Nonprofit AF

Imagine if we talked to other professionals the way people talk to nonprofit folks

Posted on January 13, 2019January 14, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: An irritated-looking lemur, white with grayish fur, with brown eyes, starting directly at the camera, surrounded by some leaves. This lemur is me when someone who has no nonprofit experience gives me advice on running a nonprofit. Image by Michelle Phillips on Unsplash.]

Happy Monday, everyone. Before we get into today’s post, a quick announcement: My organization is now accepting applications for our first-ever Green Pathways Fellowship program, which we are launching in collaboration with our awesome partner Got Green. This cool new program will diversify the environmental movement by finding awesome leaders of color and supporting them as they work full-time at environmental organizations. Check it out!

Nonprofit work is great, but we do deal with all sorts of headaches. But many of our friends and families and even board members may have never worked at a nonprofit before, which means it’s hard sometimes for them to understand what we go through. Here is what it might be like for other professionals if they got the nonprofit treatment.

Apologies to Shannon Reed for forgetting to credit her hilarious article in McSweeneys (“If People Talk to Other Professionals the Way They Talk to Teachers”) in the earlier version of this post.

Welcome back to work, you stunningly brilliant and attractive world-changer, you!

Posted on January 1, 2019January 2, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: A beautiful grey striped kitten peeking out from a pink box. This kitten thinks you are an amazing person who is making the world better! Pixabay.com]

My friends of the nonprofit sector. For many of you, this is your first week back at work after a much-deserved but all-too-brief period of rest. It is not a fun feeling, and not helped by the perky morning people in the office who probably should not talk to me until noon unless they want to get their faces splashed with lukewarm coffee. I don’t even drink coffee, but I will make some coffee and keep it nearby just to splash on perky morning people. I don’t care what your resolutions are, Neal!

You may feel the same way I feel, which is basically the way your office plants currently look. Your heart may too palpitate in thinking of the list of all the stuff you have to do—if you have a list and it’s not just a bunch of things you wrote on your hands days ago and are now desperately trying to remember. Continue reading “Welcome back to work, you stunningly brilliant and attractive world-changer, you!”

20 tips to help you dress for nonprofit success

Posted on July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 by Vu

[Image description: A brown poodle, looking very well dressed, wearing a red button-down shirt with a grayish collar. It’s also wearing a black neck collar bedazzled with colorful rhinestones. Image by The Poodle Gang at unsplash.com]

Like other nonprofit professionals, I wear clothing. So every morning I wake up and immediately have to make an important decision: what to wear for the rest of the day. Now, this does not sound like a very big decision, but I have learned that how we dress in this field is critical to our work, determining how we and thus our organizations are perceived. Although I am not a style guru, I have worn clothing, so here are some tips I have picked up over the years that may be helpful for you. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comment section. Continue reading

“The White-Paper Princess” and other children’s books about nonprofit work

Posted on May 14, 2018July 8, 2018 by Vu

[Image description: A watercolor of a grey dragon hovering over about six trees, with yellow, red, pink, and purple blended background. Image from Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. Before we begin today’s post, I created a page on Patreon, where artists get monthly financial support from their community so they can do their creative work. This is something several colleagues have recommended over the years, but I was squeamish about asking for money unless it’s for my organization. However, since I dropped my schedule down to four-days a week (so I can write on Mondays instead of Sundays and spend more time with my kids), it also dropped my salary down an equivalent amount. It’s worth it. I’m sure my board would allow me to keep my pay the same, but I need the separation between my job and the writing. Mainly so I can continue to say the things I want to say.

So thank you for pledging a buck or so a month to keep NAF going. (Pssst: Once we reach 250 patrons, I’ll remove all the random ads from the blog).

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A common complaint we have in the nonprofit sector is that kids don’t dream about going into nonprofit as a career. Well, that’s because there are so few children’s books about our work! Just imagine how inspired our kids would be if only there were more books about being an ED, or raising money, or running programs, or filing tax forms. Here, read these classic books re-imagined and tell me they wouldn’t inspire children and maybe a few adults to do what we do. Continue reading ““The White-Paper Princess” and other children’s books about nonprofit work”

12 sentences that demonstrate why we need to be better at using hyphens

Posted on March 12, 2018March 14, 2018 by Vu

[Image description: A fancy cake on a white platter, in the sunlight. The cake is yellow with a brown crust. On top are pieces of fruit (mango, strawberries) as well as chocolate curls and sticks. Image from pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. Today’s blog post will be short because I am in Oakland this entire week for a training and I just got back to my hotel room, which I’m pretty sure is haunted. (It feels haunted). And also, it’s my birthday today, and I don’t want to think very hard.

So instead of the profound post I was planning to write, I am going to rant about a seemingly minor but very serious problem that has been affecting our sector: the madness-inducingly poor usage of hyphens.

Just when we finally figured out the importance of the Oxford Comma, which is elegant, practical, and majestic–#OxfordCommaForever—I’ve been seeing more and more errors around hyphen usage. Even the brilliant leaders whom I respect make mistakes. I know that our sector has important things to work on, but just look at these abominations of nature: Continue reading “12 sentences that demonstrate why we need to be better at using hyphens”