Author: Vu Le

Since October 17^th, when I published my first blog post talking about IsraeI and PaIestine, I have received many, many comments, emails, texts, and private messages on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook from many of you, expressing sadness and disappointment in my words. Over the next several months, I doubled down, condemning Israel’s relentless slaughter of untold children and civilians. I encouraged actions such as contacting elected officials and demanding they support a permanent ceasefire. I called for us in this sector to support an end to Israel’s settler colonial occupation and apartheid regime, and for a Free Palestine.

So many of you tried to reach me to help me see the errors of my ways. I appreciate the thoughtful funder who called my friend and asked him to relay the message to me that I had offended the “entire Jewish community” in his city by mentioning in a different keynote about how we in the US have been funding g3nocide with our tax dollars and are complicit in IsraeI’s continuing massacre of PaIestinian civilians including over 15,000 children and the injuries of thousands more, and we must as a sector publicly acknowledge it and do everything we can to stop it.

But I have been so stubborn and dismissed the dozens of messages you’ve sent me. At my last presentation, one colleague told the event organizer how disappointed they were that I condemned g3nocide but did not even once call for the release of hostages. And then, when made aware of how upset this colleague was, I further hurt their feelings by calling for the release of ALL hostages: the ones held by H@mas, as well as the nearly 10,000 PaIestinians held by IsraeI, including hundreds of children.

I finally saw the light when a colleague who, upon hearing my words on a virtual panel on reimagining our sector, wrote this message on the evaluation form:

“I am offended by the tone and potential impact of frequent references Vu Le made to US money to support IsraeI[‘s g3nocide of PaIestinians] during today’s closing keynote about overhauling the nonprofit sector. I am neither IsraeIi nor Jewish, and I’m not an expert on the war or politics. I have no credentials upon which to speak out against his comments, but I feel a responsibility to log my dissent, because I keep thinking how terribly hurtful his comments likely were to a community of people who are suffering. Is there a more appropriate forum for me to provide additional context to my concerns?”

It has been eight months now, and I will understand if this is too little too late, but I would like to apologize for my hurtful words and actions. First, to the colleague above and so many others, I am very sorry for my tone. I have been angry and sad, and that made me forget the even in speaking out against injustice, we must try not to offend people’s delicate sensibilities. I now realize that sounding angry when calling out IsraeI’s bombing of refugee camps, hospitals, schools, and mosques, and murdering PaIestinian civilians nonstop with US tax money and weapons, is just as bad as doing the above things. I am so sorry for upsetting you with my brusque tone of voice.

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Hi everyone, a couple of things before we get started: If you’re free on June 27^th at 10am Pacific Time, please join me and Common Future’s Co-CEO Jennifer Njuguna in a conversation where we discuss our sector’s propensity for fear and risk-aversion, especially in light the pushback against DEI, and what we need to do about it. It’s free, and auto-captions will be enabled. Register here.

Also, around the summer solstice, June 20^th this year, is when folks in our sector host PEEP (Party to Enhance Equity in Philanthropy) events, where funders and nonprofit leaders can get together in casual, no-agenda settings just to chat and see one another as human beings. Let folks know in the comments if you’re planning to have one.

The past few years have been eventful, and by that, I mean brutal and horrifying. And I am surprised by how all of us continue to follow the same rules of professionalism we were used to following. A colleague, for example, wrote on LinkedIn about the importance of “writing handwritten thank-you notes after job interviews”!

Oh heck no, HWTYN after job interviews are out! With the pandemic, the fecklessness of our political leaders, and the cumulative effects of late-state capitalism leading to the collapse of society, I think we need to agree to some new rules of workplace professionalism if we are all expected to carry on doing our work. Here are a few I’ve thought of. Add yours below:

1.Pajamas are acceptable for work. Remember when all of us would dress up from the waste up in business casual, and then wear pajama pants because no one could see what we’re wearing on our bottom half on Zoom meetings? Well, time to go all-out and commit! Why shouldn’t we be comfortable all the time when working? Who says my Cookie Monster jammies are unprofessional when leading a staff meeting or meeting a major donor? While we’re on this topic, unbrushed hair, lack of makeup, and a general haunted visage, are now acceptable.

2.Crying breaks should be standard: Society tells us it’s unprofessional to be overcome with emotions and break down crying or beat our chest in despair or slide dramatically down the door inside the supply closet. But everything is all too much. I think we should each be allowed time to cry in despair. Kind of like how smokers have their smoke breaks, and no seems to have a problem with it. And crying is way healthier than smoking!

3.Cussing is a professional skill to be honed: You know they did experiments to see whether cussing helps with pain tolerance. They had people stick their hands in buckets of ice water, which becomes very painful after a few seconds, to see how long they can last. The people who were encouraged to cuss were able to endure the pain longer. So there you have it, there’s science behind the positive effects of cussing. Just try not to cuss AT people, especially clients or donors. Unless they deserve it.

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A while ago, at the request of some colleagues, I talked about “Nonprofit Math” and created a little video that went viral. One of the examples I brought up was “paying your staff so little that they qualify for the services your organization is providing.” That line got a lot of chuckles.

It’s so great how we can laugh at ourselves! One of my favorite pieces of humor is an Onion article called “Nonprofit Fights Poverty with Poverty.”

But OK, a lot of humor is rooted in at least some fraction of truth, and it’s time we confront this one. Although the idea that some people are paid so little they could qualify to be a client for their own or another nonprofit’s programs seems ridiculous, the reality is that it does happen. And probably with more frequency than we realize. Last week, a friend of mine who lives in a very expensive area of the US texted me this:

“Let’s talk about nonprofits that don’t pay a living wage. My current survival job pays me $27.50 an hour (their original job offer was lower, and the top of the range is $28) as a career coach in a program for finding people employment at a living wage. I qualify to be in that program because if you make under $35 an hour, you qualify as low-income enough to get into this program. The MIT living wage calculator says a living wage in this county is anything over $28. Irony! I coach people to go on and make more money than I make as their coach!”

Here’s the kicker. “The mission of this organization is to end poverty!” Yikes!

In this sector, there are so many things I realize we just take as a par for the course; we accept them with a “when in Rome” attitude: “When in nonprofit, do what nonprofits do: pay everyone as little as possible.”

Besides low wages, there are other things. Poor benefits. Six dollars per person per year for professional development. Lack of any sort of retirement benefits. Chairs that are duct-taped together. A gift card to Ross Dress for Less as a Christmas bonus.

But this is just not tenable. We can’t keep accepting all of this as normal. Not when there’s more and more reports of nonprofits being unable to recruit and retain people, with vacancies often lasting for months, and fewer people wanting to lead nonprofits. It affects the entire sector. So many brilliant colleagues I’ve known over the years have left the field, taking their talents with them.

It’s time we get serious about this, and tackle it at the org, sector, and societal level:

At the organizational level:

• Assess your current wages: Do an audit of your existing wages and see if they meet your area’s level for living wage and if any of your staff qualify for your low-income programs. And remember that your area’s living wage is the floor, not the ceiling. You should aim to surpass it.
• Prioritize fair compensation: I remember being an executive director having to craft a budget. We are trained to be scrappy and it’s reflected most painfully in the wages. Don’t just make up numbers. Use the local wage surveys, and aim for at least the median for your area. Have a plan, if you don’t already, to meet and exceed the local averages over the next two years.
• Analyze the disparity in wages: Although Eds/CEOs and other senior leaders are also underpaid compared to their counterparts in other sectors, especially for-profit, it is still disconcerting when senior leaders make significantly more than other staff. Think about having a ratio of some sort, where the highest paid full-time staff cannot earn more than x times the lowest-paid full-time staff.
• Align with your principles and values: It’s ironic, as my friend says above, that her organization has the mission to end poverty while paying their staff poverty-level wages. That is a complete misalignment of mission, values, and practice. Go through your values and discuss whether your compensation practices live up to them. Use your values to develop some philosophies around compensation at your org.
• Be honest with funders and donors: We need to tell the full story when it comes to what is needed to compensate staff fairly. The full story is reflected in a budget that accurately captures what the org needs to be successful. It’s also important to be vocal to your funders, donors, and partners about your compensation philosophies. The more nonprofits they hear are trying to pay living wages, the more the messages will sink in and the more supportive they will be.

For funders:

• Encourage grantees to pay living wages: Nonprofit leaders have been trained to put together scrappy, bare-bones budgets. And some funders seem not just ok with that, but to encourage it by giving funding and attention to those orgs that prove themselves to be “scrappy” or efficient or whatever. Knock that off. Encourage nonprofits to pay their staff fairly.
• Give out more money and immediately: Increase your payout rate and give out more money. At the very least, increase your grants to match inflation, since the money you granted out several years ago is worth significantly less.

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Hi everyone, if you’re interested in being involved with the Crappy Funding Practices movement, please join a special meeting we’re hosting on May 14^th at 10am Pacific Time, where we’ll update you on what’s been going on, and present the different options for you to plug into. Register here. See you then!

A few years ago, I was in Oxford, speaking on a panel at a conference with colleague Jessamyn Shams-Lau, who is the lead author of Unicorns Unite: How Nonprofits and Foundations Can Build Epic Partnerships; we were there to promote the book and discuss how nonprofit leaders and funders could work more effectively together. during the Q&A, a program officer pushed back, hinting that we panelists were unfairly critical of funders, and declaring that giving out funds is just as difficult seeking it. Several funders in room, and a few nonprofit leaders, nodded in agreement.

At another time, in Seattle, a funder said to me “Vu, one day you’ll work for a foundation; I predict you’ll see how challenging it is to make grants. It’s just as difficult as applying for them.” Work for a foundation? I am tempted by the prospect of access to unlimited pistachios, La Croix, and dry-erase markers—trust me, I’ve been to some of y’all’s offices—though at this point, I am not sure any foundation in its right mind would hire me.

If we repeat things often enough, we start to believe them to be true, even when they are not. For example, we say things like “80% of philanthropic dollars come from individual donors” (False!) or “general operating dollars means no accountability” (Ridiculous!) or “you can’t thank someone too much!” (You absolutely can!) or “unlike his online persona, Vu is really awkward in-person; do not invite him to your house parties, he will stand in the corner and rant at your guests about Donor-Advised Funds” (True, but hurtful!)

Over the years, it seems the sentiment “Giving out money is just as difficult as applying for grants” has been proliferated and the sentiment internalized among many funders and even nonprofit leaders, and like many of the philosophies we take for granted, has been very annoying and displays a lack of awareness of privilege and power dynamics and negatively harms the work.

Before my foundation colleagues pelt me with pistachio shells, I am not saying that grantmaking is a piece of cake. I see how hard some of you work. Foundation staff also face burnout, especially those who are trying to do their work thoughtfully and with an equity lens in mind. And there are challenges you’re dealing with that many nonprofit leaders may not encounter with the same frequency, such as appealing to the egos of family members who sit on the board of trustees and who may have the content knowledge and temperament of toddlers.

However, it is disingenuous to say that giving out money is just as hard as seeking it. Unless you’re at a foundation that must annually raise money to give out, funders probably don’t wake up in cold sweat, worrying about whether the next payroll can be run. You probably don’t have as many panic attacks regarding having to lay off one or more of your team members if fundraising goals are not being met. You’re probably not constantly in survival mode because you have few guarantees on which, if any, of your sources of revenues will renew next year. You’re probably not duct-taping your chairs and using computers that are still running on Windows 95. You’re probably not forced to bite your tongue as frequently for fear of having funding rescinded that would jeopardize entire programs and staff teams. At least, not as much as nonprofits.

It is these fear, instability, uncertainty, and power imbalance that make working at a nonprofit difficult. Funders, especially the ones with endowments, don’t have to deal with these things with the same degree of frequency or intensity. Plus, foundation staff are on average better compensated, including having better benefits such as paid-time-off and retirement contributions.

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Hi everyone, I am writing from Nairobi Kenya, where I am listening to local leaders and engaging in reflections about global aid and the many challenges around it. It has been nice to physically avoid the dumpster fire that is much of US politics, especially over the past few months as most of our politicians have been offering their full-throated support of Israel’s gen0cide of Palestinians. I’ve also been disappointed with our sector, where, with a few courageous exceptions, we’ve mostly been silent as Israel massacres thousands of children and civilians using our tax dollars.

To be honest, I think I’ve reached a point now where I am starting to lose faith in our unicorn magic, and I’m more bitter and jaded and have been randomly mumbling under my breath about the hopelessness and futility of it all. I’ve become an old man yelling at clouds. Is our sector effective? Surely, with so many kind, compassionate, justice-minded individuals in the trenches, we must be. Everywhere there are signs of good, vital work being done.

So why does it always still feel so Sisyphean? Why do we keep having the same conversations, the same challenges, the same grumblings when we get together and can speak our minds freely?

• “My organization still does poverty tours where we bring wealthy donors to gawk at our clients”
• “Our food pantry is celebrating our 50^th anniversary, but I really wish we’d just solve poverty and go out of business already”
• “Foreign NGOs have been causing destruction to local communities by forcing their agendas while ignoring the political contexts that allow poverty and injustice to proliferate in the first place”
• “This asshole foundation requires a 12-page narrative and 8 attachments including a bespoke budget (in Word!) for a one-year $10,000 grant that can’t be spent on staff wages!”

These are the same complaints grumblings I heard two decades ago. I’m sure those who have even more experience have heard them for longer. At what point are we just all sick of all of this? At what point does the dam finally break and we ride at dawn or whatever? I would like to ride at dawn!

I see the students forming encampments to protest gen0cide and demand their universities divest from supporting Israel, and it brings me hope. These protests are spreading all over the world. Our sector should be taking cues from these courageous actions.

Instead, we’re in a rut. Our sector is in a rut. A quick search online reveals that a rut is “a long, deep track made by the repeated passage of the wheels of vehicles” and “a habit or pattern of behaviour that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change.”

That feels like where we are, and where we have been. The wagon we’re on has been going back and forth on the same road so frequently that it’s made some deep grooves and the wheels are kind of stuck there on that track, and now it’s extremely hard to change direction. We’re so used to the same strategies, the same behaviors, the same challenges, the same thinking, the same solutions.

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Hi everyone. It’s been four years since I left being a nonprofit executive director and became “Financially Untethered” (FU), and let me tell you, it’s been amazing. I sleep better, no longer waking up in the middle of the night, whimpering “I hope we can make payroll, I hope we can make payroll.” The involuntary twitch in my left eye is still there, but it’s gradually devolving into a sly wink. And I have started reverse-aging and now only look 54!

Jokes aside, today’s topic is about the toll nonprofit work takes on our physical health, and what actions we can take. The work that many of us do in this field often comes at great costs, such as taking financial hits that leave many people unsure about their future retirement plans. There are also mental health challenges that come from being stressed out all the time. I don’t think, though, that we often stop to think about what this work does to us in terms of our physical health and the years it’s taking from us.

In the past week, I spoke to two former nonprofit leaders. One talked about having visceral psychosomatic symptoms in even thinking of her previous job, which was focused on advancing equity. The other reported feeling her health improving mere days after she resigned from her position. These are not uncommon occurrences. I remember always being sick the first three days of every vacation (during the rare times I took any long breaks). And skipping meals and being exhausted all the time.

Sure, some of these falls on our own personal responsibility. Nonprofit people are some of the worst when it comes to healthy meals, for example. Those of you reading this during your lunch time while you munch on a granola bar or some pretzels, I’m talking about you. We need to do a better job with nutrition, exercise, sleep routines, etc. Eat a balanced meal for lunch, ideally away from your desk. Go on more walking/mobile meetings. Take your vacations.

However, the field itself needs to do a better job acknowledging how damaging this work can be, and to take steps to improve the situation, instead of just placing the onus mostly on staff to take care of their own health. We’ve been neglecting the issue, or have just accepted it as par for the course, that it’s a given when we enter this profession. And over the past few years of the pandemic, it’s been getting worse; I see more and more colleagues getting sick from various ailments and for longer periods of time. Our general health problems are being magnified by long covid. No wonder fewer and fewer people want to take on nonprofit leadership. Or nonprofit work in general.

It shouldn’t be this way. No one should have to sacrifice their own health and well-being to make the world better. Here are a few things for us all to consider and act on:

Nonprofits: Have a meeting with your team and discuss wellness and what can be done to improve it for everyone. Solutions may vary from org to org, but I can imagine there are some universal things. For instance, pay everyone better! You’ll be surprised how much people’s wellbeing improves when they have more disposable income and don’t have to freak out every time there’s a sickness or car problem.

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Hi everyone, real quick before we focus on this week’s topic, for the past few months, Crappy Funding Practices has been calling out the eye-popping shenanigans we’ve encountered. Such as the funder that requires grantees to submit a notarized report every 60 days! (Hats off to you, Garneau-Nicon Family Foundation; that’s a breathtakingly new level of insipidness). Here’s a great article on the movement by our colleague Dawn Wolfe. The LinkedIn following is now at over 12,000 and growing rapidly; join in on the fun.

However, all of this takes work! Behind these posts on LinkedIn are teams of volunteers spending hours communicating with folks who nominate funders, vetting submissions, crafting the call-outs, engaging with social media, developing list of resources, planning meetings and organizing, etc. It’s a lot of work and right now all volunteer-run. We need more people involved. So, if you’re interested in helping out, please join a special meeting we’re hosting on May 14^th at 10am Pacific Time, where we’ll update you on what’s been going on, and present the different options for you to plug into. Register here. See you then!

This week, I want us to revisit power dynamics, because it seems like many of us continue to forget it exists, as well as forget the lessons we may have learned in the past regarding it. I think overall, most people understand power dynamics. We understand, for instance, that a donor who gives a lot of money wields a lot of power, which they could use to lord over a nonprofit and shape its work. Or that an Executive Director or CEO has hierarchical power that makes it hard for staff to provide feedback or pushback against their ideas.

But power dynamics are everywhere, and we don’t always acknowledge and account for it, which is why we still have so many ridiculous practices in our sector. And also why so many of us are exhausted arguing with people about stuff that should be obvious by now.

A couple of examples come to mind. First, going back to CFP, a colleague took issue with the movement, posting, “I’m trying to understand how Crappy Funding Practice is effective for publicly shaming foundations, rather than having adult conversations with them about the issues.” A few people agreed. The rest of us sigh and point out that because of power imbalance between funders and grantseekers, these “adult conversations” often cannot take place, or are not effective even if they do happen. People cannot be honest when there is the possibility of their being punished for telling funders their grant processes are destructive, archaic, and nonsensical.

Second example, our field’s continuation with the practice of nonprofits asking their staff to donate back to the org, insisting on a wacky and nonsensical “100% employee-giving” rate. I find this type of fundraising gross and unethical. And yet, many colleagues in our field still passionately defend it, an argument being “it’s optional, staff can always say no; no one is forcing them to donate.” This and other arguments neglect the inherent power dynamics that exist in this situation that makes this icky practice coercive and not optional at all, even if stated otherwise.

So, let’s remind ourselves to be more aware of power dynamics.

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