brief synopsis. (I did end up passing the exam with a 5, and Mr. Henderson, with his mustache, piercing insights, and gentle sense of humor would end up becoming one of the most important mentors in my life; he advised me that a career in psychology may not pay very well, so I took his words to heart and went into the lucrative field of nonprofit.)

The Dunning-Kruger effect is basically this (though I’m paraphrasing a bit): People with lower skills, knowledge, and expertise tend to overestimate themselves, while those who are more skilled, knowledgeable, etc., tend to underestimate themselves. Some of this is hypothesized to be because incompetent people may be too incompetent to recognize that they are incompetent, while competent people are competent enough to realize they may not yet know everything and still need to learn and improve.

13 Types of White Moderates: Which Ones Are You?

Posted on August 29, 2022September 5, 2022 by Vu

[A tarot card of a robed person with wings and a halo, standing in a small pond, pouring water from one golden chalice to another. The word “Temperance” is at the bottom of the card. Image by VirgoGem on Pixabay]

Hi everyone. I appreciate Deepa Iyer’s and Building Movement Project’s Social Change Ecosystem Map. It is helpful to see what roles we each play in the work to make the world better. And while we do that, it’s also helpful to see the roles we play that could make the world worse…or at least keep it from improving. You may recall that Dr. King said the greatest threat to justice are not the people burning crosses and otherwise being overtly racist, it’s the white moderates, people who are well-meaning but whose actions perpetuate inequitable systems.

Here below are the 12 archetypes of the white moderate that I’ve identified for this post. Examining them helps us to recognize when we are playing these roles. As you read, keep in mind that none of us are immune to any of these archetypes. And sometimes, we take on multiple simultaneous roles. While people of color can perpetuate white moderation, I want white colleagues to pay special attention, as you are more likely to play these roles and with greater frequency:

The joy of fundraising: How fundraising can be truly, authentically joyful

Posted on August 21, 2022September 5, 2022 by Vu

[Image description: A long-haired person standing outdoors with arms outstretched looking at a yellow sky with a bright sun. Image by Fotorech on Pixabay]

When I was younger, one of my favorite things was the Skymall catalogue, which some of you may remember. It was a catalog that every airline had at every seat, and it was a glorious collection of some of the coolest stuff ever. I couldn’t afford the life-size gorilla lawn statue, or the fountain pen filled with tiny Swarovski crystals, or a lamp made out of pink salt that generated negative ions, or whatever. But it gave me a small measure of happiness to flip through the catalog and learn about the wacky products and what they did and how much they sold for.

Why am I bringing this up? I’ll get to that in a moment. A few weeks ago I was invited to give a keynote on the joy of fundraising. Now, I know at least a handful of people in the sector are rolling their eyes. That’s like inviting a teenager to deliver a lecture called “The Importance of Listening to Your Parents and Other Authority Figures.” Over the past few years, I have criticized many aspects of the way we do fundraising, and have been helping advance a movement to change it. So there may be this perception that I hate fundraising, fundraisers, and donors.