Nonprofit AF

Let’s support the arts like democracy depends on it—because it does!

Posted on May 27, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: Some stairs with colorful art surrounding them. The steps have bold red letters in Spanish that say “engrandece al mundo. Hazlo bello. Y cuando te hayas ido, deja que la tierra te extraño,” which roughly translates to “Make the world greater. Make it beautiful. And when you’re gone, let the earth miss you.” Photo by Sifan Liu on Unsplash.]

Hi everyone, if you’re free on June 5^th at 10am Pacific Time, my friend and colleague, Ananda Valenzuela, will be leading a FREE virtual workshop called “Exploring Power Dyamics and Principled Accountability.” It’ll be bilingual in English and Spanish. Register here.

Last week, I attended a production of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange, directed by Michelle N. Matlock. If you’re in the Seattle/Tacoma area, check it out; it plays until June 8^th.

Led by an all-women-of-color cast, the interwoven pieces combine poetry, monologues, singing, and dancing, vividly illuminating the challenges women of color—especially Black women—face, while highlighting their strength, joy, and unbreakable spirit. I hadn’t heard of it before and went mainly to support a friend who was one of the performers. I left with a reminder of how powerful and instrumental the arts are for society—especially during these horrible times.

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Resistance Is Working! A Roundup of Recent Wins!

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A dandelion growing out of some dried, cracked mud. Image by klimkin on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, happy AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander) month. If you’re free this Wednesday May 21^st at 9am Pacific Time, here’s a great free virtual panel featuring Asian women entrepreneurs discussing the intersection of business and social justice.

***

I hope you are hanging in there despite the daily bouts of chaos and cruelty. With everything going on, it’s easy and understandable to fall into despair. But we need to remind ourselves that amazing things are happening daily. There are stories of hope, community, and resistance. Good people are fighting back against injustice every day. Here are a few good things that have taken place recently. Thank you to colleagues and to Zann Zsuzsannika (on Facebook), who let me know of them:

Omaha Nebraska has its first Black mayor, as Democratic candidate John Ewing Jr. defeating a transphobic three-term Republican candidate. He won by double digits.
In Montana, 17 Republicans crossed party lines to join Democrats in defeating a horrible Anti-Trans bill that would have criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender youth, including classifying doctors, nurses, and parents as felons.
In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul signs a bill that would force fossil fuel companies to pay for the damage they cause to the environment.
The Supreme Court rules 7-2 against Trump in the Alien Enemies Act case, preventing the administration from deporting Venezuelan nationals with little notice.
A federal judge orders ICE to restore the legal status of the 133 students whose visas they revoked.
Maine Governor Janet Mills, who told Trump she would “see you in court,” successfully sued the administration after it froze funds as punishment for the state not complying with Trump’s orders to ban transgender athletes on girls’ sports teams. And she’s getting an award for it!
Ranked-choice voting is making progress, including in Boston, Multnomah County Oregon, and in Maine.
In Alabama, Trump-appointed federal judges ruled that Alabama’s 2023 congressional map is racially discriminatory and is in violation of both the Voting Rights Act and the 14^th Amendment.
In Seattle, 63% of voters voted to support social housing, despite tech giants spending big money to oppose it.
In Michigan, a judge struck down three of the state’s remaining abortion restrictions, ruling that they are unconstitutional.
In Australia, center-left prime minister Anthony Albanese won reelection over Trump-like Peter Dutton, who also lost his own seat!
That follows Canada, where Trump-like Pierre Poilievre, who had be poised to win as prime minister, also lost that election and lost his own seat.
In Tarrant County, Texas, several right-wing-backed candidates lost elections, including conservative Julie Short, who was defeated by Michael Evans, Mansfield’s first Black mayor. Right-wing Tammy Nakamura got ousted from the school board; she had helped passed a policy to allow schools to ignore kids’ preferred pronouns, even when their parents approved.
In Naples, a judge granted a preliminary injunction against the City when it tried to prohibit drag shows at the Napes Pride Fest.
In Columbus, Ohio, the City is taking a stand in support of local LGBTQ+ youth, unanimously passing an ordinance to provide 100K in funding to Kaleidoscope Youth Center.
Washington State became the first state to pass a law to increase access to hormone therapies, an important protection for trans people.
Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri has been released from ICE detention. He was taken as part of Trump’s targeting of pro-Palestine activists. A US district court judge ordered the Trump administration to release him.
Chicago’s city council passes “Green Social Housing” plan, which will create more affordable housing in the city.
The Episcopal Church takes a stand against racial injustice, calling out the government for its preferential treatment of white Afrikaners from South Africa.
Salt Lake City and Boise leaders, in response to Republicans passing laws to prohibit the Pride flag from being flown on government property, creatively found ways to fly the flags anyway, by redesigning the flags and voting them in as official flags. Brilliant.

I am sure there are plenty more good news. Please list any additional ones I missed in the comment section. Let’s remind ourselves that good people are fighting against cruelty and injustice every day, and are winning!

What the heck is the Overton Window, and how can we use it to advance progressive goals?

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Vu

[A grey, white, and orange kitten, standing at a window, staring outside. Image by g3gg0 on Pixabay]

Hi everyone, before we get started, our friends at the National Council of Nonprofits are sounding the alarm about the Republicans’ proposed tax bill, which the hope to pass by summer. If it passes, it will be very bad for our sector and the people we serve. It includes allowing authority for Trump and his minions to revoke nonprofit status from any organization it doesn’t like, expand taxes on private foundations to make up for tax cuts on the corporations and wealthy individuals, cut funding for Medicaid and SNAP, among other horrible things. Please see NCN’s website for more information and actions we need to be taking. Let’s get ready for this battle.

***

Over the past few months, you’ve probably heard the term Overton Window being tossed around. It’s a term coined by Joseph P. Overton, senior VP of the conservative think tank the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. I recommend this really great 7-minute clip on it, but basically it’s the range of ideas and policies that are politically acceptable to the general population at any given time. For instance, a few decades ago, marriage equality was unthinkable, and even popular Democratic presidents still opposed it. Now, the Window has widened to include LGBTQ rights so it’s not too controversial for politicians, even conservative ones, to say they support it.

I’m bringing it up because the right-wing, under Trump, has been masterful at shifting this Window on a variety of issues, to terrifying results. They propose a steady stream of abhorrent ideas, which then makes less loathsome ones seem reasonable by comparison. For instance, when they talk about sending US citizens to concentration camps in El Salvador without due process, it trains the public to think that sending non-US citizens to these camps without due process less horrifying in comparison (when it absolutely is still very horrifying).

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It’s time for progressives to be arrogant, messy, and unapologetic

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A hyena, which looks kind of like a dog, with golden fur, staring at the camera. This image has nothing to do with the post, except that I think this hyena, using random chance to make decisions, would be more qualified than most of our executive branch. Image by tommileew on Pixabay]

There’s been various articles written on the phenomenon of Imposter Syndrome, such as this one by Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey called “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome” and this one by our colleague Esther Saehyun Lee, titled “You’re not feeling imposter syndrome, you are an imposter: Identity and belonging in nonprofit work.”

I’m glad to see the pushback against the concept of Imposter Syndrome, since it often places the burdens on individuals who are often already marginalized to examine themselves and change their behavior, instead of forcing systems to stop being so inequitable.

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Foundation trustees, help save democracy or get out of the way

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Vu

[Image description: A light-grey bird, standing on a wire, looking to the left with a rather serious expression. Image by balouriarajesh at Pixabay]

Hi everyone, I’m thinking of all my friends and colleagues in Canada, who just achieved a resounding election victory against their version of MAGA; this came after the horrific tragedy over the weekend at the Lapu Lapu Day Festival.

Last week, I gave a keynote at a conference of funders who were mostly awesome and fired up to advance DEI and fight to save democracy. During the Q&A, however, a program officer asked, “How do we make change happen when the people with all the power at our foundations are not in the room?”

By that, of course, he meant foundation board members, aka trustees. This is a dynamic we see across the sector: Foundation staff who get it, who want to do things differently and better, and who leave these gatherings inspired only to be quickly demoralized when they go back to their workplaces and must deal with their foundation trustees, who are often the biggest barriers to progress in our field.

Foundation trustees, if you are reading this, thank you; just the fact that these words somehow reached you is a miracle, as we don’t ever see or hear from many of you. Right now, everything is on fire as the right-wing dismantles every institution keeping democracy and society intact. Nonprofits and foundation are trying to work together to fight this authoritarian regime. You play a vital role. But for you to be effective in that role, there are a few things we need you to understand. These are things your program officers want to tell you but usually can’t due to power dynamics:

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