8 Tips for a successful nonprofit blind date

Posted on by Vu

blind dateThis week I had two nonprofit blind dates (NBD). It’s like a regular blind date, but it’s work-related, and people are generally not as attractive (they tend to look more tired). Usually it starts because a colleague thinks you should meet someone or vice-versa because the stuff you both are working on is so cool and you could totally hit it off with this person and get together to collaborate and build synergy or something. Sometimes an NBD happens as a result of cold email requests for meetings, or it’s part of a grant-making process.

Whatever the reason, they happen a lot and are awkward as hell. A huge part is because you have no clue what the other person looks like, and they don’t know you either. On numerous occasions I’ve walked up to complete strangers and asked them questions like “Are you Jane from UNICORN?” One time a woman just stared at me. “You know,” I continued, “the, uh, Union of Cool and Remarkable Nonprofits, UNICORN…”

She said, “No, but I COULD be, you nonprofit stud muffin you.”

All right, no one ever said that, but that would have made this post more interesting.

Anyway, I’ve compiled a list of tips that will help make the blind meeting easier:

Tip 1: Google to find out what your date looks like.  After scheduling a meeting with one of my NBD’s this week, she sent me a picture via LinkedIn, which was very thoughtful of her. LinkedIn is a site for professional networking, so it is perfectly acceptable to send a picture that way. Unless specifically requested, do not email a picture of yourself, as that can be construed as narcissistic and creepy, and worse, they might send you back a reply like “Vu, have you considered Acne-Free? They have a deal now with free shipping.”

Tip 2: If you don’t have time or don’t use LinkedIn, an email description is fine. Stick to short and simple, for example: “I’m a lanky Asian guy, 5’8”, in my 30’s, but looking much older.” Do not go overboard with the descriptions: “I have piercing brown eyes that twitch when I’m stressed. Usually I wear a button-down shirt that will have three or four spaghetti stains. I like bunnies. Sometimes at night I stay up wondering if this is all there is, and if I’m just wasting away my one life staying up late pondering existential questions.”

Tip 3: Get the person’s cell phone number, and give them yours. This is helpful for when you’re running late.  If you can’t find the person and it’s 10 minutes past the appointed time, call their cell. Do not send them a text message like “I am standing in the corner near the bathroom, watching you. Are you the one wearing a red shirt? It’s nice.”

Tip 4: Arrive 5 or 10 minutes early. This will not only give you time to secure a table (assuming the meeting is at a café or restaurant) and seem thoughtful, but it will also allow you to get your coffee first. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is more awkward than standing in line together with your blind date trying to make small talk while waiting for the line to advance. One of the Laws of Awkwardness states that the more awkward something is, the slower time moves. You can avoid all this by getting your coffee first, thus heading off not only the small-talk weirdness, but also the who’s-paying awkwardness. If necessary, lie and say something like “I already drank five cups of coffee today at other meetings, you go ahead” but under no circumstances get in line with your meeting date.

Tip 5: Sit so that you face the entrance. That way you can watch your date enter. Also, have a notebook and pen to take notes. Pretend to be working, so that when the person arrives, they can see how serious and busy you are. Making a good first impression is important, and you want to project the aura of competence for as long as possible.

Tip 6: Play the rapid eye-contact game. If you forgot the steps where you find out what your date looks like and/or get their phone number (and most of us do), you must now resort to the gopher-like bouts of looking around and making eye contact for a split second with different people in the room to see if there is a flash of reciprocation. Chances are, your date is doing the same. At some point, your gazes will meet, in which case you must both send some sort of signal to acknowledge each other. Smiling and waving is appropriate; scanning them up and down and then looking disappointed is not.

Tip 7: Do not hug your meeting date. In all the excitement of the search, you may feel tempted to hug your date when you finally encounter them. Try to refrain from doing this. In the best case, the other person is also a hugger and just loves hugging people they just met. Likely, however, they’ll just be confused and weirded out and not respond to your follow-up invitation to attend your organization’s annual dinner, which is on April 20th.

Tip 8: When the meeting concludes, ask your colleague which way they’re walking out. You can then say “Great, me too, I’ll walk out with you” or “My car is parked at the other entrance; it was great meeting you.” This avoids the awkwardness of saying bye and then walking out together. It’s a very long walk and almost as painful as waiting in line with them. Sometimes I’ll just remain at the café and try to get five minutes of work done on my phone, just to avoid walking out with the person. Sometimes your date may decide to use the restroom before heading off, in which case, get the hell out of there as fast as you can.

That’s it. If you follow the tips above, you should be able to minimize awkwardness and have a productive date, provided you have meeting objectives and next steps and other basics covered. Wait, a couple more things:

Optional Tip 1: Have one of your staff call you halfway into your meeting. That way, if you’re not hitting if off synergistically, you can have an excuse to leave.

Optional Tip 2: If you’re meeting with me, bring vegan chocolate. (Make sure it’s at least 65% cocoa. We might be poor in the nonprofit world, but we’re not animals).

Nonprofit funding: Ordering a cake and restricting it too

Posted on by Vu

cake-486874_960_720For the past few months one of staff has an eye that’s been twitching. “It’s this grant!” she says, “it’s for our after-school program. It pays for instructors’ teaching time, but not their planning time! How can they teach when they can’t plan?! How? How?!”

“Psst,” I whispered, “let’s talk in the conference room. Since they are dedicated they will plan anyway even without getting paid,”—I paused, looking around—“why don’t you just increase their hourly wages?”

“This grant capped the hourly wage, so I can’t pay them more. The other grant might pay for planning time, but they don’t pay for employer taxes! ” She started pulling at her hair, and both of us collapsed on the floor, weeping and beating our chests in anguish and despair.

OK, I might have exaggerated that last part a bit. But unfortunately, this sort of restriction is not an exaggeration. This challenge that we in the nonprofit sector face daily is historic and pervasive. And very, very frustrating and counterproductive.

Imagine if other businesses ran like this. Funders and donors are basically customers who buy products, not for themselves, but to give away to other people who need them (I’ll talk about the weaknesses of that system in a future post). Imagine what a bakery would be like if it had the same funding restrictions that we have on nonprofits:

Baker: Welcome to the Dusty Apron Gluten-Free Bakery. Can I entice you with a cake?
Customer: Yes, a chocolate cake. It’s for some gluten-free veterans.
Baker: Excellent! We specialize in gluten-free cakes. We can make a delicious flourless chocolate lava cake that was once featured in Tasty Pastry magazine. How does that sound?
Customer: Ooh, the gluten-free veterans would love that. They always get fruit for dessert. How much does it cost?
Baker: For a cake serving 20 people, it’ll cost about $100.
Customer: OK, well, I can only give you $20, so you’ll have to find the other $80 elsewhere
Baker: Well, luckily, we have other customers who want to help make a cake for gluten-free veterans. At least three of them said they’ll pitch in, and we’ll ask some others too.
Customer: Excellent, so here’s $20. However, you can’t spend the $20 on sugar. You can only spend it on chocolate and up to one egg. It’s spelled out here in this cake baking plan.
Baker: What about vanilla? It’s hard to make a delicious cake without good vanilla
Customer: You can spend $1 of the $20 on vanilla, but if you decide you need more vanilla, you have to email and talk to me about changing the baking plan.

One week later:

Customer: We ordered a gluten-free chocolate lava cake from you guys, and it was awful. It was too dense and not nearly sweet enough.
Baker: I’m sorry, but other customers also had their own conditions. One customer said he would pay for sugar, but not butter. Another said she would pay for chocolate, but we already had you paying for chocolate, so we asked her if she would pay for butter, and she said no. Our oven’s thermometer also broke down, but none of the customers would allow their cake payments to be used to fix it, saying that fixing it does not directly benefit gluten-free veterans. I emailed you to ask if $5 of your $20 could be used to buy a temporary thermometer, since we didn’t need so much chocolate, but you said it would take three weeks to change the original cake baking plan.
Customer: Well, I’m not buying any more cakes from you guys. You obviously don’t have enough baking capacity. Goodbye.

Meanwhile, another customer heard the exchange:

Customer 2: Sheesh, I’m sorry about that. If it makes you feel better, I and a bunch of other customers got together and ordered a blueberry bundt cake from you last month, and it was delicious.
Baker: I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it! I hope we’ll see you around more often?
Customer 2: Absolutely not. We only pitch in to buy a cake from any bakery once. If we keep buying cakes from you, you’ll just become dependent on us, and that’s just madness—madness, I tell you!
Baker: Well, I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help you today?
Customer 2: I just formed a committee to explore why there is such a high rate of nervous breakdowns among bakers, and since you guys were featured in Tasty Pastry, I thought I would ask you to join.

Two weeks ago I was out to lunch with a potential new corporate sponsor, who got very excited about a program we did a while ago, where we provided computer training classes in Vietnamese to parents so that they could learn to check their kids’ grades online through Seattle Public Schools’ Source program.

“That’s excellent!” he said, “that aligns really well with our priorities this year. You should apply for our employee giving grant.”

“Cool,” I said, “I did see that on your website. I’ll review further and follow up with you.”

“One thing you should know though,” he said, “we don’t fund staffing. We hate paying for people’s wages. We can pay for the computers and software for this program, but only for client use.”

I know he’s just a messenger for his company, but at that moment, I wanted to unleash the fury of a thousand ED’s and Development Directors on this poor man. I would stand on the table and my eyes would glow white, and a terrifying cyclone of meeting minutes and financial statements would swirl around me, knocking everything over. People would cower under their tables as hundreds of business cards rained down from the heavens. “Who,” I would say in a low voice that would reverberate through the restaurant, “who would make the program happen then? Elves?! UNICORNS?!!!”

I calmed down, thinking of how awesome that scene would be if we had a show about nonprofit work that combines The Office with X-Men. But yeah, seriously, who would manage this program? God, that would make our work so much easier, if we could just summon some multilingual elves to come out and plan programs and fill out paperwork. That would cut down on costs, and I’m sure the elves would have a better grasp on the advanced algebra and calculus required to figure out which funder is paying for what by when.

The sad reality is that we nonprofits spend way too much time navigating the complex maze of funding restrictions, time that could be better spent delivering and improving on services. We should all focus on the final outcomes and allow nonprofits the flexibility to do their jobs. Though restricting funding in the name of accountability has been a standard practice that stemmed from good intentions, in the end, it is the gluten-free veterans who will be eating fruit again.

Are you a cultural competency wombat? Take this quiz to find out

Posted on by Vu

The term “cultural competency” has been thrown around a lot. For instance: “We must be more culturally competent in our outreach efforts in order to synergistically shift the paradigm for collective impact.” And also: “Stop being so culturally incompetent! In many cultures, staff are expected to make the Executive Director a mango lemonade while he naps!”

We all agree that Cultural Competency is a good thing, but do any of us really understand what it is? I mean, sure, there are tons of research papers and books and stuff on the subject, but who actually reads them when we all have so much work to do and Season 3 of Downton Abbey just started?

Cultural Competency is complex, and we can delve deep into it for hours. But for this post, I just want to spend a few minutes discussing cultural competency and how it manifests in the basic logistics of community engagement. Let’s begin by checking to see how culturally competent you currently are.

Question 1: You are leading a committee to talk about community safety and you want to ensure participation from residents of color. Where should you have the meeting? A. At my office downtown; it’ll make it easy for everyone, since downtown is a central location. B. At the local bar, since it’s an informal place where people can be free to express their opinions. C. Maybe a library, or a community center, some place with easy parking.

Question 2: You are thinking of having food at this meeting. What should you order? A. Prosciutto finger sandwiches, baked brie and dried pears, crudités and olives, accompanied by a nice pinot noir. B. Grilled pork banh mi’s (Vietnamese sandwiches), spring rolls C. Pita and hummus, chicken skewers, fruit.

Question 3: You want communities of color to be well-represented at this meeting. How should you go about outreaching? A. Send out flyers, emails, and Facebook messages. B. Call up the various ethnic organizations and ask them send out word to their community members. C. Have information translated and placed in ethnic media such as newspapers and radios, send staff to physically visit various places with translated materials.

Scoring: Give yourself 0 points for every A answer, 17 points for every B, and 900 points for every C. If you got 0 to 900 points, you are a cultural competency goblin*. If you have 901 to 1816 points, you are a cultural competency wombat*. If you have 1817 to 2700 points, you are a cultural competency platypus*.

Now that you have your score, let’s get on to the tips to make us all become more culturally competent!

Tip 1: Do not assume a person of color is culturally competent. How dare you automatically think I am qualified to talk about cultural competency! People of color can be just as culturally incompetent as everyone else. Why, just over the holiday break I managed to offend people from at least four separate cultures.

Tip 2: Ask questions, but check your assumptions. Assumptions lead to annoying questions like “Vu, what’s the best Vietnamese restaurant in Seattle?” How the heck would I know? A better question would be “Vu, do you know what the best Vietnamese restaurant in Seattle is?” (“No clue; I’m vegan.”)

Tip 3: Be where people are. I mean literally, geographically. Come down to the neighborhood. Ironically, I’ve attended a bunch of meetings about cultural competency that are held downtown, known to many of us as “The Maze of $8-Per-Hour Parking and the Endless Gnashing of Teeth.” Move your meetings around and check out all the cool locations where real people naturally congregate. Expecting people to come to you all the time is culturally insensitive. Plus, you can learn more about people and cultures by being where they are.

Tip 4: Have food at your community events, but try to avoid pork. Sounds kind of harsh, since bacon is so delicious and they’ve incorporated it into so many great things like chocolates and vodka. But several cultures and religions avoid pork, so you can make it easier on yourself and ease the mind of a ton of people by just not having it there. At VFA, whenever we have a public event, such as our Tet Celebration on 2/8, we just don’t have pork, since many of our friends who may attend are Muslim. When in doubt, go with chicken.

Tip 5: Be considerate of circumstances and challenges. Take into consideration childcare, transportation, and other factors as you engage communities. Not everyone has a car or knows how to take public transit. Have volunteers to watch over children and have appropriate games and activities for them.

Tip 6: Be careful giving out swag items. I was attending a meeting regarding improving the education system and how to get communities of color to be engaged in the process. At the end, as we left, we were each given a gift bag. I looked inside. It was a bottle of wine. Each person got a bottle of wine! Several cultures and religion do not encourage alcohol consumption, so this was in poor taste, especially in combination with a serious discussion on education. Swag items are fine, but make sure they are appropriate. Pens, note pads, travel-size hand sanitizer, flash drives, and food, especially vegan chocolates, are good. Avoid alcohol, weapons, and stuff made of leather or other animal products.

There are so many different cultures, and each culture is so complex, that it would be impossible to be completely competent. Competency, then, is an evolving process, a sense of self, and a willingness to ask questions and challenge one’s deeply-held beliefs. Or something profound like that. Look, I only scored 934 points, and Downton Abbey is on.

(*These titles are only to illustrate a point. In order to be an official Cultural Competency Platypus or even Unicorn, please follow directions here)

How to schedule a meeting without being punched in the pancreas

Posted on by Vu

pug-1209129_960_720As a field, we have a lot of meetings. And we totally suck at scheduling them. Each week, I get at least a dozen emails like this: “Dear Vu, my name is John, and I am from Unicycles for Peace, a nonprofit dedicated to replacing violence with the joys of unicycling. I would like to meet with you to see how our organizations could collaborate. Let me know what works best for you.”

Now, this email is very sincere and courteous, but it makes me want to punch the meeting requester in the pancreas. Not at first, of course, but gradually, due to a series of irritating emails. What’s best for me may be 10:30am on 10/20 at my office, so I write back with “How about 10:30am on 10/20 at my office?” Then they would write back with, “Sorry, I have another meeting at that time. How about 5pm on 10/23?” Of course, that doesn’t work for me, so I write back, “Sorry, can’t do that time, how about 6pm?” This could go on for several days or years.

I am proposing a set of rules that we all in the field follow which I hope will make us more efficient and lessen our chances of getting punched in the pancreas.

The Official Rules for Scheduling Nonprofit Meetings

Rule 1, the List of Three: The meeting initiator must propose, in his initiation email, at minimum three dates and times of when he is available, these aforementioned times being preferably spread over several days. We use that line all the time: “Please let me know what works best for you.” That’s euphemism for “I want to sound thoughtful, but really I just don’t feel like looking at my calendar and proposing several dates that I’m free. Why don’t you do it, and I’ll see if it works for me.” Hell no. That’s lazy. You initiated the meeting; you look at your calendar. It takes a long time to look at my insane schedule to see three times that would work for me. Do you think I just sit in my cubicle watching clips of The Daily Show all day long? Of course not. There’s also the Colbert Report.

If none of the three times that the initiator proposed works for the meeting grantor, it is now the responsibility of the meeting grantor to set parameters (e.g, “this month is awful for me”) and propose a separate set of at least three times that work for him. This List of Three shall be perpetuated in turn by both parties until a mutually agreeable time is determined.

Rule 2, the Burden of Travel: The meeting initiator must bear more of the burden of travel when determining the meeting location. It is discourteous for the initiator to ask the grantor to come to his or her office, especially if it’s downtown, where parking fees tend to add up to Mitt Romney’s yearly tax savings. It’s like asking someone out. You make it convenient for them. You go and pick them up. You don’t say, “I’m so happy you agreed to go out with me. Can you pick me up at my place at 8?” What next, you ask them to drop by Tamarind Tree and pick you up some spring rolls on the way too?  Negotiations can be made to find a mutually acceptable venue, but overall, the initiator must bear the majority of the burden of travel.

Rule 3, the Courtesy of Confirmation: Meeting initiators are responsible to confirm the meeting before it happens, and to ensure the exchange of cell phone numbers in the event of lateness or last-minute cancelation. The other party may also confirm, though it’s not required. Whoever confirms, there should be no more than one confirmation per meeting.

Rule 4, the Payment of the Tab: If you initiated and you have an expense account, offer to pay if you’re meeting for coffee or lunch. If you don’t have one, you can still offer to be polite, or go Dutch. Most nonprofit workers don’t have expense accounts. We EDs of small organizations usually spend 50 bucks or more of our personal money each week on coffee meetings, lunches, dinner, etc. It’s OK; we like to think of the children (Specifically: “Those darn children! They never have to pick up a tab! No wonder their phones are nicer than mine.”)

Rule 5, the Price of Postponement: Once the meeting is scheduled, whoever is the latest to request to reschedule the appointment now bears the burden of picking up the tab. That’s right, you move our lunch appointment, you pay for lunch. You move it multiple times, I’m also ordering the most expensive dessert on the menu.

Rule 6, the Burden of Rescheduling: Whoever canceled the meeting for any reason now has the responsibility to reschedule the meeting, following Rule 1. If within a month this does not occur, the other party may follow up with a reminder, but the burdens of the List of Three, of travel, and of picking up the tab, all fall on the party that requested the reschedule. This reminder is the only time where it’s acceptable to send the line “let me know what works best for you” without having to include a List of Three.

Rule 7, the Role of the Assistant:  Assistants are wonderful and magical, like unicorns, and all of us would like to have one. But most of us do not. If you have one, ensure your assistant does not cause aggravation to those with whom they are trying to schedule a meeting. “Dear Vu, Edward would like to meet with you to discuss which baby animals are cuter, bunnies or baby porcupines, since this new study shows that looking at cute animals increases work place productivity. Are you free next Wednesday at 3pm to meet at our office downtown?”

As I mentioned in a previous post, out of collegial camaraderie, executive directors should never use their assistant to schedule a meeting with another executive director, unless the second ED has an assistant too. It’s like “Have your people contact my people,” but you have people, and I don’t have people. Most of us are our own people! And if your people have no scheduling skills, I may respond back with something like “I’m sorry, this year is really awful for me.”

Rule 8, the Price of Failure: Whoever stands up the other party, whether intentional or not, must pay the price for this insult. in addition to buying all stood-up parties lunch, the offender must send an apologetic email with significant groveling and new times, based on Rule 1, the List of Three. If both parties for some reason simultaneously stood one another up, no further action is necessary, for they are both idiots.

These above rules are by no means comprehensive, and there are always exceptions. If you can think of other rules, please put them in the comment section. Overall, if we can agree to abide by a set of rules, it may make our work easier. I promise if you follow the ones above, I will not punch you in any internal organ. Rules for scheduling group meetings and conference call etiquette will follow later, after I catch up on the Daily Show.

@nonprofitwballs

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We must prepare our organizations for the zombie apocalypse

Posted on by Vu

zombie apocalypseOur part-time Development Director, Rachel, is psychic. Her gift is uncanny. She accurately predicted, for example, that we would not be getting this major grant that we had applied to. Now she has been freaked out because she senses an earthquake is going to happen, a big one that will cause bridges to collapse. So she asked the Red Cross to come to a VFA staff meeting a deliver a short training on earthquake preparedness.

“All right,” said David of the Red Cross, who has an awesome beard, “who has done some emergency preparation at home?” A couple of us raised our hands. “Great,” he said, calling on people, “what steps have you taken?” We threw out answers like bought a first-aid kit, got a hand-crank radio, flashlight, etc. I was hoping he wouldn’t call on me, because I’m not sure if squirreling away vodka and olives-soaked-in-vermouth counted as emergency preparation.

The session scared the hell out of us by making us realize several things. First, we are not prepared at home. None of us have a minimum of three days’ supply of water, for instance. “Ideally,” said David, “you want seven days. One gallon of water per person per day.” It doesn’t need to be fancy, he said. We could, for example, just use empty two-litter soda bottles and fill them with tap water and put them in the closet. “Also,” he said, “designate an out-of-state contact to relay information, since local phone lines will probably be tied up with thousands of people all simultaneously trying to contact their families. If you call someone out-of-state, though, it’ll much more likely get through.”

Second, we are not prepared at the office. “So if an earthquake happens right now,” said David, his awesome beard making him look and sound very wise, “what would you do first?” Panic, I said. We all laughed. (I am sure the Red Cross never heard that one). However, after the laughter came the sad realization that that is exactly what might happen in an emergency. During a severe earthquake, the cubicles will probably collapse. Especially mine, which is right next to my top-heavy bookshelf, something that will likely fall over, trapping me under my cube. Fires might break out from our poor electric wiring. Our building is old, so fortunately, the asbestos ceiling tiles will probably fall down and put out the fires.

Considering that many of us spend more time at the office than at home, nonprofits must do a better job with our own emergency preparations. Not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our clients. “If an emergency happens,” said David, “community members may be relying on you guys for leadership, information, and services.” Crap, we thought, that’s right. Although we don’t focus on emergency preparedness programs, people in the area may still come to VFA during emergencies, because we’re one of the few nonprofits they know. We have to set a good example and manage a semblance of organization should something happen.

Sufficiently terrified by the training—and all good emergency prep trainings are terrifying—the VFA staff started dividing up tasks. Teresa and Connie updated our first-aid kits. Rachel and James went to Grocery Outlet to buy nonperishable food, water, and tools like flashlights and batteries. Others cleared the VFA office of rusty chairs and other junk that could kill us.

I was transferring heavier items from the top of my bookshelf to the bottom, and thinking of how to secure the whole thing to the wall, when Rachel and James came back with our emergency rations. They had bought flashlights, canned goods, several gallons of water, a giant tub of peanut butter, and several boxes of Wheat Thins. They laid them out in the middle of the office on the floor, then promptly got caught up in other work and forgot about everything. Several hours later, the supplies were still in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, this is what happens with emergency prep. It becomes urgent for two seconds, then completely deprioritized.

“Clean this up!” I said, fuming. “During an earthquake, I don’t want us getting killed by the flying canned goods we got in preparation for the earthquake!”

Obviously, we have a long way to go. But now we have flashlights, whistles, updated first-aid kits, glowsticks, emergency blankets, a radio, other tools, and enough water and food to last us a few days.  This is very important, because even if Rachel is wrong and an earthquake doesn’t hit soon, I am sure that the zombie apocalypse is coming any time now. I can feel it. I am psychic too. After all, I did accurately predict that no one at VFA would be getting pay increases last fiscal year.