Nonprofit AF

You are awesome, and 2022 is going to be an awesome year!

Posted on January 3, 2022January 3, 2022 by Vu

[Image description: A tan, white, and grey cat sleeping peacefully under a white blanket, their eyes closed in contentment. Image by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash]

Hi everyone. Welcome to 2022! I know the heaviness of this week presses down on us like a weighed blanket filled with mayonnaise and glass shards (This is my first post in a while; the analogies may be a little rough). The holiday break, if you had one, was not long enough, and a lot of it was probably spent arguing with family members and standing in line waiting for covid tests. Those sweet few days of lying snuggled up on the couch watching Ted Lasso or the Wheel of Time or our favorite cheesy movies seem but a distant memory, like the brief romantic flings of our youth, when we too were radiant with joy and Doritos.

Now we have to get back to dealing with emails. So many emails. And to-do lists. Endless. And relentless meetings. Meanwhile, we are still in a worsening pandemic. And the CDC, sponsored by Delta Airlines, basically says that if you have covid, gargle with some warm salt water and get back to capitalism. We’re going to have to put on a brave face and refrain from answering “What are your new year’s resolutions?” with “to make it to March without strangling at least three people in this virtual meeting.”

I love you, nonprofit colleagues. Please give yourselves a break.

Posted on December 13, 2021December 15, 2021 by Vu

[Image description: A bulldog, dressed in a Santa suit and reindeer antlers, lays sleeping, facing the camera. Floor and background are bright red. Image by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash]

Hi everyone, this will be the last post of 2021 (I’ll be back on January 3^rd), and it might be a little more personal and disjointed than other posts, apologies in advance. As the year ends, I try to find time to reflect back on what happened these past 12 months, and what lessons we could glean so that we can improve ourselves and our sector. But I am very tired. I don’t want to learn anything, except maybe that sweat pants and pajama bottoms should be perfectly acceptable to wear to the office from now on.

This year was hell. The last several years were hell. A weird, surreal sort of hell. Amidst this pandemic, I was going through a divorce while supporting loved ones dealing with addiction and various mental health challenges. Rifling through my brain brings random memories, one of me trying to figure out how to help my seven-year-old with his remote math assignment while his four-year-old brother was standing on our porch screaming at strangers, “You’re not wearing your masks! There’s coronavirus! Put your masks on!”

14 things I would tell my younger self if I could go back in time

Posted on December 5, 2021December 6, 2021 by Vu

[Image description: An adorable grey-and-white-striped kitten with huge dark eyes, their head resting on someone’s hand, looking to the left. This is a cute little kitten. They look happy. Image by Manuel Rheinschmidt on Unsplash]

Hi everyone, happy December. I do a lot of speaking, and a question I get asked often is “If you could go back in time to earlier in your career, what would you tell your younger self?” This is when you know that you are getting old, when people ask you this question. It is a badge of hard-earned wisdom. So, here, in no particular order, are a few things I would tell myself, gathered from experience and failures in the field, and from working with much smarter people:

How “strategic philanthropy” has harmed our sector, and why it refuses to die

Posted on November 28, 2021December 1, 2021 by Vu

[Image description: A grey-and-black striped cat, sitting behind a chess board, set with wooden chess pieces, glaring at the camera. The cat looks kind of menacing. Or is that just me? Image by RickJbrown on Pixabay]

Remember that couple that did a gender reveal party earlier this year and ended up starting a wildfire that lasted two months and burned down 22,000 acres? Gender reveals are ridiculous, corny, and harmful. I don’t think aliens are going to give us advanced technology as long as we keep doing inane things like this.

But what does this have to do with anything? We’ll get there. A long time ago, before Omicron, before Delta, before the original variant, I met with a foundation program officer for coffee. “We’re in a process to figure out our strategic funding priorities this year,” they said, “what are your thoughts on this?” I took a long sip of my hot cocoa, trying to figure out how to sound diplomatic. But I have no poker face and probably looked like this cat.

14 things in our sector I’m thankful for

Posted on November 21, 2021November 21, 2021 by Vu

[Image description: A sunflower, facing left, with a blurred background that includes a spot of light that could possibly be the sun. Image by Gary Yost on Unsplash]

Hi everyone, it’s Thanksgiving this week. I know this holiday is fraught for many people, especially Native colleagues, due to the legacy of colonization and stolen Indigenous land. And now, with this Rittenhouse verdict, I don’t even know what to say. I don’t have the energy right now to think about it without spiraling into despair.

There are so many ways the world has been shitty, and these last few years have been some of the shittiest ever. And our sector sometimes helps to maintain this awfulness through its archaic, inequitable practices, which I and others frequently call out.

However, there are also wonderful things happening, big and small, and amazing folks working to make our world better, and we should acknowledge this. It is so easy to see how messed up everything is, that we forget that there is also really great stuff happening. I am particularly prone to this lately, I’ve realized. So here are some things in our sector that I am grateful for, in no order of importance, and definitely not comprehensive: