You are not alone in this endless waking nightmare

[Image description: A dark tunnel with a light at the end. Image by Tama66 on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, I am sick to my soul. I write to process my feelings, but I am not sure how coherent I will be. Once again, our racist and misogynistic country proves just how racist and misogynistic it is. It revels in cruelty and ignorance, electing a convicted felon, rapist, and insurrectionist into power despite the breathtaking level of harm he did the last time, wiping out generations’ worth of progress.

I do not have easy platitudes for you. I can only share your grief and fear and despair at the horrors that are to come. I am as heartbroken as many of you are. I am enraged. Not just at those who voted for fascism and authoritarian rule, but for our own incumbent leaders, who swung moderate and courted conservatives and who voted again and again to support and fund genocide, knowing it would cost them needed votes. 

This morning, I drove my kids to school, wondering what sort of future awaits them. What sort of future awaits us all, especially our community members who are of color, trans, disabled, gay, immigrants, poor, elderly, homeless, and others already bearing the brunt of the cruelty of capitalism and white supremacy. Will there be a future for Palestinians, Congolese, Sudanese, Ukrainians, and other people whose fates rest on the whims of the US empire.

I don’t have many words to comfort you, but I will try, because that’s all any of us can do in this moment. We need to set aside time to grieve. Grieve for the inequities that brought us to this place. Grieve for the difficult road ahead. Grieve for the lives that will be lost because of the malice and vindictiveness that will shape the policies our communities must further endure. Grieve at what could have been, the hope and optimism and the brighter reality we could have had. 

Let’s give ourselves the time and grace to feel the rage and sadness and pain. But let’s remind ourselves that we are not alone during these times of collective despair. We who believe in a just and equitable world have each other. Reach out and check in with the people you care about. Check in with your team. Create space to be together. During these times, it is always community that saves us. 

If you are up for it—and it’s OK if you’re not—here are some resources from various colleagues. I find them helpful and grounding. 

This piece from my friend, composer Byron Au Yong. It contains a moving song “Survival Is Resistance,” from the Activist Songbook, with a powerful message from communities that have endured horrendous injustice and still found strength and hope, because, as we know, this is not the first time humanity has chosen violence and oppression:

 “Resistance is the crater of the bomb we turn into a pond to fish in, the old clothes and songs our broken hearts are stitched in when we see our new home in the distance, because our survival is resistance.”

Here’s a poem that I turn to often in times of despair: “We Were Made for These Timesby Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Here’s an excerpt:

“You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.”

Here, meanwhile, are 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won, with practical advice on what we must do now:

“The key to taking effective action in a Trump world is to avoid perpetuating the autocrat’s goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion and disorientation.”

I’m going to give myself time to grieve and despair. But I also did not go into the line of work of fighting injustice thinking that it would always be easy. We knew this work would be hard. And while it seems insurmountable, there is hope as long as we don’t give up on one another and what we can achieve together. My friend Chris Talbot-Heindl reminds me of Grace Lee Boggs’s quote: 

“Every crisis, actual or impending, needs to be viewed as an opportunity to bring about profound changes in our society. Going beyond protest organizing, visionary organizing begins by creating images and stories of the future that help us imagine and create alternatives to the existing system.”

Let us channel the courage and strength of civil rights leaders in the past, who faced similar, if not oftentimes significantly more difficult challenges. We honor them and their work by taking care of one another, building community, and continuing to fight for the world we know is possible. 

Please take care of yourself. And know you are not alone. I am with you.

Dirt-cheap and easy nonprofit Halloween costumes! [video]

Hi everyone, this week, on October 24th at 12pm Pacific Time, I’ll be in discussion on the topic of imposter syndrome with Esther Saehyun Lee and Aleeka Morgan. It’s FREE; captions enabled. Register here. Read Esther’s essay “You’re not feeling imposter syndrome, you are an imposter: Identity and belonging in nonprofit work” by Esther in advance.

Halloween is coming up, and you’re probably invited to a bunch of parties. Of course, if you’re a nonprofit professional, you probably don’t have much money to spend on costumes, nor time to make something elaborate.

So here are some costumes that are quick and easy and can be put together with stuff you probably already have! Check it out, as well as last year’s costume ideas below (I don’t know how anything can beat “Strategic Flan”), and add your costume ideas in the comment section!

Last year’s costume ideas, still relevant for this year:

Continue reading “Dirt-cheap and easy nonprofit Halloween costumes! “

Are you perpetuating inequity while engaging in Community-Centric Fundraising?

[Image description: Three fluffy little yellow ducklings, waddling along on the grass, surrounded by tiny white wild floweres. Image by WinniArt on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, the virtual rally to get nonprofits better representation within the White House, and ideally the Harris administration, has been changed from October 24th to October 17th at 4:30pm Pacific Time, so please note that in your calendar. It’s free; register HERE.

Over the past four years, one of the most heartening things I’ve seen is the rise of the Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) movement. Organizations are doing really awesome and creative stuff, such as asking their donors to support other nonprofits, getting rid of long-held practices such as “raising the paddle,” and using nontraditional metrics for assessing fundraising success. You can read about a lot of the cool stuff colleagues are thinking and doing at the CCF Hub, edited by the brilliant Chris Talbot-Heindl.

It’s also been heartening for me and other CCF proponents to receive fewer annoying and misinformed comments on this topic: “CCF people don’t care about raising money at all; all they do write angry beat poetry about taxes!” “Woke is broke, and it must be true because it rhymes!” “Vu Le hates donors and thinks you should punch every donor you meet in the face!”

Continue reading “Are you perpetuating inequity while engaging in Community-Centric Fundraising?”

[Video] how to be a demure and mindful funder

Hi everyone, if you’re free this week on September 26th at 4:30pm Pacific Time, please join White House Includes Nonprofits (WHIN)’s virtual gathering to rally the sector to support Harris/Walz and to push for nonprofits to have a seat at the table in the upcoming administration. See the details and register here. Another session is scheduled for October 24th at 4:30pm Pacific Time; join one or ideally both!

I spent a lot of this weekend working on the book, while simultaneously resisting the urge to throw my laptop off a cliff and run away to live a simple life in a small fishing village in another country. Which apparently is a very common temptation for people who attempt to write books!

So, here’s a little video instead. Thanks to colleague Farrah Parkes for the idea. A lot of funders can be more demure and mindful. See you next week!

Are you engaging in Toxic Niceness and perpetuating inequity? 7 questions to ask yourself

Hey everyone. If you are on LinkedIn, you may have seen posts by two of my favorite accounts: Crappy Funding Practices, which publicly names and calls out the malarkey and shenanigans of certain funders (while occasionally giving kudos to really awesome ones), and The Home for Wingless Unicorns, which publicly names the organizations that do not disclose salary on their job postings, because not disclosing salary perpetuates inequity.

Generally, the feedback to these groups has been positive and encouraging. But once in a while, there’s the predictable Why are you being so mean to people? Why name and shame?! You’d get your message across so much better if you just offer chamomile tea to people and speak to them in a calm soothing voice while swaddling them up like a baby!

Continue reading “Are you engaging in Toxic Niceness and perpetuating inequity? 7 questions to ask yourself”