Category: US Culture

Keeping the fire lit: Reflections from my trip to Aotearoa New Zealand

Posted on by Vu
[Image description: Driftwood on a beach in Aotearoa New Zealand. Foam block letters attached to the wood spell out “DO GOOD.” In the background is the ocean and a lot of clouds. I took this picture with my phone.]

Hi everyone, this post may be rambly not not very deep due to my travel-induced exhaustion, so apologies in advance. But first, October 10th of this week is Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the US, and we should all be reminded that less than half a cent of every dollar in philanthropy goes to Indigenous-led organizations. So to all those funders out there who are releasing statements about this day, please give more money to Indigenous communities. Everyone else, donate to Indigenous-led orgs and mutual assistance efforts and read this article by an Indigenous colleague for more actions you can take.

I just came back from a whirlwind speaking trip to Pueblo Colorado, Halifax Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Monterey California. It’s been three weeks on the road and I finally just got home. It’s the longest I’ve been away from my kids, and I had some irrational fear that they wouldn’t recognize me, and they’d be weirdly formal when I got back and be all like, “Hello, Father. Would you care for some crumpets?” I don’t know why they’re British in this scenario. Luckily that did not happen; they just hugged me and immediately asked for presents.   

Continue reading “Keeping the fire lit: Reflections from my trip to Aotearoa New Zealand”

How do we cope with so much pain and despair?

Posted on by Vu
[Image description: Rows of empty desks in a classroom. Image by Wokandapix on Pixabay]

Last week, I had bought my 9-year-old Viet his first bicycle. He got to choose it and he was very excited about it. It was my fault for leaving it overnight on our porch, where it got stolen. While he was at school, I went around the city to a few different stores, trying to find the exact same bicycle, coordinating with his mom so he wouldn’t know what was going on. We could have just told him the truth—and we will, someday, as an amusing anecdote when he’s older—but knowing our son, he would be worried about his bike, about the world. His excitement would give way to fear and anxiety. We wanted to save from that, to let him be a kid for a bit longer.

I was able to find the same bike, and he never knew what happened, and I left town for a speaking engagement in Park City, Utah. There I learned about the students and teachers who were murdered in Uvalde, Texas. We parents try to protect our kids from the horrors of reality. We replace their stolen bikes and sick goldfish and kiss their foreheads and tell them the world is not a terrible place. And then we send them to school, where they do active shooter drills to learn how to hide and remain quiet if someone comes to gun them down, and we hope they return home safely each day. The unimaginable pain and anguish the Uvalde families must be feeling, their lives forever shattered, knowing their loved ones, their babies, will never come home again.

Continue reading “How do we cope with so much pain and despair?”

Being thankful is not enough. Here are 21 tips to help you do a better job thanking people

Posted on by Vu

[Image description: A little rottweiler puppy, lying on the ground, resting on its paws, looking to our left. This puppy is clearly just click-bait for this post. Pixabay.com]
Hi everyone, before we get into this week’s post, please take a moment to help people affected by the wildfires in California. Your donations and support in other ways make a difference.

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Thanksgiving is coming up this week, and all of us in the US will likely be reflecting on things for which we are each thankful. That’s great. Gratitude has been scientifically proven to lead to all sorts of benefits, from reducing stress, to improving sleep, to making people around us less likely to poison our hummus.

What we kind of suck at is expressing gratitude to other people. Heck, 33% of workers have not been recognized in the past six months, and 21% have never ever been recognized ever, which is really sad. If I had a nickel for every time I learn that someone feels underappreciated—an ED by their board, staff by the leadership, volunteers by the staff, grantees by their funders, etc.—I would have…approximately 65 cents. That’s still a lot in nonprofit. Continue reading “Being thankful is not enough. Here are 21 tips to help you do a better job thanking people”

Nonprofits, we need to talk about mental health and suicide

Posted on by Vu

[Image description: A bunch of flowers with yellow centers and white petals, likely daisies, resting on a metal railing of some sort. Blurry brown and beige background depicting land and a small patch of light blue sky. Image obtained from Pixabay.com]
Hi everyone, this post is going to be a little serious, but I hope you will read it and discuss with your team. The recent suicides in the news have made me think about our sector and our responsibility to one another.

Ten years ago, a friend of mine took her life a day after calling me asking to hang out. I would learn later from her mom that she had been dealing with bipolar disorder for a long time, and hid it from her friends and coworkers. I wished that I had been a better friend, that I had known what she was going through, that I had supported her more.

My friend’s suicide made me realize that we have a long way to go when it comes to mental health awareness, even among those of us who are in the nonprofit sector and thus are supposed to be more attuned to the people around us. Because mental health conditions are mostly invisible, our colleagues, friends, and family members may be going through challenges, and we may not be aware of it. Or we may be unintentionally creating an environment where mental illness is stigmatized, leading to further isolation. Continue reading “Nonprofits, we need to talk about mental health and suicide”

Kids are the future? So are older adults!

Posted on by Vu

[Image description: A sepia-toned drawing of an older gentleman playing a violin. He is wearing a hat, a scarf, and a suit jacket with two buttons buttoned. He is smiling and appears joyful. The background includes musical notes. Image obtained from Pixabay.com]
In college—Washington University in St. Louis. Yeah, go Bears!…If that’s still relevant!—I volunteered with the Campus Y and led a program called SAGE (Service Across GEnerations). We students would wake up early on Saturdays, hop on the school shuttle, and visit seniors at a nursing home. We played checkers and cards and talked to the seniors. There was Joyce, who enjoyed drawing penguins and who always called me Lou. And Mrs. Mosbey, a 90-year-old blind woman who listened to the radio and kept up with current affairs, who constantly ribbed me for being vegan. “You need to eat some meat,” she would say, “it’ll put some hair on your chest.”

As delightful as the visits were, it was extremely difficult to get other students to participate. Whereas the program where you read books to small children had over a hundred volunteers each day, SAGE always had just four to six of us. This was not from lack of trying. We had amazing posters! I remember how frustrating and demoralizing it was trying to convince other students to come along, to meet these incredible seniors. A one-hour visit would do so much to brighten their day. It was always a tough sell. No one wanted to spend time with seniors; it was much easier to ignore them and read to children. Continue reading “Kids are the future? So are older adults!”