Tag: race

10 measurable New Year’s resolutions your nonprofit or foundation can totally achieve in 2019

Posted on by Vu
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Hi everyone. If this is your first day back from the holiday break, make some coffee and read last week’s pep talk “Welcome back to work, you stunningly brilliant and attractive world-changer, you!” followed by “12 tips to ensure you don’t stab anyone on your first day back from break.” (Tip 9: Take a short walk. To your car. Drive home. Watch Netflix.)

It is 2019, a brand new start! Take a deep breath. What you smell is the aroma of change, of possibility, of hope! Or maybe leftover food or rotting compost that should have been thrown out before the weekend, but I’d like to think it’s the former. As many of us make our personal resolutions to improve ourselves, so should our organizations. Unfortunately, many resolutions fail because they are either too lofty or too nebulous or involve exercise.

Here then are some tangible, relatively straight-forward resolutions all of us, whether we are nonprofits or foundations, should make to ensure that we and our sector have a kickass 2019. They are in no particular order, do not encompass everything we need to do, and I might expand on some of them in future posts: Continue reading “10 measurable New Year’s resolutions your nonprofit or foundation can totally achieve in 2019”

How the concept of effectiveness has screwed nonprofits and the people we serve

Posted on by Vu
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Hi everyone. Before we delve into today’s very serious topic, a quick announcement. January 12th is International Nonprofit Karaoke Throwdown Day! Here’s a blog post I wrote on why staff and boards of different nonprofits need to hang out more. Find a nonprofit or two in your area and challenge them to a #NonprofitKaraokeThrowdown. Here, I even crafted an invitation email for you:

“Hey [org(s)], Nonprofit AF has declared January 12th to be International Nonprofit Karaoke Throwdown Day, so we at [your org] challenge your staff and board to a singing contest. This is It, we’ll be Right Here Waiting for You, and Chances Are, You’re Going Down. Sorry Not Sorry.”

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about effectiveness. Last week, Kathleen Enright, the CEO of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) wrote this thought-provoking article. Here’s an excerpt:

“[The] work to define effectiveness has typically come from white organizations – prominent consulting firms, think tanks, universities, philanthropy and management support organizations. These institutions – and I count GEO among them – have advanced ideas about effectiveness that have unwittingly perpetuated or even exacerbated inequity in the nonprofit sector.”

Continue reading “How the concept of effectiveness has screwed nonprofits and the people we serve”

All right, “color-blind” colleagues, we need to have a talk

Posted on by Vu
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In my work and travels I’ve met some really incredible people doing amazing stuff. Every meeting, every trip restores my faith in our sector, as well as replenishes my office’s supply of pens and chapsticks from various exhibitors at conferences.

But once a while, I encounter people who are “color-blind,” who say things like:

  • “Vu, I love what you say about nonprofits needing to be more inclusive. You know, I have a grown son who has diverse friends. And he has never once referred to his friends by their skin color characteristics. Not once. I think it’s wonderful that he just doesn’t see color.”
  • “XYZ foundation decided to focus on organizations doing work with minorities. That’s great for organizations like yours, but what about the rest of us? I just don’t understand. I just don’t get why we need to keep focusing on race.”
  • “Can we talk about income? We keep talking about race, when really it’s about income. It’s not about race. Poor people are of all colors.”
  • “Why do you keep using the term ‘people of color’? Isn’t that just dividing us further? Where did that term even come from?”
  • “Why does it matter that they [leaders of organizations focused on specific diverse communities] be from those communities? Shouldn’t the most important factor be whether they have the qualifications to run the organization?”
  • “Maybe you should release a statement saying that you prioritize skills and experience above everything. That may help calm people down.” This was said by a board development consultant after I said my organization has been trying to be thoughtful about ensuring we have a diverse board that’s representative of the communities we serve, but that it was complex and we were getting pushback on the fact that though our board is 90% people of color, we still are not representative.

These are just a sample of things I’ve heard, and when I hear them, it makes me sad. So I do what I sometimes do under stress: Listen to the soulful ballads of Kenny Loggins. Especially “Return to Pooh Corner,” which recalls the innocence of childhood, counting bees and chasing clouds with a yellow bear whose nose is stuck in a jar of honey (Kenny Loggins, you sexy mulletted genius, you!). Continue reading “All right, “color-blind” colleagues, we need to have a talk”

Hey, you got a little racism stuck in your teeth.

Posted on by Vu

toothbrush-685326_960_720Recently, there was a news story claiming there’s no evidence that flossing actually does anything. I fell on the ground weeping with joy. Yes, complete exoneration! Take that, you dentists and dental hygienists, with your judgy eyes above your mouth covers. Now, I just need to find a study that says exercise is completely useless, and I can keep lounging on the couch, watching Veep and gnawing on an ear of corn and not feel any guilt. (What, like your Saturday nights are sooooo much more exciting).

But dang it, snopes.com just ran this fact-checking article that says, nope, the study’s methodology is flawed, and we still need to floss. Apparently, dental professionals consider not flossing so damaging that it would be unethical to subject a control group to several years of it, hence the lack of evidence of flossing’s effectiveness. So, back to the sink for all of us. Continue reading “Hey, you got a little racism stuck in your teeth.”