Nonprofit AF

Can we stop assuming that people with corporate or academic backgrounds can run nonprofits and foundations better than nonprofit folks?

Posted on February 25, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: A white sheep sticking their head out of a wire fence. They have an annoyed expression. This is basically what I look like when thinking about how many people who have little to no experience working in nonprofit but who still have significant power on nonprofits. Pixabay.comm]

Recently I learned that a colleague of mine didn’t get a job leading a major organization. It was confusing, since all signs had seemed to indicate she was a good fit. After weeks wondering, she got a you-didn’t-hear-this-from-me from one of the hiring team members that the board had decided to go with someone with a corporate background. Someone who had no experience working in nonprofit was now going to lead a large and influential one, over my colleague who had years of relevant experience.

This happens frequently in our sector among the largest and most influential organizations. Foundations are especially guilty of this. According to this report from CEP that looks at the leadership of the largest 100 foundations in the US:

“Experience as a grantee, if you exclude colleges and universities …. isn’t much valued by foundation boards when they’re searching for a CEO. In 2012 we identified just 14 foundation CEOs with immediate previous experience at an operating nonprofit that wasn’t a college or university. Today, that number is even lower — just 10.”

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Sometimes the best thing we donors can do to advance social justice is to just write the check and get out of the way

Posted on February 18, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: A super adorable little fluffy brown baby bear cub clinging to a tree and looking directly at the camera! Awwww, what a sweet little baby bear! Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. This post will likely be controversial, so grab a bar of dark chocolate, or, if you are in Seattle, a warm cup of hemp milk and some kale chips. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about our philosophy on donor engagement, and I think we need to have a serious discussion. Honestly, I am starting to believe that the way we engage donors, and habits and patterns of thinking we reinforce among ourselves and our donors, are possibly damaging to the work and to communities.

But before we go further, I want to try something different. I often speak from the nonprofit perspective, because I love nonprofit work and I love the people who choose to be in this beautiful and frustrating sector. But I also donate to several organizations; with two small kids, it’s not always as much as I would like, but I still donate. In fact, I am willing to bet that everyone who works in nonprofit also donates to other nonprofits. That means all of us are also donors. So instead of speaking from the nonprofit perspective, for this post I am going to speak from a donor’s perspective. It might be a little weird, but bear with me (here’s a picture of a baby bear for being awesome).

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12 dating tips for nonprofit professionals

Posted on February 11, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: Two red and black ladybugs standing on a leaf, their heads touching. Awwww. It’s about time we featured some bugs on this blog! Image from Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. Valentine’s Day is coming up this week, which means many of us are thinking about love, relationships, and, for some of us, culturally-responsive organizational capacity building strategies. The nonprofit sector is full of amazing individuals. But we all tend to work really hard and focus on others, so love and relationships are often put on the back burner, along with exercise and, for some of us, personal hygiene. If this area is relevant to you, however, make time to focus on it as part of your overall well-being. Here are some #NonprofitDatingTips that may be helpful if you are looking for love (If you’re not, the final season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is now on Netfllix):

Now, some of you may be asking, “Vu, what exactly do you know about dating?” To which I would reply that after being married for a decade, I have no understanding whatsoever of the modern dating scene. However, I do know a lot about nonprofit work, and I am sure dating and nonprofit are very similar:

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Happy Lunar New Year! Here’s your organization’s fortune for the Year of the Pig

Posted on February 4, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: Two very cute and happy-looking piglets playing outside. They are pink with splotches of grey and black. Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. I was going to write a Very Serious Post about something Very Serious, but then realized that this week (beginning February 5^th) is the start of the Lunar New Year, an important celebration in many cultures. This is a time for new beginnings, joy, celebration, and, for some mid-age men, getting drunk on rice wine and passing out onto a plate of sticky rice cake (However, I did apologize and would appreciate it if we all moved on).

Our friends at Fakequity.com wrote an informative article on the Lunar New Year, so this post here delves into your organization’s fortune, as fortunetelling is a custom in some parts of the world for around this time. I did some “thorough research” on the Chinese Zodiac and came up with these “fortunes” for your “organization.” To find out which animal your organization is, go here and enter the date your organization was officially incorporated or signed the MOU with your (first) fiscal sponsor. Then find your org’s fortune below:

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How funder fragility is similar to white fragility and what funders can do about it

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: Two adorable baby chickens, golden fluffy, standing in the dirt in sunlight. Image by Karim Manjra on Unsplash.com]

Hi everyone, if you are in Seattle this Thursday evening (1/31/19), come to RVC’s “Inside the Activist’s Studio” event, where one of our fellows interviews a community leader. This time, we’re featuring the legendary Trish Millines Dziko, co-founder of Technology Access Foundation. Details of the event here.

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At a group convening I attended a while back, we discussed some of the challenges facing leaders of color in the sector, including how 90% of funding still go to white-led organizations, how funders still use a very white lens in what is considered good data and effective programs, how the smallest and most burdensome grants are often the only ones accessible to marginalized-communities-led organizations, how white foundation boards are, the general lack of trust foundations have for nonprofits, and how progressive foundations spend endless amounts of time intellectualizing, which disproportionately harms marginalized communities because they cannot afford to wait months or years for funding decisions.

This was a group of all leaders of color, so it was cathartic and affirming for many attendees to hear that their frustrations were not imagined. As we started talking about potential solutions, though, the group’s conversation and energy quickly took a detour. A foundation program officer, who was of color, started talking about how the foundation she worked for was not like that, how they had been changing, how it felt like we were attacking and “vilifying” foundations, how we needed to not be “divisive,” etc. The previous momentum was cut off as several people in the group in succession started affirming this program officer and reassuring her that she and her foundation were great and helpful and generous and amazing. A conversation on systemic challenges suddenly became about one funder’s feelings.

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