Nonprofit AF

The subtle racism of expecting people and communities of color to always get along

Posted on July 8, 2019July 8, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: Two seagulls standing on the sand, looking in opposite directions. Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone, before we get into this week’s topic, a quick shout out to colleagues at Momentum Nonprofit Partners in Memphis for taking a stand for equity on their job board by no longer accepting job postings for positions that pay less than $15, and also requiring all postings to disclose salary information. Y’all rock. You make me proud to have spent my high school years in Memphis (Central High! Go Warriors!). Other job boards should consider this.

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Over the past six years, one of my greatest joys is being a father. I love it, even though I have little time to myself, and I have scars on my feet from stray LEGOS, and my diet is 85% leftover food that the kids refuse to eat. And the six-year-old thinks I’m going to die in the next ten years because “you are really old.” But it’s fun and rewarding. However, the kids fight constantly over things. When that happens, a quick resolution is to remove the contested item. Then neither of them has it, and the fight is over, and they hopefully have learned a valuable lesson about sharing and not bothering Daddy when he’s sitting fully clothed in the bathtub chanting “I love being a father, I love being a father.”

Unfortunately, I have been seeing these sort of dynamics happening in the sector, especially around funding. People and communities of color for some reason are expected to always get along, and when there is any sort of tension among us, folks with power and privilege freak out. A Black colleague told me “White people get terrified when two Black people argue in a room. I wonder what they think would happen.” It is especially alarming when funders are involved, because funding is often jeopardized under this paternalistic philosophy of “See, they can’t even get along; we’re not funding them.” Working with organizations led by and serving people of color, I’ve seen this multiple times with different funders who get upset or who roll their eyes and refuse to fund critical work because leaders of color have tension with one another.

People of color, we need to address our own anti-Blackness and how we may be perpetuating injustice

Posted on March 4, 2019March 4, 2019 by Vu

[Image description: A fence on the beach with colorful posts in alternating blue, green, yellow, and red, connected by a single rope at the top of each post. The fence is overlooking a greyish-blue ocean. Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone, this post is going to be serious. I know that Black History was last month, but I am hoping that by running this in March, it serves as a small reminder that we need to have these conversations throughout the year. This post today will talk about how we people of color can consciously and unconsciously perpetuate the injustice we are hoping to address, and how we need to examine our privileges and biases, especially our anti-Blackness.

Honestly, I’ve been a little hesitant to write on this topic. Normally I talk about communities of color and the challenges we face navigating a white-dominant culture. I am hesitant to point out dynamics among communities of color, and I know other leaders of color are too, because oftentimes, people in power look at these types of conversations as a sign of weakness and use them to rationalize things like withholding funding: “If these people can’t even get along with one another, how can we invest in them?” (I’ll address this in a future post tentatively called “The Racism of Expecting Communities of Color to Just Get Along.”)

20 ways majority-white nonprofits can build authentic partnerships with organizations led by communities of color

Posted on August 26, 2018August 29, 2018 by Vu

[Image description: A tiny, very yellow, and extremely fluffy duckling sitting on the ground. It is seriously very fluffy, like it just went down one of those plastic slides and charged itself up into a little yellow ball of static electricity. What does this duckling have to do with this post? Nothing. I was searching for a more relevant picture but ended up distracted by pictures of ducklings. From pixabay.com]

Hi everyone, before we begin today’s topic, please take time to fill out this new survey, which seeks to identify ideas and practices for investing in intersectional racial equity in the nonprofit workforce. It’s part of a larger initiative from our friends at Fund the People. They’ve partnered with the Center for Urban and Racial Equity to help funders and nonprofits “lower barriers and increase support for diverse people to gain entry to nonprofit work, sustain ourselves and advance in nonprofit careers, and ascend to management and leadership.” In particular, they are currently seeking more responses from people of color.

Since they used the Oxford Comma, I think we should help them out. Thanks for taking the survey today. It’s due September 7^th.

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Despite the pervasiveness of the Nonprofit Hunger Games, we nonprofits are way more effective when we work together. However, partnerships can be challenging when there are clearly differences in culture, resources, and power. As someone who works with a lot of leaders and communities of color, I often get asked by thoughtful colleagues who work at majority-white nonprofits how they can support and work with organizations that are led by communities of color without causing inconvenience, or annoyance, or actual harm to those communities.

So here is some general advice, divided into four categories. This list is not comprehensive; please feel free to add to it in the comments. Special thanks to my friend Allison Carney, who also gifted the sector with the term Bizsplaining, for pushing me to write about this and for adding her thoughts. (Also, although this post is focused on partnership with communities-of-color-led nonprofits, it also applies to partnerships with organizations led by marginalized communities, such as communities of disabilities, as our colleague Julie Reiskin points out in the comment section). Continue reading “20 ways majority-white nonprofits can build authentic partnerships with organizations led by communities of color”

Marginalized Communities and the Audacity of Ambition

Posted on March 4, 2018March 5, 2018 by Vu

[Image description: A cute little brown squirrel, sitting up in the grass, staring straight at the camera. This squirrel has nothing to do with the content of this post. Or maybe it is a metaphor. Maybe all of us are this squirrel. Image by Vincent van Zalinge of unsplash.com]

A few years ago, I called up a colleague to ask for his advice on fundraising. It was my organization’s first year, and I was still stealing office supplies from other nonprofits (as we all do during the start-up phase and sometimes years after, am I right?). He is a well-respected leader in the field, and I needed some guidance on getting significant resources for my organization’s mission of developing leaders of color for the sector. What he said, paraphrased here, was one of the most honest and shocking things anyone has ever said to me:

“Well,” he said, “as a white guy who has done this for a while, my advice for you is to be more like a white guy.” I nearly choked on the bar of raspberries dark chocolate I was eating for lunch. “What do you mean?” I asked. Continue reading “Marginalized Communities and the Audacity of Ambition”

Capacity Building 9.1: Give someone a fish, let them focus on carpentry

Posted on October 3, 2016October 5, 2016 by Vu

My organization, Rainier Valley Corps, just finished our first program year (yay!). In case you didn’t know, RVC’s flagship program is a fellowship where we find talented leaders of color, provide them with training and support, and have them work full-time at small, grassroots organizations led by communities of color. The fellows help the organizations build capacity and run programs while gaining critical leadership and nonprofit management skills.

This year, our ten brilliant fellows have:

coordinated protests against unfair labor laws;
furthered the work to create an economic zone that provides employment and entrepreneurial support to people of color;
organized discussions on racial equity and dynamics in light of the national tragedies;
planned and implemented extended-learning programs for low-income youth;
surveyed over 650 parents of color regarding their views and needs on education
wrote successful grant proposals, coordinated board retreats, planned events, managed community centers, did a million other things,
sang a lot of karaoke,
and generally made our community better, safer, and way more awesome

Continue reading “Capacity Building 9.1: Give someone a fish, let them focus on carpentry”