Author: Vu Le

Last week, I made a reel called “Funders: Stop overthinking how you can help nonprofits right now,” where the message is simple: Nonprofits and people in general just need money. Unrestricted money. Over a long period of time. You want nonprofits to be effective in protecting vulnerable people? MONEY! Want leaders not to burn out while fighting this fascist regime? Want to solve poverty? Give money. Want to help immigrants detained by ICE? Money. MONEY! LOTS OF MONEY!

The reel got nearly 3,000 likes and tons of supportive comments. People are tired of so many funders wanting to be “helpful” but doing anything except increasing the amount of money they’re giving out. Nonprofits do not need more webinars, research papers, listening sessions, statements of support, or whatever non-funding-based solutions funders love to propose. A colleague wrote:

“A foundation in my city just yesterday announced new capacity building programs. I got so excited. And then I read the email. They’re bringing in big-name consulting/technology companies to ‘teach’ all these systems and paying them money but no cash for the participating organizations to implement anything they ‘learn’ (and the products/services that will be pitched to them).”

A few colleagues though, were taken aback at the idea that money is the solution to a lot of problems right now. One seemed almost offended, writing, “This guy thinks corporate solution for anti-corporate world. The mission needs more than money […] MLK didn’t have nonprofit corporate money.”

So let’s talk about this, OK, because it’s vital we’re all on the same page as we continue dealing with entrenched societal problems. First of all, calling me “this guy” is very hurtful. I prefer “this sexy middle-aged man.”

Second, I’ve been railing against capitalism for years. And I’ve been railing against our sector’s role in conscience-laundering for capitalism; through our actions, even well-meaning, we are often complicit in an awful system that allows a few people to exploit others to enrich themselves and hoard their riches, who then use their wealth to perpetuate this shitty system. In an ideal world, we would not have wealth disparity or inequity or injustice, and in fact, most nonprofits would not even have a reason to exist. We should work toward that world.

Because we see how awful capitalism is, it’s understandable that people would recoil at the thought of using money, the symbol and vehicle for capitalism, to solve many of the problems directly caused by capitalism. We often bring up Audre Lorde’s quote “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

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I know all of us have been thinking about the violent authoritarian occupation of Minnesota. Recently federal agents publicly executed Alex Pretti. This comes after the government murdered Renee Good. My friends in Minneapolis tell me of how ICE agents are out terrorizing families. And this nightmare is spreading. An educator friend who works a heavily-immigrant Seattle school told me ICE is coming to Seattle: “If you don’t hear from me for a few days, check the detention centers.”

None of us are safe anymore. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were both US citizens. The government has been detaining and murdering citizens. We can carry our passports, but individual self-protection methods are no guarantees of safety. We need to band together and act as a community.

I am finding hope in the incredible resistance the people of Minnesota have been leading. Thousands marching in below-freezing temperature. Hundreds of businesses closing in protest. It’s inspiring massive anti-ICE rallies in other cities. Meanwhile, neighbors have been supporting one another in all sorts of ways, showing once again that community is what will save us from authoritarianism. If you’d like to help, go to https://www.standwithminnesota.com/ There you can donate and take other actions like sending an encouraging message to people on the ground.

Amidst all this, there are a few amazing foundations, donor networks, and individual donors who are doing incredible things in supporting the resistance. But from most funders, it’s been the same ho-hum tepid response, if they have a response at all. As my friend and colleague from Minneapolis, Kevin Vollmers, points out in this great piece titled “The Funders Have Forgotten Their Role”:

“Many within the funding side of our philanthropic community have forgotten the responsibility inherent in their roles. It is a fact. Many institutions and individuals have more resources now than they did last year. Their investments and endowments are doing just fine. However, institutional funding and individual donations are down.”

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Hi everyone, if you’re not busy on Saturday January 31^st, at 9am Pacific Time, please join me in a FREE virtual conversation, “Leading the Work Without Losing Yourself: A Conversation for Nonprofit Practitioners,” where the awesome Kimberly O’Neil and I discuss how everyone in our sector is holding up during this moment, how we gather strength to keep going when everything is so heavy and we’re all so tired and need naps all the time. Please register here.

Also, if you’re available on Wednesday February 25^th at 10am Pacific Time, I’m finally having a virtual book launch. It should be fun, and there will be giveaways, and I know everyone will want a T-shirt that says “I am a pita wedge for the hummus of justice.” Register for that here. Come to both events if you can.

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I hope everyone had a good MLK Jr. Day. I’ve seen lots of comments and quotes the past few days. But, just because the holiday is over, doesn’t mean we should stop reflecting on his teachings.

Dr. King has been a significant beacon for our sector, and for anyone in general who wants to help advance equity and justice in the world. For the past several years, I’ve written about what I think is his most important lesson for us, which is about white moderation. You can read about it in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which should be required reading for everyone in this sector.

To summarize, Dr. King warned that the biggest threats to justice are not the overt racists and bigots, but the “nice” and “civil” people constantly calling for everyone to get along and “meet in the middle” and not ruffle feathers and be practical. I’ve spelled what I think some of these things look like in our sector, in this piece called “Have nonprofit and philanthropy become and white moderate that Dr. King warned us about?” as well as “21 signs you and your organization may be the white moderate Dr. King warned about.” Please check them out, as unfortunately, many people are still exhibiting many of those signs.

But those are not comprehensive lists. I think it will be great if we map out and categorize all the ways that white moderation manifests. Doing so will help us identify when we’re engaged in white moderation, and help us find ways to mitigate it. I’m going to call this project the White Moderation Genome Project (WMGP). After years of thinking and writing about this, and leaning on Dr. King’s writings, here’s what I have so far:

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Hey everyone, thanks to the recommendation/threats of several colleagues, I finished watching Heated Rivalry, a smoldering Canadian show about gay/bi hockey players. When everything is so awful in the world, it’s nice we can find some reprieve in stories of love, romance, and community. And softcore smut (Do NOT watch this show with your family).

While watching it though, I thought about what it would be like if instead of being set in the world of hockey, the show were set in our sector. And since I am too unmotivated to do real work today, I started working on the script. Here’s some excerpts from it:  

Episode 1:  

Shane: Hi, are you Ilya Rozanov?

Ilya (drags on his cigarette; blows some smoke): Who’s asking?

Shane: I’m Shane Hollander. I run a homelessness advocacy organization. We’re applying for this grant from your corporation’s CSR funds. Thanks for putting on this information session.

Ilya (looks at him blankly): You’re advocating for homelessness?

Shane: No, I mean, we’re advocating for policies that would help—

Ilya: I know what you mean, Hollander. Good luck on application. (Leaves)

(Hayden, Shane’s development director, arrives)

Hayden: Was that Ilya Rozanov walking by?

Shane: Yeah

Hayden: You told him about our org, eh?

Shane: Yeah. The guy’s an asshole, though.

Hayden: Don’t let it get to you. Come back inside. There’s poutine for lunch.

(9 months later)

Shane: Nice running into you at this conference. I just got news that my organization got a grant from your team. So I wanted to say thanks.

Ilya: Hollander, you don’t need to fawn over me like baby deer. I was not on grant decision team. Are you always this boring?

Shane: Are you always such an asshole? I was just saying thanks. And I’m not always this boring. I’m in a curling league. We placed second in regionals–

Ilya: 1039

Shane: What?

Ilya: My hotel room number. I might be there after the reception. If you’re not boring, you’ll be there.

Shane: Maybe I won’t be “boring” tonight.

Ilya: Maybe I won’t be bored.

(later that evening)

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Hi everyone, I normally post on Tuesdays, but I know many people are getting back to work today, so I thought I would send some words of encouragement. And those words are:

“OMG everything is crappy and I feel like crap and I don’t want to write this blog I really just want to finish watching Heated Rivalry the Canadian show about sexy smoldering gay hockey players and not have to think about the uncontained dumpster fire that is end-stage capitalism and imperialism ugh I’m not sure I can make it through today much less this entire week and if anyone asks me about my resolutions this year I’m going to lose it I’m just gonna be curled up in the fetal position on my couch stuffing my face with leftover holiday chocolate!”

This is one of the worst weeks ever. It’s usually cold and dark (Southern Hemisphere colleagues, don’t rub it in!), and all the good cheer from the holidays is gone, and now we are confronted with cold, hard reality. We all look as haggard and depleted and droopy and frayed at the edges as the office plants some people forgot to take home before they went on break.

Anyway, if you’re feeling like crap, you’re in good company. Take it easy on yourself. Here are a few reminders I hope will be helpful as you navigate today, the rest of this week, and the rest of 2026. They’re all things I or others have said before, but it’s good to hear them again, especially during times like these:

You are amazing and so brilliant and cool: People in our sector are usually so humble. But to do this work, with all its challenges and shenanigans, requires an extreme level of creativity and ingenuity that the rest of the world takes for granted, and most of us also don’t take enough time to acknowledge. You are smart and talented, and the fact that you’re using your brilliance to help make people’s lives better, our community stronger, and the world more just—makes you super cool! Look in the mirror the next time you’re in the bathroom and take a moment to appreciate how awesome you are.

Your work makes a greater impact than you may ever know: I think a lot of the “blah” feeling many of us experience around this time is a result of wondering if anything we do makes any difference in the grand scheme of things, or if it’s all just an existential hamster wheel. Your work transforms lives and strengthens community. It’s just that oftentimes, the people you help may not have the time or language or emotional capacity at the moment to let you know. The work you do is like going skinny-dipping on a moonless night: You create significant ripples, even if you don’t see them and may never.  

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Hi everyone, this will be the last post for this year. I’ll be back on January 6^th.

My older son, Viet, loves holiday music, and often asks for it to be played when I drive the kids to various places. The kids would ask me various questions about the songs, and I try my best to answer: “Yes, The Little Drummer Boy, too, is an indictment of capitalism and US hegemony.”

The other day, a song came on I hadn’t heard in a while. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by a group called Band Aid, which was an effort by several super stars—George Michael, Boy George, Sting, Bono, and the like—to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia and other African countries. Here are some of the lyrics:

But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmastime
It’s hard, but when you’re having fun

There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing
Is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the clanging chimes of doom
Well, tonight, thank God it’s them
Instead of you
And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime
The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life (Oh)
Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow
Do they know it’s Christmastime at all? (Oh)

Here’s to you, raise a glass for everyone
Here’s to them underneath that burning sun
Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?

Yikes. The fact that they still play this song today on the radio is embarrassing, considering the blatant poverty porn combined with the white saviorism of the whole thing. (Also, the line “the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears” contradicts Toto’s “Africa,” which expressly mentions the “rains down in Africa.”)  

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was released in 1984, so 41 years ago. Poverty porn, othering, and white saviorism continue to plague our sector. Just a couple of years ago I was arguing with a colleague over whether it was ok to depict sad, starving children in annual appeals. “If it works to raise money,” she said, “then why not?”

However, these things are not always so obvious. Over the past several decades they have changed in how they manifest. As our culture and technology evolve, we need to be on the lookout. For instance:

Influencers are doing charitable work to generate likes and subscriptions and brainwashing a whole new generation of kids. I had to have a discussion with my 9-year-old on the complexity around his favorite Youtuber giving money to help poor people with critical surgeries and racking up views. He thought it was great and didn’t consider the systemic inequities around our healthcare system.

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“Take it easy in this capitalist hellscape.” That’s the last line that Alice sent me. We had been exchanging emails, as I had quoted her in my new book and wanted to make sure she was OK with it. I asked how she was doing. “I’m hanging in there despite the fascist fuckery,” she told me. I made a mental note to reach out next time I was in the Bay Area. Though we had never met in person, I just knew we would be BFFs.

Alice died on November 14^th this year at the age of 51, and our sector and world lost one of its brightest lights. Among her many accomplishments, she founded the Disability Visibility Project; advocated fiercely for disabled people; was a brilliant and prolific writer; spoke up for Palestine and raised millions to help Palestinians; received a “genius” fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation; and advised the Obama administration on disability policy.

Alice was a force whose work and existence made all our lives better. I learned so much from Alice and her writings and work and who she was as a person. Here are just a few lessons I’ll be carrying forward:

See and treat marginalized people as full and complex human beings: Alice was a fierce advocate for disabled people and disability rights. And she was also deeply human and hilarious. She loved food. She cussed a lot. Society often puts people who are most affected by injustice on pedestals, treat them like fragile baby birds, or define them only by the oppression they face. But we are more than that. We, like other human beings, deserve to be fully human, which means being allowed to be messy, to make mistakes, on occasion to be grumpy and annoyed, like everyone else. I always cracked up reading her email auto-response: “If you are pitching yourself or someone to be on my podcast, you failed. My podcast ended several years ago and if you actually listened to it or did some minimal research, you would know.”

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Hi everyone, there is an economic blackout from 11/28 to 12/5 in protest of fascism and corporate greed, so please avoid spending money on those days, as well as avoid streaming services, social media, and AI stuff as much as you can. If you need to buy something, support local small businesses and pay in cash if you can.

This week is Thanksgiving, a day full of misconceptions and steeped in anti-Indigeneity, even by well-meaning colleagues. I highly encourage everyone read this article “In a season of rampant anti-Indigeneity, here are some things you should and shouldn’t do to be pro-Indigenous” by Chris Talbot, and then donate to Indigenous organizations, movements, and individuals.

While we’re on the topic of gratitude, every once a while I hear about people preaching about the importance of having an “attitude of gratitude.” Fundraisers will talk about it in the context of always showing appreciation to donors and funders. Leaders will mention it in terms of staff happiness and retention. Self-care experts will tout it as a way to avoid burnout. Gratitude is great and an appreciative approach has been shown to be effective in all sorts of way, so what sort of ugly, no-good, two-bit, ornery curmudgeon would be against it?

That’s where I come in!

OK, fine, I’m not against gratitude necessarily. I like getting thank-you notes and texts, and I often write them to people, sometimes to thank them for the lovely thank-you note they sent me. And I like starting and ending my day thinking of things I’m thankful for.

But like with everything else, oftentimes people advocate for things (especially things that rhyme and are catchy), without really considering the dynamics around them. I don’t like the concept of attitude of gratitude because there’s all sorts of problems with it, including:

It is often one-sided. Who is expected to be grateful? In our sector, it’s usually the people who need money to do stuff being expected to constantly be appreciative of those who have money. Except for employers being encouraged to be grateful to their team, I rarely see encouragement of those who have more power and resources to be appreciative of those who have less.

It allows for injustice to be glossed over. Training some people to always be grateful and others to always expect to be thanked means we often pave over deeper and more uncomfortable conversations about wealth hoarding, tax avoidance, stolen Indigenous land, worker exploitation, colonization, slavery, genocide, and other forms of injustice that make our work necessary in the first place.  

It reinforces notions and feelings around “dependency.” We have a deeply embedded idea in the sector that nonprofits shouldn’t be “dependent” on funders and donors, manifesting in inane questions like “how will you sustain this program what this grant/donation runs out?” The attitude of gratitude just further entrenches this ridiculous idea.

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Hi everyone, I am on a plane heading to New York to speak at the Nonprofit New York conference, and Wi-Fi is very spotty, so apologies for the poor grammar and coherence.

If you’re free next week, join me and podcast co-hosts Monique Curry-Mims and Valerie Johnson for a live recording of the Philanthropy podcast. Register here.

The past few months (years) we have all been inundated with terrible news about awful things happening all over the world. While we should continue paying attention to them and act when we can, it’s important to acknowledge that awesome things are also taking place.

Here are some hopeful and inspiring things below, in no particular order. A lot of this is from Instagram, news sites, and Buzzfeed.

·       Last week, the US experienced a blue wave in our elections, which was a welcome and much-needed bit of hope for many of us. Among the left’s victories, Zohran Mamdani scored a decisive victory to become New York’s 111^th mayor, beating back not just the right wing, but moderate democrats, and showing that being unapologetically progressive is a winning formula.

. California passed Proposition 50, which allows Democrats to temporary redraw congressional districts to favor Democrats, and this will significantly help balance out the GOP’s attempt to keep power during the midterms through redrawing districts in Texas to get more Republican House representatives.

·       Supreme Court denies revisiting decision on marriage equality. Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis refused to do her job of issuing marriage licenses to gay couple, claiming it was against her religion. Her case risked jeopardizing SCOTUS’s decision that legalized same-sex marriage. By not hearing the case, that decision stands.

·       Montana may have found a way for states to curb the effect of Citizens United, a destructive SCOTUS ruling that allowed corporations unfettered power to buy elections.

·       Costa Rica runs on almost 100% renewable energy! Meanwhile Scotland in 2022 generated 113% of its electricity demands through wind power; its renewable energy sector sustains more than 42,000 jobs.

·       Bus drivers in Okayama Japan have gone on strike. They are still working and driving their routes, but they won’t be accepting payment from passengers! Brilliant!

·       Trump is going to UK, where he will be welcomed by a gigantic picture of him with Epstein. Truly, it is a big, big picture, yuge. Thank you, UK activists.

·       Burkina Faso has made tremendous progress fighting desertification. It’s Great Green Wall project has created 4 million hectares of forest since 2022. This helps significantly with famines and other problems created by the land drying out.

·       The ozone layer is healing and might fully recover, thanks to policies that help decrease the use of chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFSs). Heck, scientists think in 10 or 20 years, it may heal completely.

·       The Ocean Cleanup has been tackling the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean by removing plastic and intercepting it before it reaches the ocean. It estimates that with enough support, 90% of plastic floating in the ocean can be removed by 2040.

·       Women rule in Namibia! Namibia becomes the first country where top government positions are held by women: Its president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, VP Lucia Witbooi, speaker of national assembly Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, and secretary general of the ruling party, are all women. 57% of the country’s cabinet is women.

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