• Home
  • About
  • BOOK!!
  • Contact/FAQ
  • Shop
  • Speaking
  • Support NAF!
  • Advertise
  • Report Crappy Funders

Nonprofit AF

Exploring the fun and frustrations of nonprofit work

NAF logo
NAF logo
  • Home
  • About
  • BOOK!!
  • Contact/FAQ
  • Shop
  • Speaking
  • Support NAF!
  • Advertise
  • Report Crappy Funders

Uncategorized

Capacity Building 9.1: Give someone a fish, let them focus on carpentry

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Vu

kitten-1582384_1280My organization, Rainier Valley Corps, just finished our first program year (yay!). In case you didn’t know, RVC’s flagship program is a fellowship where we find talented leaders of color, provide them with training and support, and have them work full-time at small, grassroots organizations led by communities of color. The fellows help the organizations build capacity and run programs while gaining critical leadership and nonprofit management skills.

This year, our ten brilliant fellows have:

 

  • coordinated protests against unfair labor laws;
  • furthered the work to create an economic zone that provides employment and entrepreneurial support to people of color;
  • organized discussions on racial equity and dynamics in light of the national tragedies;
  • planned and implemented extended-learning programs for low-income youth;
  • surveyed over 650 parents of color regarding their views and needs on education
  • wrote successful grant proposals, coordinated board retreats, planned events, managed community centers, did a million other things,
  • sang a lot of karaoke,
  • and generally made our community better, safer, and way more awesome

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized 18 Comments

We need to stop treating nonprofits the way society treats poor people

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Vu

brown-shoes-1150071_960_720During a drink with one of my favorite program officers, I brought up some feedback about how onerous their grant reporting process was. Even though the foundation is really flexible on how the funds can be used, they still ask for exactly how much of each line item the foundation pays for. And their line items don’t line up with ours, so we have to spend significant time translating our budget into theirs. And once the report is submitted, it affects what we report to other foundations, leading to a funding Sudoku that wastes endless hours of my and my team’s time. 

Her response, half-joking and half-serious, was “When you entered the sector, what were you expecting, cake and ice cream?” At that moment, all I wanted to do was weep quietly into my raspberry mojito while Foreigner songs play in my head: “In my liiiiife, there’s been heartache and pain. I don’t knooow, if I can faaaaaaace it again…”Continue reading →

Posted in Donor Relations, Funder Relations, Fundraising, Grantwriting, Uncategorized 52 Comments

So, you don’t think you directly benefit from nonprofits

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Vu

sn,x1313-bg,f8f8f8.u1Hi everyone. Before we begin today’s post, new NWB merchandise! The Nonprofit Unicorn Mantra line of products! Also, I got comments from non-nonprofit readers who felt left out, so here is some “I am a social justice unicorn” merchandise.

***

This week, my awesome smart audio speaker arrived. It’s really cool. I can use my voice to ask it to play music, forecast the weather, read news headlines, set the timer, add things to my calendar, and—with other devices linked to it—control the lights and other appliances in the house. Her name is Alexa, and she’s a lifesaver when I have a newborn screaming in my ears and a three-year-old dangling from my leg. Alexa also spouts pick-up lines upon request, although “Hey girl. Are you a high chair? Because I want to put a baby in you” did nothing to calm the children down.

Why do I bring this up? Because I am amazed and grateful for all the incredible stuff people come up with. I appreciate inventors and manufacturers and retailers and am happy to pay money for useful gadgets that make my life easier. For-profits are critical to society, and we nonprofit folks understand that. I don’t know a single nonprofit that makes vodka.Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized 30 Comments

7 hopeful trends in philanthropy

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Vu

friends-1149841_960_720Hi everyone. Last week I was in Minneapolis for the GEO (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations) conference. I was there primarily to give a short talk called “Want to Help Communities of Color? Stop Trickle-Down Community Engagement” and avoid work. But I stuck around for most of the conference, mainly because funder conferences always have way better food and booze. I was trying to hoard appetizers, having developed this unconscious fear of being in places traditionally reserved for funders. If I was going to get found out as an unwashed nonprofit Wildling and asked to leave, by golly I was going to take as many grilled artichoke hearts with me as I could.

But then I realized that my organization, Rainier Valley Corps, is considered by many as a funder. Instead of giving financial support to organizations, though, we send resources in the form of full-time fellows of color, whom we train, to develop the capacity of host organizations led by communities of color. They apply to be a host org. No wonder these past two years everyone has been treating me nice, and no wonder I’ve suddenly become 27% more attractive to most people, despite being married and having two kids and basically having let myself go.Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized 7 Comments

Uh, technical difficulties today. But here’s another nonprofit joke.

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Vu

balls1.jpgHi everyone. Our computer got infected with a virus, so I couldn’t work on my blog post today. I am on a tablet, typing approximately one word per minute. This paragraph has taken one hour so far. I’ll put up the post later. Meanwhile…

An Executive Director, a Director of Operations, a Development Director, a Chief Finance Officer, and a Communications Director were on a boat when it sank. They barely made it to a deserted island.

The DO said, “I’ll start building us some shelter.”

The DD said, “I’ll go gather us some food.”

The CFO said, “I’ll stay here and inventory our supplies.”

The Communications Director said, “And I’ll practice building signal fires.”

Everyone turned to the ED.

“You guys go ahead. I have sooooooo many emails I need to catch up on.”

***

Ahahaha. I hope you enjoyed that joke. It took me two hours to type. And now I’m way behind on my emails.

Posted in ED Life, nonprofit field, Office Culture, Staff Dynamics, Uncategorized 2 Comments

  • Previous
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 6
  • Page 7
  • Page 8

Primary Sidebar

Grant Station Ad

Support NAF
FOLLOW NAF BY EMAIL. MAKE TUESDAYS SUCK LESS!
Enter your email address below and get notice of hilarious new posts each Tuesday morning. Unsubscribe at any time.

Random Posts

  • 8 Recipes from the Nonprofit Cookbook
  • We need to stop joking about the sad state of retirement security in nonprofit. It’s no longer funny.
  • 10 ways to make executive leadership searches and transitions better and more equitable
  • 12 tips to ensure you don’t stab anyone on your first day back from break
  • 9 Tips for Dealing with Election-Related Stress and Anxiety

Share NAF

FOLLOW NAF BY EMAIL. MAKE TUESDAYS SUCK LESS!

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 51.5K other subscribers

Recent Posts

  • Funders, please stop trying to be unique snowflakes
  • How to stay motivated when everything is on fire and you look and feel like crap
  • Instructions on not giving up: Let’s conserve our energy for the battles ahead
  • Brutally honest answers to 15 pointless questions our sector keeps asking itself
  • The Tide is Surging: The No King Protests and the Beginning of the End of Fascism in the US

Categories

  • AI (1)
  • Board Relations (32)
  • Capacity Building (31)
  • Community Engagement (79)
  • Community organizing (10)
  • Cultural Competency (46)
  • Data (7)
  • Donor Relations (48)
  • ED Life (86)
  • Finance (34)
  • Funder Relations (179)
  • funding (17)
  • Fundraising (212)
  • Grantwriting (119)
  • Hiring (6)
  • Humor (59)
  • leadership (86)
  • Marketing (6)
  • nonprofit (9)
  • nonprofit field (311)
  • Office Culture (82)
  • Personal (36)
  • philanthropy (35)
  • Policy and Advocacy (21)
  • Race, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (119)
  • Random stuff (89)
  • self-care (26)
  • Special Events (25)
  • Staff Dynamics (30)
  • Uncategorized (40)
  • Unicorns (62)
  • US Culture (17)
  • volunteers (4)
  • Work-Life Balance (31)
  • Writing (1)
  • Zombies (14)

Archives

Tags

board board of directors capacity building collective impact communities of color community-centric fundraising community engagement cultural competency diversity donors equity feedback foundations funders funding funding dynamics fundraising game of thrones grantmaking grants grantwriting hiring hummus humor inclusion leadership nonprofit nonprofit funding nonprofit humor overhead oxford comma philanthropy power dynamics race restricted funding salary Seahawks self-care social justice special events sustainability taxes Thanksgiving unicorn unicorns

© Vu Le NWB Consulting
Design: SN