Nonprofit AF

Exploring the fun and frustrations of nonprofit work

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A nonprofit unicorn’s letter to Santa

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Dear Santa,

Some people say that you don’t exist. But I know you do, just like I know that equity and social justice and free food after board meetings exist. I am a nonprofit professional. I get to spend my time making the world better and writing reports. I love my job, but it can be tough. This year, for Christmas, I made a list of things I would like from you, if you think I’ve been nice and not naughty. I know you’re very busy, Santa, with so many people asking stuff from you—you’re technically a nonprofit too!—but even a few of these things below will help me out a lot and will make my work easier.

Things I would love for Christmas:

This sweet carpal tunnel brace! A lot of my work involves writing emails, grants, reports, and emails. This brace would be extremely helpful. If you could spare it, please get the family-size box of carpal tunnel braces so everyone on my team could have one too.

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Can we all just admit there is no such thing as nonprofit sustainability?

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fish-959636_640pdA few weeks ago I called up a program officer of a foundation to discuss my organization’s amazing idea to bring more immigrant and refugee leaders into the nonprofit field. “That’s a great idea,” said the program officer, “but what’s your sustainability plan? We don’t tend to support projects unless we know they will be financially independent in the future.”

“Well,” I said, “I have a great plan for that. Have you heard of teeth tattoo? No? You will! Dental adornment is going to be the latest thing, believe you me. Think about it: the Seahawks logo on your incisors! We will open a teeth tattoo parlor, and it will generate literally billions of dollars, enough to fund the project forever. But we need seed money. So how about 50K from you all?”

All right, I didn’t say that. I waffled something that sounded intelligent—“We are building up our base of individual donors, establishing relationships with local businesses, and using the Synergistic Paradigm Action Matrix in order to find the nexus between our strategies and adaptive advantage”—like a good grantseeker is trained to do.  We talked some more. Then I hung up and unwrapped a bar of dark chocolate and ate it, both me and the chocolate 72% bitter.

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