Nonprofit AF

We should build a nonprofit-themed theme park!

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Vu

Hi everyone, I am still in Hawaii on vacation. However, that does not mean I can slack off on writing a blog post on Monday. Consistency is very important. As I often tell my son, “Son,” I would say, “whatever you decide to do, always be consist–aaarrrgh, why did you bite Daddy’s toes?! Do you think that was funny? That was not funny!”

Hawaii has been great, something I have sorely been needing for a while. The people here are so friendly and sweet, and the shaved ice tastes like happiness and childhood and unrestricted funds. I have been spending a lot of time with my wife and baby son and taken lots and lots of naps and drank a bunch of drinks that have little paper umbrellas on them. And I only checked my work emails about 20 times total.

There has been a couple of highlights on this trip. First, I met with the ED Ryan and Development Director Cheri of Hands In Helping Out (HIHO), a wonderful organization that recruits, trains, and matches volunteers with opportunities, all the while making the experience of volunteering fun for everyone involved. We went to a raw vegan restaurant, and while chewing on some “escargots” made from mushrooms and cashews, we grumbled about restricted funding and the lack of support of critical things like volunteer management. Even in paradise, nonprofit directors are frustrated with certain things, like all of us in the mainland are. “Funders only want to support NEW programs, forget tried and true ones,” we grumbled, using flaxseed crackers to scoop up some raw olive tapenade.

On one of the days, we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC), a nonprofit theme park that teaches visitors about the different Polynesian cultures. In different “villages,” you learn about Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, Hawaiian, Aotearoan, Marquesan, and Tahitian cultures. Visitors get a chance to throw spears, make coconut bread, start fires with sticks, make hats out of palm fronds, learn different dances, and gain basic understanding of cultural norms, such as which door one must use when entering a Fijian temple.

It was pricey to spend the day there, but well worth it. And it made me think, “Dude, we should totally have a nonprofit-themed theme park!” Continue reading →

The courage for mediocrity: We nonprofit professionals need to give ourselves a break

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Vu

After being in this sector for over a decade, I can say that nonprofit professionals are some of the most awesome people on earth. We are so smart, talented, dedicated, passionate, caring, humble, witty, cool, and hilarious. Also, we are really good-looking and are great dressers. Let’s see someone from the corporate sector rock that $6.99 button-down shirt from Ross, Dress for Less (originally $13.99).

But we are burning out, you guys. Our natural good looks are obscured by stress-induced wrinkles, grey hair, and maybe one eye that twitches uncontrollably during staff meetings. The work never stops, our organizations are understaffed, and people’s lives depend on our actions and decisions. We work in the evenings and on the weekends, skip vacations, and when we’re on vacation we check our emails because we know if we ignore them, they will start multiplying like hipsters. It is a brutal cycle that leads to many of us leaving the sector to make jewelry that are then sold at farmer’s markets. This is a terrible, terrible tragedy, despite the fact that the world could use more necklaces made out of beach glass and soda can tabs.Continue reading →

Nonprofit and Afraid: Like Naked and Afraid, but better

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Vu

Naked and Afraid is a riveting show about two random strangers who have to survive in the wilderness for three weeks while naked (and afraid). They meet for the first time in their birthday suits, they are given usually a knife and a fire starter, and the two must find water and food, build shelter out of bamboo and leaves or whatever, and put up with insects, freezing cold nights, blisteringly hot days, thorns, poisonous snakes, and worst of all, lack of wifi. They are followed around by a film crew who intervenes in severe emergencies, but who otherwise are not allowed to talk to the naked couple.

They also get waterproof camcorders to record their personal thoughts, which often sound like this: “Day 9: We are so cold right now, and we haven’t eaten anything since that bat we shared six days ago. Kyle was delirious with a fever and started gnawing at his own arm, but luckily a poisonous spider bit him in the eye and he came to his senses…”

Damn you, Discovery Channel, for putting on new episodes at 10pm on Sunday nights. 10pm to 2am on Sunday is usually when I do my writing. This show is to blame for any decrease in quality of these blog posts.

But this gives me a brilliant idea for a show that I want to pitch to the Discovery Channel: “Nonprofit and Afraid.” Hear me out for a second. Picture this: We take an average person who is not from the nonprofit sector, and we place them to work at a nonprofit for six weeks, filming their experience every step of the way! Here’s what the pilot episode might look like:Continue reading →

Nonprofit with Balls’s 100th post! Let’s celebrate by going home early.

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Vu

Hi everyone. This is Nonprofit With Ball’s historic 100^th post. It is a momentous occasion. When I was a little boy growing up in a small village up in the mountains of Vietnam, my father said to me, “Son, we may be poor, but that does not mean we can’t accomplish great things. You are the smartest, most-talented, and, in certain very dim lighting, best-looking kid in our family. Bring honor to our name.” Well, look dad, I wrote 100 blog posts about nonprofits, many mentioning unicorns! I think our ancestors would be proud. They’re probably tweeting about it right now.

For this 100^th post, I’m going to provide excerpts of some of my favorite early posts, the ones that you probably haven’t read because they’re so old. If this sounds very lazy, like those TV shows that do montages as a special episode (“Instead of writing a real episode, let’s spend 10 minutes looking at all the times that Joey said ‘How you doin’?’ and all the times that Ross acts like a completely unlikeable character”) you are right. But hey, this only happens every 100th blog posts; we’ll be back next week with new content. Here, read these posts below if you haven’t. And I think it’s only appropriate that we all go home early today in celebration.Continue reading →

Really-high ropes courses and other uses of legal marijuana in the nonprofit sector

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Vu

Hi everyone. Before we launch into today’s topic, I want to invite you to Rainier Valley Corps’s open house this Wednesday evening, July 9^th from 6pm to 8pm. If you’re in Seattle, come on by and learn about the project. And I’d love to meet you. Details at rainiervalleycorps.org

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Every week, when I publish a new post, inevitably two to five readers will unsubscribe their email from this blog, probably in protest against something I said (“How DARE you disparage hipsters blah blah you’re just jealous because your fat vegan legs don’t look good in skinny jeans blah blah scientific studies show that wearing skinny jeans for just two hours a day can vastly improve fertility rates blah blah you and your blog suck, etc.”) It’s OK, because new readers subscribe, so there is usually a net gain.

As a warning, this week’s topic may be sensitive to some readers, because, dude, recreational marijuana will be available for sale in Washington State this Tuesday! For some, it is the end of the world. But for others, it’ll be like Black Friday, where you wake up extra early, grab an empty Snapple bottle, wait in line for hours, and then shove aside the weak and elderly to get your hands on that sweet, sweet 32GB flash drive for $5.99. Except replace “32GB flash drive” with “legal weed” and “$5.99” with “about $400 per ounce.”

Now, whether you support or oppose legalizing pot, the fact is that the tides are turning, and pot use will grow and affect the way we do our work in the nonprofit sector. Continue reading →