Nonprofit AF

Waiting for the dough: How fear and other existential forces affect the nonprofit sector

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Vu

Hi everyone, the Seahawks lost again, so I chugged two bottles of Ace blackberry pear cider (I don’t really follow football; I just needed a reason to chug some pear cider). Being tipsy makes me philosophical and rambly, so I am not sure how much sense this post is going to make.

At a conference panel I was on a few weeks ago, I brought up the Nonprofit Hunger Games and how the survival mentality has been affecting all of us in the sector. A woman raised her hand and said, “I see what you’re saying, but I’m afraid that if I share information about funders and donors with other nonprofits, I might lose funding.”

It made me realize a couple of things. First, “Nonprofit Hunger Games” would make a great movie:

Katniss: Peeta! What happened to you?!

Peeta: Theory…Theory of Change Swamp…it was brutal…Katniss…you have to win the final grant for District 12…

Katniss: Stop talking, save your strength.

Peeta: It’s better this way. Eventually we’d have to…(cough)…kill each other anyway in the Storytelling round…

Katniss: Here…a sponsor sent in some food…Have some hummus, Peeta…Continue reading →

Why most annual performance reviews suck and how we can make them better

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Vu

I want to begin today’s castle-862700_640 post with a story that is truly terrifying. Don’t read this by yourself in the dark:

“It was a dark autumn afternoon. Jose, a Program Director, walked into his ED’s office for his annual performance review. Jane’s skin looked pale and ashy, as if she hadn’t seen sunlight for years, her eyes were bloodshot, and her hair was stringy and dull like a wet wombat’s fur. This was nothing unusual, thought Jose, since she is an ED after all, and all EDs look like that. But something about Jane was making him uneasy. Her tone was different; it was harder, more businesslike. ‘Jose, this year, you accomplished many things. But you failed to meet expectations in a few key areas. You didn’t, for example, throw an 80’s-themed volunteer appreciation party, and you didn’t build enough partnerships with gluten-free bakeries to secure in-kind snacks for our gluten-free clients. I also called and talked to some of your staff and they said that you never bring cupcakes to the team meetings.’ Jose tried to scream, ‘I didn’t know those were your expectations! How can I meet expectations I never knew I had?! And that feedback probably came from the one disgruntled staff who doesn’t do anything but whine, whom I’ve been trying to coach and mentor before firing and needed your support on but you kept skipping our one-on-one meetings!’ He tried to scream these and many other things, but no sound came out. He left the office that evening, walking into the darkness, feeling like crap, and no one ever saw him again. Unless they were buying or selling a house. For you see, Jose became a real estate agent…”

Spooky, right? I won’t blame you if you have to sleep with the lights on tonight.Continue reading →

World Dance Party, what it is, and why our society needs more of it

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Vu

Hi everyone, I am battling a cold right now. I just swallowed two whole cloves of garlic and a shot of fermented pickle brine and some bourbon. (What, like your natural cold remedy is sooo much better!) All that is to say I am feeling woozy and have no clue how coherent this post will be.

Today, I want to delve into the need for us as a sector to create opportunities for organic community connections. Since I am going to have another baby arriving in March, I have been thinking of what sort of community I want my kids to grow up in, besides obviously one where hover boards are invented and butternut squash is not on every menu. In many ways, my wife and I are incredibly lucky to be surrounded by a really awesome community. When Viet was born two years ago, our friends formed a meal train, delivering food each week so that we didn’t have to cook for a month. Others handed us bags of used baby clothing, books, and toys. With both sets of our parents being so far away, this community of friends and colleagues helped kept us sane through the difficult first few months, when sleeping for more than three consecutive hours was a luxurious and distant memory.

And yet, it seems in general that our society’s sense of community is waning. Neighbors who live next door to one another may barely interact. Heck, I once lived five years sharing an apartment wall with another family and never learned their names. Ironically, the rise of technology has fueled the distancing between people. Why run next door to your neighbors’ to borrow some sugar, when you can turn to an app to get organic gluten-free evaporated cane juice delivered to your place in under two hours? Why bother with small talk with real people when there are endless amusing videos on youtube, like this one, on how to make a unicorn hoodie?Continue reading →

Is your organization or foundation unknowingly setting Capacity Traps?

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Vu

Happy Fall, everyone. Time for pumpkin spice in everything. And butternut squash, which I have never gained a liking for. It’s in or on all sorts of stuff: ravioli, pizza, bread, ice cream. I just don’t get butternut squash!

Anyway, today’s topic. My organization, Rainier Valley Corps, develops the capacity of communities-of-color-led nonprofits by sending in leaders of color whom we train to work full-time at these organizations. Through our work so far, we have been learning some important lessons, many through failures, which I want to share on NWB from time to time.

A huge lesson we have learned, for example, is the importance of providing fair compensation for organizations of color to be involved in research and planning. For some wacky reason, many of us in the field are OK with budgeting for consultants, and then kind of expecting organizations of color to do work for free or little funding, a serious problem I wrote about in “Are you or your org guilty of Trickle-Down Community Engagement?”Continue reading →

Why individual donations strategies often do not work for communities of color

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Vu

Hi everyone, this week is my organization’s first annual fundraising reception, where we formally introduce our Fellows to the community. Doing special events, to be honest, freaks me out, and I have been banned by planning committees in the past from attending meetings. Sheesh, and all because I get stressed out and occasionally go into catatonic states and murmur things like, “Beware…the storm is gathering…registration lines will fill up…time will stop…guests will beat their chests in anguish and despair as volunteers weep in the darkness…beware…”

Anyway, today I want to talk about cultivating individual donors and how it relates to communities of color. Every time that I talk about how arduous grantwriting is, either on this blog or in person, inevitably someone will say something like, “That’s why you should focus on individual donors! Statistically, individual donors provide 72% of the funds for nonprofits! Why, I knew this one org that was struggling, and they decided focus on individual donors, and they were able to save the family farm, and not only that but the ED was asked to pose for the Men of Nonprofit calendar because his stress melted away and he regained his youthful, radiant complexion!”Continue reading →