Author: Vu Le

Hi everyone, I just got back from a whirlwind summer in Japan and Vietnam, where I—and I didn’t think this would happen again for me—fell in love. With not having to work. Long walks on the beach—without answering emails. Deep conversations late into the night—but not about cashflow issues and revenues projections. It was magical; I felt young and alive again.

And now it’s over, and it’s back to the grind. But I’ve never felt so unmotivated before. I don’t want to do anything except snuggle with my kids while watching K-Pop Demon Hunters. Speaking to friends and colleagues, I find everyone seems to be having similar feelings, a sense of being overwhelmed combined with a creeping apathy and general…blah-ness. Ennui.  

And who can blame anyone. Everything seems to be awful and there’s no end in sight. It’s depressing. By that, I mean, like most of us are probably depressed. I’ve been feeling like crap. And the stress has been causing me to have bags under my eyes and break out into acne, so I also look like crap! (Thank goodness my multiplying wrinkles and pallid complexion have been providing distraction).

If you’re feeling—and looking—the same way, you’re not alone, ok? Here are some tips below to help keep you/us motivated. Because I don’t feel like working at all, the quality of this post is uncertain, and I can’t vouch for the validity of any of these tips, so take it with a swig of Pepto:

Remind yourself it’s normal right now to feel terrible: A friend said something that stuck with me. With all the horrific things happening—genocide, fascism, environmental destruction—it would be abnormal to NOT be at least a little depressed. If you’re feeling bad, it means you care. And the more you care, the worse you feel. And look.

Lower your standards and expectations: I used to try to walk 10,000 steps a day. That was very frustrating, because I often couldn’t accomplish it, usually failing by 7,000 steps on average. So, I lowered it to 2,000 steps a day. And voila! That instantaneously made it better. I usually achieve that goal. Sometimes twice, which means I don’t have to get off the couch the next day at all!

Lean into joy: When the world seems to be falling apart, it can seem selfish or irresponsible to enjoy stuff. But joy is not frivolous—it’s fuel we need to continue fighting for a better world. Watch a funny show. Bake cookies. Befriend some raccoons and train them to fingerpaint. Remember that fascists hate joy and humor, and doing stuff fascists hate is always a good use of our time.

Start with one small thing: When we’re overwhelmed, huge tasks can seem very daunting. Pick one a small action that is easy to do and do it. Reply to one email. Call one donor. Put one dirty coffee cup in the sink. Build rapport with one raccoon. Sometimes that’s enough to build momentum. Other times, it’s not. But at least you tried, and trying is half the battle.

Prioritize a few important things: Instead of looking at the zillion things on your to-do list and forcing yourself to slog through them and feeling overwhelmed and then ending up doing nothing, identify the two or three things that are important. There you go. You identified them. That’s a huge success. You can tackle them later. Go celebrate by taking a nap.  

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Hi everyone, I am on a plane bound for Vietnam from Tokyo. A couple of announcements before we get started:

I’m taking my yearly summer break from this blog, so this will be the last post for a while. I’ll be back with a new post on August 19^th.

Also, I’m switching to another platform [not sure which one, after hearing from some of you about how problematic Substack is] when I get back. WordPress has served its purpose, but it’s gotten increasingly frustrating to use, including the several months when it didn’t send out notices of new posts to anyone. Substack hopefully will take care of some of these problems. The old posts will remain here so you can access them anytime. New ones will be published on the new platform. If you subscribed by email, you’ll automatically be transferred over; feel free to unsubscribe later.

I’m still keeping everything free on the new platforms instead of limiting some content to paid subscribers. But thank you in advance to paid subscribers, both on Substack and on Patreon. Your support each month allows me financial security to speak my mind freely without worrying about being canceled and not being able to pay the bills.

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The last few days in Tokyo have been very fulfilling and exactly what I needed. I don’t want to romanticize Japan too much, as I know it has its share of challenges, but it’s just been nice to be in a society where the sense of responsibly to the collective community is so strong. People care for one another and for the environment. On the trains and everywhere there are constant reminders to be thoughtful about children, older adults, and disabled people. Traveling around with two relatively young kids is always challenging, but I don’t remember a time when I’ve felt this relaxed about their safety. It is such a contrast to the US, where each morning I send them off to school and pray there’s no mass shooting.

While here though, I couldn’t help but follow the news back home. The horrifying Supreme Court decisions, such as to limit the courts’ power to block the president’s destructive policies. The upcoming passage of the budget that will destroy safety nets for millions of the most vulnerable people while further enriching billionaires. It seems our work as a sector is cut out for us. I know many of us wish for organizations and movements to be obsolete, that we could “work ourselves out of a job.” That is a long-term vision we must hold on to.

And at the same time, our sector is more relevant than ever. Which means we need to figure out how to sustain ourselves. The last few months have been draining. The battles ahead are going to be difficult, and I see so many of my colleagues totally exhausted mentally and physically. Our sector has always carried more than its fair share–but now it feels like we’re holding everything. Here are a few self-care reminders I find grounding as I also prepare myself for what’s coming:

Use your vacation days: When the world feels like it’s on fire, it may seem indulgent to take time off. But it’s vital we take turns doing it. Taking time off allows us to recharge, build up energy, and clear our minds to be at our most effective.  

Limit your news consumption: It’s been hard to avoid doomscrolling and reading about the myriad horrifying dumpster fire of cruelty and chaos Cheeto and his minions are unleashing. But allow yourself just enough to stay informed, but not enough to ruminate and fall into despair, as that helps no one.

Don’t waste time arguing with trolls: The rise to power of the worst of humanity has emboldened bullies and bigots even further. I’ve fallen into the traps of trying to argue with them about various things. Don’t do that; they want to wear you down. Block them and move on. Save your energy for people who engage in good faith.

Look for art, joy, and humor wherever you can: Watch your favorite shows, go to see a play, visit an art gallery. Being able to see what’s beautiful, joyful, and hilarious in our world is essential for keeping up our spirits. Make space for it and try not to feel guilty when you find yourself having a good time.

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***Vu’s new book, Reimagining Nonprofits and Philanthropy: Unlocking the Full Potential of a Vital and Complex Sector, comes out October 14th. Pre-order your copy***

Hi everyone, I’m on a plane heading to Tokyo. It’s been several hours and I’m tired and grumpy and hallucinating a little, which might affect the tone of this piece. Last week, I had a speaking engagement in Canada. While I was there, the president of the US abruptly left the G7 summit. Apparently to start World War 3 until his boss, Putin, told him to back off.

Before my speech, I was making conversation with a colleague at my table, who brought up a problem she sees with our sector: The term “nonprofit.” This is a common discussion we have from time to time over the years. Why define our sector by something that it’s “not”? It’s so confusing and leads to people thinking things like nonprofits can’t generate income.

Let’s talk about Turning Point USA, an organization founded by right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk. Its mission is to advance conservative politics across college and university campuses, radicalizing students to be more and more right-wing. It’s been so effective that it’s now also working to brainwash high school students.

I bring this up because I can’t imagine the leaders of Turning Point USA, which is also a nonprofit, giving a rat’s ass what this sector calls itself. TPUSA has been raising money. A lot of money. In 2019, its revenues were $28.9 million, and in 2021 it was $55.8 million.

Nonprofits advancing white nationalism and white supremacy don’t care that they’re called nonprofits; they don’t spend any time debating the name of the sector. Their 501c3 status is just that, a formality, a tool they use to advance their (horrifying) agendas.

This is one of the reasons why conservative movements and organizations have been so successful. They don’t waste time or energy on discussions that don’t ultimately serve their goals. If progressive leaders, organizations, and movements want to be as effective, then we need to stop being distracted by rehashed conversations and arguments and just accept some brutally honest answers and move on. Here are some of them:

1.“How do we improve grant processes?”: Every nonprofit should just have one application package, and every funder should get over themselves and just accept it instead of expecting their own snowflake grant application.

2.“Should nonprofits be more like businesses?” Capitalism causes many, if not all, of the problems we’re trying to address, and most for-profits fail within a few years anyway. So no, let’s stop emulating for-profits.

3.“Maybe more nonprofits should engage in social enterprises or turn into B-Corps?”:  Progressive movements and leaders need funding the way Turning Point USA and other conservative nonprofits are funded (with millions of dependable dollars), and it won’t come from forming social enterprises or B-Corps.

4.“Should funders increase payout rates now, or exist in perpetuity in order to address problems in the future?” Increase your payout now. Seriously, we’re on the verge of World War 3, and even if that doesn’t happen, fascism is spreading like wildfire across the world. If you’re even thinking about perpetuity at this moment, you’re in a bubble of privilege-scented delusion.

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Hi everyone. Before we get started on today’s topic, happy Pride! To all my colleagues who are lesbian, gay, (fellow) bisexual, trans, genderfluid, intersex, nonbinary, queer, asexual, questioning, or any combination of the above and other identities, you’re awesome. Thank you for being who you are. Please take time to celebrate you and the joy you bring to this world.

A few months ago, right after the elections, I met with a couple of board members of a progressive family foundation. It was a nice change of pace. In a world where the default is foundations deciding strategies and nonprofits are forced to apply for funding if they aligned, this foundation was trying to figure out how to transfer strategy-setting and decision-making authority to communities most affected by injustice. This is especially important now, when this administration is aiming to inflict as much harm and cruelty as it could to them.

There has been in recent years an increase in discussion about transferring power to those closest to the problems. I think it’s great. I believe that people and communities most affected by injustice, as well as the organizations and movements they lead, have the deepest knowledge and experience of the issues facing them and thus can propose solutions that are most likely to succeed.

That said, we need to acknowledge that decades of conditional support, short-term funding, and paternalism from funders and donors (though #NotAllFunders and #NotAllDonors) have created a pattern of harm that has profoundly shaped the psyche of nonprofit leaders and thus the entire sector. I’m calling it Funder-Inflicted Layered Trauma and Helplessness (FILTH), and it manifests in several ways, including:

Lessened ability to dream and imagine: It is rare to find a funder who will fund exactly what communities ask for. Most fund whatever is in their strategy, which often varies year to year. They fund one year at a time and never fully. They refuse to fund certain things, such as advocacy and political engagement. Over time, nonprofit leaders’ expansive imaginations and bold dreams are set aside for harsh, narrow, “practical” reality.

Fear of asking for what’s needed: The adage in fundraising is that you will hear ten noes for every yes. And the yes usually comes with caveats, such as the funder will only fund 10% of the project, or they’re only paying for certain expenses, or they won’t pay for overhead, or whatever. This trains nonprofits to ask only for what they think funders will fund, not what they know would most help them achieve their goals.

Focus on the short-term: Most progressive-leaning funders give only one-year grants, sometimes three, on very rare and almost miraculous occasions, five. (As opposed to conservative foundations, who give twenty-year grants). So nonprofit leaders adjust accordingly, planning one year at a time, often suppressing long-term thinking without meaning to.

Tendency toward individualism: We talk and joke about the Nonprofit Hunger Games, where organizations compete with one another for resources. This competitiveness is reinforced by funders’ default grant processes, which tend to pit organizations against one another. Even when nonprofits try to collaborate, it’s often not the deep, catalytic partnerships needed to solve entrenched problems.

Aversion to risk and failure: It’s rare to find a progressive-leaning funder who will fund a project that fails to meet its goals. Maybe they might do it for one year, but a second year of failure almost guarantees a severance of support. This trains nonprofit leaders to avoid taking chances and to only propose things they know will likely succeed.  

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Last week, I attended a production of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange, directed by Michelle N. Matlock. If you’re in the Seattle/Tacoma area, check it out; it plays until June 8^th.

Led by an all-women-of-color cast, the interwoven pieces combine poetry, monologues, singing, and dancing, vividly illuminating the challenges women of color—especially Black women—face, while highlighting their strength, joy, and unbreakable spirit. I hadn’t heard of it before and went mainly to support a friend who was one of the performers. I left with a reminder of how powerful and instrumental the arts are for society—especially during these horrible times.  

Since the layout was arena-style, I was able to see the facial expressions of other attendees. An older white couple sat directly across from me. At the start of the production, they sat crossed-armed, stone-faced, like they’d been dragged there against their will. By the time we got to the piece “somebody almost walked away wid alla my stuff,” they had started leaning in. By the end of the show, they even managed one or two slight smiles.

With the continued attacks on DEI, putting on and attending a play focused on women of color felt like an act of resistance. Because it is.

Throughout history, art has been a vital part of fighting injustice, especially during fascist regimes. Art, artists, and arts organizations have always been a line of defense against authoritarianism. Art is a mean of speaking truth to power. It’s been a vital tool to wake people up and mobilize them. For examples:

• Picasso’s Guernica depicted the horrors of war and Franco’s fascism.
• The Brigada Ramona Parra, an collective of artists, painted anti-fascist murals in resistance against Pinochet.
• The Living Theater used experimental and radical performances to critique militarism, capitalism, and state violence across continents.  
• The Studio Museum in Harlem supported Black artists and fought against racism

Even when it’s not explicitly political, art is always doing political work. It reminds us of our humanity. It creates joy and hope and elevates the voices of the marginalized. It breaks isolationism, builds community, and allows us to dream of just and equitable futures. All of that makes fascism harder to sustain.

Which is why this regime has been cutting funding for the arts, significantly reducing the budget of the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts), which in 2024 was just 207M, a pitiful .003% of the federal budget. Defunding the arts by this administration is not neutral; it is an act of political warfare designed to demoralize us all so we can’t fight back as it dismantles democracy.

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There’s been various articles written on the phenomenon of Imposter Syndrome, such as this one by Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey called “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome” and this one by our colleague Esther Saehyun Lee, titled “You’re not feeling imposter syndrome, you are an imposter: Identity and belonging in nonprofit work.”

I’m glad to see the pushback against the concept of Imposter Syndrome, since it often places the burdens on individuals who are often already marginalized to examine themselves and change their behavior, instead of forcing systems to stop being so inequitable.

All that said, over the past couple of decades of doing this work, one pattern I’ve noticed among people in the nonprofit sector is that we’re often full of self-doubt. Even the most brilliant people I know are always stressed out about whether their work is good enough, or if they are qualified to apply for so-and-so job. Heck, even just last week, as I was finishing up my book, I felt a wave of self-doubt washing over me, and I could hear my 12-year-old’s words when he read a novel assigned for his language arts class: “Daddy, this book is mid.”

We need to control this. It’s one thing if we’re just talking about an ED position that people may falsely feel they’re not qualified for, but right now, our sector and world face relentless coordinated attacks. We just don’t have time to spend second-guessing ourselves. It feeds all sorts of bad things, such as learned helplessness, stunted imagination, and toxic intellectualizing, none of which are helpful as we try to save democracy and fight fascism.

Seriously, the past few months should have put an end to all imposter syndrome forever. Look at who’s in charge right now. Some of the most awful people in existence, whose incompetence is only matched by their corruption. We have a president who has been convicted of 34 felonies, has multiple bankruptcies, been impeached twice, who can barely read or string a sentence together. Surrounding him are some of the most profoundly inept people to ever hold public office.

And yet we’re doubting ourselves? I am 100% confident anyone reading this post right now would be a better President or VP or Secretary of Health or State or Education or literally any other cabinet position than the people we currently have.

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Hi everyone, I’m thinking of all my friends and colleagues in Canada, who just achieved a resounding election victory against their version of MAGA; this came after the horrific tragedy over the weekend at the Lapu Lapu Day Festival.

Last week, I gave a keynote at a conference of funders who were mostly awesome and fired up to advance DEI and fight to save democracy. During the Q&A, however, a program officer asked, “How do we make change happen when the people with all the power at our foundations are not in the room?”

By that, of course, he meant foundation board members, aka trustees. This is a dynamic we see across the sector: Foundation staff who get it, who want to do things differently and better, and who leave these gatherings inspired only to be quickly demoralized when they go back to their workplaces and must deal with their foundation trustees, who are often the biggest barriers to progress in our field.

Foundation trustees, if you are reading this, thank you; just the fact that these words somehow reached you is a miracle, as we don’t ever see or hear from many of you. Right now, everything is on fire as the right-wing dismantles every institution keeping democracy and society intact. Nonprofits and foundation are trying to work together to fight this authoritarian regime. You play a vital role. But for you to be effective in that role, there are a few things we need you to understand. These are things your program officers want to tell you but usually can’t due to power dynamics:

1. You are not just stewards of an endowment; you are stewards of justice. Some of you see your primary role as protecting your foundation’s financial assets. But what are those assets for? Your role includes advancing equity and justice, and you must assess whether protecting your foundation’s assets will aid in that or hinder it. Be on the right side of history and understand that your main role is not protecting a bunch of meaningless money, but in protecting people, communities, and humanity.

2. Understand that neutrality is not an option. Staying silent or “nonpartisan” in the face of injustice is a political stance—one that maintains inequity and injustice. If you are preventing your foundation from naming white supremacy, anti-trans bigotry, fascism, and other things we’re fighting, you’re part of the problem. If you refuse to stand up for DEI, you’re part of the problem. We need you to lead your foundation to take strong, courageous stances, or at the very least don’t get in the way of those who do.

3. Give out more money. Now. Decades of foundations’ refusal to spend out money to solve problems in the past or prevent them from spreading led us to where we are. Now, we are in a crisis like we’ve never seen before and we need funding to survive, mobilize, and fight. Your endowments will be completely pointless if democracy falls to dictatorship. You need to move beyond 5%, beyond 6%, or 10%, or 15%. Stop thinking about giving the bare minimum you can get away with, and start thinking about what you are willing to do to save our society.

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Two weeks ago, I met with a colleague who was invited to a convening of funders in Seattle. He reported that the funders present were wringing their hands, unsure of what their foundations should be doing to respond to the rapid dismantling of democracy and the exponential increase in suffering communities are facing.

This week, David Callahan of Inside Philanthropy wrote a post on LinkedIn reporting similar dynamics of tentativeness among funders across the sector. David suggests several possible reasons for the hesitation, including shellshock from the cruelty and chaos unleashed by this administration, as well as funders’ lack of knowledge and confidence as to what strategies would work to counter it. While David and I agree on a lot of things, it’s this last point he makes where we may differ in opinions:

“Third, there’s only so much that funders can or should do to lead. Philanthropy’s main role is to support civil society groups, who rightly should be out front in the pushback to Trump’s actions. If those organizations aren’t coalescing around a set of promising big strategies — and there’s no sign they are — funders have limited options. They can’t bankroll grand new plans to fight MAGA if such plans don’t yet exist.

“Or, as one foundation CEO told me, ‘People keep yelling at us to give out more money, but for what?’”

This is frustrating that some funders still think this way. Because civil society groups and progressive activists HAVE BEEN proposing plans and strategies to push back against the right and advance democracy. FOR LITERAL DECADES! We have asked for more funding for advocacy and lobbying. For capacity building of both c3s and c4 orgs. For increasing political engagement. For doing media and narrative work. For strengthening pipelines of progressive leaders. Funders just refused to fund it in any meaningful level or for an adequate length of time!

I remember 15 years ago begging foundations in Seattle (one of the most well-funded regions in the world) for grants to do voter registration work and being shot down because it didn’t “align” with their “priorities” for that year. Decades of our ideas being rejected have trained many of us to stop approaching funders with strategies we think would work, because we have known, through painful experience, that many funders are mired in toxic intellectualizing, risk-aversion, white moderation, and solutions privilege—things that make most philanthropic leaders unable to mentally register strategies, much less support them.

David proposes, “The top funders in liberal philanthropy should make a pact with grantees: You all work together to devise ambitious new blueprints to save democracy that can plausibly succeed, and we will foot the bill — whatever it costs.”

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Read full article here.

About 15 years ago, I was invited to speak on a panel at a conference run by a large, well-funded national organization whose mission was to represent the entire nonprofit sector. The entry fee for this 3-day conference was $2200, which my org with a budget of $500K couldn’t afford. The panel organizer asked me to apply for a scholarship, which I did, but it wasn’t successful. “Sorry,” I said, “I can’t speak on the panel because my scholarship application got rejected.” She was able to convince the organization to let me in.

Those were three surreal days. I felt like an unwashed peasant who had sneaked into the royal ball. But that dissonance tapered off, and I was disappointed at how a space full of the most powerful nonprofit organizations and leaders were focused on some of the most banal topics possible (“Legal compliance for foundations” “How to lower overhead costs” “The art of keeping donors happy” “Signs someone from a small organization has crashed your conference”). I stuffed my tote bag with as many free swag items and snacks as I could get, consolation prizes for the disillusionment I felt at our sector’s leadership.

It’s been a decade and a half since that conference, and it seems things have not changed very much. These large national organizations are supposed to be the voice for our entire sector but often tend to focus on larger organizations, leaving the smaller, most vulnerable organizations behind. As one colleague puts it:

“If smaller nonprofits and nonprofit associations aren’t invited to the table and given a voice, you will see a deeper divide between the haves and the have nots […] big, well-oiled nonprofit machines and the smaller grassroots orgs who are barely getting by. And impact begins and ends in communities. Those organizations who are embedded in communities already, who have gained the trust of those communities and advocate for those communities every day, are the ones who are and will suffer the most.”

Meanwhile, with everything being on fire right now with nonprofits being attacked by Trump, Republicans, and fascist tech bros, I am hearing a lot of frustration from nonprofits on the frontlines regarding the inactions of these orgs. With a few exceptions—notably the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN), who has been decisive and effective, working with Democracy Forward to immediately sue to stop the executive order that would have frozen federal funds for thousands of organizations, and filing several more lawsuits against the administration since then—most people in our sector have no idea what our handful of national organizations are doing to fight against this regime and advance our sector. As another colleague says:

“[T]hese organizations seem more focused on self-preservation, driven and influenced by the priorities of the most privileged institutions. At a time when courageous leadership is desperately needed, where are they? What are they doing? How are they demonstrating their commitment to equity when they fail to listen to our most under-resourced and vulnerable nonprofits? We don’t need performative solidarity or clueless statements. We need bold action—yesterday. Once again, those with the most to lose are taking the greatest risks—not by choice, but because lives literally depend on it.”

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Hi everyone, I have been keeping quiet about this exciting project I’ve been working on for the past two years, but I’m happy to report it’s finally ready for the limelight! As some of you know, I have a background in theater. Well, OK, I took Drama as an elective in high school, and I have been pulled up on stage at least once during an improv show. This is enough for me to realize I love acting and performing.

So for the past couple of years, I’ve been developing a one-man show and testing it out with small focus groups (usually my friends and family members who couldn’t think of excuses fast enough to get out of it).

And now, with generous sponsorship from the Satterberg Foundation, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits (MCN), and my Patreon community, it’s ready to hit the road this June on a nine-city tour (Seattle, Portland Oregon, Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Asheville, New York, and Toronto).

The four-hour show (with intermission) is called “Please Send Money: A Joyful Yet Soul-Crushing Journey Through Nonprofit and Philanthropy.”

It is a deeply personal but hopefully also universally relatable exploration of what it means to work in this sector, based on a lot of the stuff I’ve been rambling about on this blog. While I can’t reveal everything about the content, as the element of surprise is part of the experience, and there are slight variations from show to show, here are a few things you might see:

“After the Monsoon”: A wistful retelling, using puppets crafted by artisans in Vietnam, of my childhood and the series of events that sparked my passion to make the world better.

“Con Khùng Rồi Hả?!” A conversation between me and my father, where he tries to dissuade me from going down my chosen career path. I do my best to embody his tone and mannerisms.  

“Downward-Facing Budget”: I am a yoga instructor who leads willing audience members in poses named after various nonprofit and philanthropic concepts. Besides the titular pose, there’s the “Mountain (of Emails)” and the “Declining Warrior.”

“Birth and Character Count”: A 17-minute silent segment where I struggle to come out of the “womb,” covered in pennies and strawberry jam, to represent the 9 months it often takes to complete a grant process and receive a decision from a funder.

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