Category: Opinion

Hi everyone. As you can guess from the title, this blog post will be serious and likely anger some people.

Over the past few days, as lifesaving food, water, energy, and internet are cut off for people in Gaza, the Israeli government has already massacred over 8,000 people, half of them children. Israel has trapped thousands under rubble with its bombs, plans to kill more civilians, and is displacing a million Palestinians from one end of an open-air prison to another.

We must call it for what it is: ethnic cleansing and genocide, committed by the Israeli government against Palestinians in Gaza.

Many of us are reading the news in horror. “Israel has the right to defend itself” has morphed into a justification for the murder of children, the elderly, disabled people, and other civilians in Gaza who are collectively punished for the horrific actions Hamas inflicted on Israeli civilians. And those of us in the US, our tax dollars are funding Israel to do this. We are funding genocide.

I know this can be overwhelming, and it’s easier to turn away. But our sector, nonprofit and philanthropy, has the mission to fight injustice and to create an equitable world. And in this moment, we need to act. As individuals, as organizations, and as a sector. Here are few things you can do, which I’ve synthesized from a few places, such as this website:

Contact your elected officials: In the US, you can go to this usa.gov/elected-officials, enter your address, and it will give you a list of who all your elected officials are, as well as their contact information. Call, email, and message them on social media and ask them to demand a ceasefire and to stop using our tax dollars to arm Israel with weapons to commit horrific atrocities against Palestinian civilians.  

Learn more about the issue: I know it is a complex issue with hundreds (correction: thousands) of years of history. We all need to learn more. I appreciate Jewish Voice for Peace. Here’s a 7-minute video they created that explains the recent history in simple terms. Watch “The Present,” a 24-minute Oscar-nominated film about life in the West Bank. “Born in Gaza,” also on Netflix, is a 70-minute film following the lives of ten Palestinian children.

Donate to emergency response in Gaza: With food, water, power, and internet being cut off, Palestinians are desperate need of support. Here are a few places you can donate to.

Follow and lift up Palestinian voices: As pro-Palestinian voices are being censored and punished, with people being fired and events canceled, it’s vital we provide support. Here are a few leaders to follow. On Twitter, Retweet for Gaza (@silencedvoices4) provides valuable information and perspectives from Palestinian residents and journalists.

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Read full article here.

Hi everyone, if you’re free this Thursday evening and are in the Seattle area, please drop by MOHAI for a book reading I’ll be doing. It’s free with registration, and there will be hummus and door prizes (or possibly hummus AS door prizes, we’re still deciding). REGISTER HERE. This is the only book reading I’m doing in the foreseeable future, because “Castlevania: Nocturne” on Netflix is not going to rewatch itself.

Last week, I created a short video on “Nonprofit Math,” following a trend on social media all the kids have been raging about, regarding different types of math: boy math, girl math, corporate math, etc. The 50-second clip I made went kind of viral, watched nearly a million times. Sure, I look super sexy there, with only one eye involuntarily twitching from stress, and the grantwriting-induced wrinkles smoothed out by hotel room lighting. But I think the topic hit a nerve with folks in the sector because we’re all exhausted by the various shenanigans we’ve been forced to endure.

For so long we nonprofit professionals have been twisting our brains into knots trying to comply with the various expectations and requirements imposed on us in the sector and by society. When it’s all laid out bare, we realize none of it should be normal, that it’s all ridiculous! Here are some ways “nonprofit math” manifests, including the items in the video:

1. Nonprofit math is when you spend $80,000 to net $50,000 at your annual fundraising gala
2. Nonprofit math is spending $20,000 and months to hire someone who quit because they were underpaid by $10,000
3. Nonprofit math is when a funder gives a nonprofit HALF the grant amount requested but expects full activities and outcomes.
4. Nonprofit math is when the City provides a nonprofit a grant that reimburses them 73 cents for every dollar spent delivering services, so the nonprofit is basically subsidizing the government while doing work government should be doing.
5. Nonprofit math is a nonprofit paying its staff so low they qualify for the services the nonprofit provides
6. Nonprofit math is when funders expect nonprofits to keep overhead rates below 15%, when most foundations, because they don’t run programs, are 100% overhead.  
7. Nonprofit math is when nonprofits are expected to spend $2,000’s worth of staff time in grantwriting and reporting for a $1,000 grant
8. Nonprofit math is when less than 10% of philanthropic dollars across the sector go to communities-of-color-led organizations when the majority of people most affected by systemic injustice are people of color

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Read full article here.

Hi everyone. This blog post will upset some of my colleagues and likely lose me a few followers, and possibly even some friends. I understand. But having a platform comes with the responsibility of using it to speak up against injustice.

I know the past several days have weighed heavily on everyone’s mind as we learned of the horrifying atrocities committed by Hamas. The already high level of antisemitism has increased over the years, culminating in last week’s violence and brutality against Israeli civilians, including children and the elderly. The horror is too much for many of us to fully comprehend. There are still hostages being held and people still suffering. As a society and as a sector we must condemn the terror and cruelty committed by Hamas.

And as vocally we must condemn the Israeli government’s response, which has been to launch a second Nakba, a horrific level of death and destruction, on Palestine and its people. 2.3 million Palestinians live in Gaza. Half of them are children. Cutting off food, water, and energy, and ordering civilians to evacuate Northern Gaza while raining death on families fleeing for their lives and vowing to do more—this is genocide; this is ethnic cleansing. We must be firm in condemning these war crimes, especially as the US government is openly supporting the Israeli government and its violence and inhumanity against Palestinian civilians, including children, who are not Hamas.

I don’t want to center myself and my feelings in this moment, as we who are in safe and privileged positions often tend to do. But reading the news and seeing the images of pain and death, I think about what my family and community endured in the war forced upon us in Vietnam. Whole villages were obliterated. My mother told me how she carried her two youngest siblings, small children at the time, each in a basket at both ends of a shoulder pole, as they ran to dodge bombs falling all around them, weaving between broken and lifeless bodies of other villagers. They were trying to get to another family’s house, which they thought would be safer. They were delayed on the road, and when they arrived, the house and everyone in it had been blown up by bombs.

The fact that these and other scenarios are happening right now and have been continually happening over decades and decades to Palestinians, is heartbreaking and horrifying.

I am glad to see more people and organizations in our sector speaking against the killing and terrorizing of innocent people, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. But this is not enough. We must also take a stance in support of a free Palestine. There can be no end to these cycles of violence, no lasting peace, until Israel ends its occupation of Palestinian territories. As Joanna Ware, Rabbi Becky Silverstein, and an anonymous colleague write in this thoughtful essay,

“In the same way that more funders — though still not enough — have upped their focus on the root causes of racial injustice, we must also view this moment through the lens of root causes. We cannot avoid naming and addressing the root cause of this violence: decades of oppression and Occupation. Millions of Palestinians live under Israeli control without human rights and dignity. This cannot continue. It does not need to be like this. There is no military solution in Israel/Palestine. The only stable solution is a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

We must be more vocal in support of ending this occupation by the Israeli government, as it is unjust and illegal as deemed by the United Nations.

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Read full article here.

Hi everyone. It is October, which means my favorite holiday is coming up: Halloween, a time when children can dress up in costume and go door-to-door for free food, while adults dress up as sexy versions of healthcare workers and politicians.

And of course, it’s also a time to give ourselves a good scare. In our sector, there’s plenty of terrifying things: Restricted funding, 360 evaluations, lack of retirement savings, and creepy colleagues who tip-toe behind you in darkened hallways and whisper, “Would you consider joining the gala planning committee?” I’ll tell you a story about one of the scariest things that happen though. Make sure all the lights are on and you’re not by yourself:

“There once was a foundation. Like other foundations, it provided funding each year and supported many vital causes.

One cold and chilly Autumn day, the nonprofits it funded received a mass email: ‘To be more thoughtful and effective in our approach of working with our grantees to solve entrenched problems like poverty and hunger, the Foundation has decided to take the next 12 months off to determine our priorities and strategies. During this time, no funding will be allocated. Thank you for your patience.’

They say if you listen carefully, even to this day, you can still hear the sighs of hundreds of nonprofit leaders, and the mournful exasperation of the community members who faced lost and reduced services.”

I thought this was a practice that ended years ago, but last week I was at a conference and met a colleague who told me of a local funder who took or is taking a year off to create their strategic plan. Some funders I’ve known of in the past have taken 18 months or two years off for this.

A lot of strategic planning in general is a flawed, useless, or even destructive process that often entrenches us in incrementalism. As Hildy Gottlieb says, “We wanted to get to Paris. Instead, we’ve done a six-month study of our driveway, and made plans to get to the supermarket.” Taking months or years off to do that is silly.

So, funders, we need to have a talk. Because of power dynamics, your grantees can’t be completely honest with you to your face, but this practice of taking significant time off to determine your strategies and priorities is not only extremely aggravating, it’s also steeped in privilege and is harmful to not only the nonprofits that rely on you for funding, but to the people who rely on the nonprofits.*

Let’s talk about aggravation: Funding in our sector is already unpredictable, never sufficient, and highly restricted. The ridiculous hoops many funders force nonprofit leaders to jump through on a daily basis, with the snowflake grant applications and bespoke budgets and reports, cause endless stress on nonprofit leaders, leaving our faces gaunt and haunted, to the point that the majority of us don’t need costumes to look like ghosts and zombies this Halloween. When a funder removes themselves from the chess board, we then have to reassess our own strategies, come up with new ones, and scramble to fill in holes in the budget. All of this takes time and energy away from what nonprofits should be spending most of their time doing: Providing critical services.

Let’s talk about privilege. Most foundations have the privilege of not worrying about funding, whereas nonprofits don’t have that luxury. Most foundations already have money, so they don’t have to worry that if they shut down for a year, their entire operation will collapse. Foundation staff, who on the whole are compensated more than their colleagues at nonprofits, don’t have to worry about their livelihoods when the foundations take a long break to brainstorm and plan. All of this makes this practice of shutting down for a year or two an extremely privileged and out-of-touch one. It’s like that Edgar Allan Poe story where a bunch of nobles wall themselves off in a castle and throw a masquerade ball while the Plague rages outside. Except these nobles have white papers and La Croix.

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Read full article here.

Hi everyone. I wrote on this topic on LinkedIn last week, and it hit a nerve, so I wanted to expand. Every once in a while, folks in our sector make lists highlighting experts and resources they think are great. “25 Fundraising Experts You Should Follow.” “20 Books on Leadership That Should Be on Your Reading List.” “Top 10 Unconventionally Sexiest Vegan Nonprofit Bloggers from the Pacific Northwest.” Etc.

I appreciate the effort that it takes to make these lists, as they can be helpful. However, if you’ve made such a list and published it, just know that the first thing many people will do is scan to see the demographics information. And even to this day, many of these lists are glaringly white, and often full of white men.

And the responses from the mostly white colleagues on these lists are along the lines of “So honored to be among such great company!” Sometimes, a gracious colleague will name several leaders of color they recommend to also get a bit of the limelight. But more likely, there’s further recommendations of more white professionals, without much reflection or self-awareness. Yikes.

It’s not just lists though, as colleagues on LinkedIn point out. Conference speakers, podcasts, panels, etc., all still have problems with representation, despite our years of DEI training. And it’s not just the lack of diversity and inclusion, but also how we react to it that may reinforce it. All of it just shows just how pervasive white, patriarchal, ableist, neurotypical, and heteronormative systems are, to the point that many of us don’t even know that we’re perpetuating them.

So here are a few guidelines and reminders. For all of us, but especially for white colleagues:  

Constantly check for who is missing: When you make a list, invite guests for your podcast, put together a panel, etc., double check to see whose voices have been absent, and take corrective actions as needed. All of us need to be more intentional about this. When I first wrote this light-hearted blog post “24 quotes by famous people if they had worked in nonprofit,” I read through it and realized that 18 out of 24 of the quotes were from famous men, so I changed it (It was also originally 25, but I removed a transphobic author). Race and gender are the most obvious, but also think about sexual orientation, disability, transgender identity, age, neurodiversity, geographic representation, etc.

Be aware of who agrees with you: Sometimes I peruse through social media posts and see some of the most asinine viewpoints expressed ever, or some of the most non-inclusive lists. And these posts may have dozens or hundreds of likes. That may seem like people agree, but if you click on who reacted to the post, it may tell a different story. If the majority of the people who “liked” what you created are white, men, etc., and there’s no response or mostly negative responses from people of color, women, etc., then maybe reassess what you said. Yes, I know there are more white people in our sector. Even so, it should be a warning if most people who agree with you are white.

If you’re “included,” give feedback when it’s appropriate: Because of how pervasive this is, people often don’t realize they’re doing it. If you are aware of it, and you are also privileged enough to be included, use your voice to provide some helpful feedback. For instance, privately contact the author of a list and let them know that while you’re honored to be thought of, their list is not very diverse and you recommend they be more inclusive. Or if you’re invited to be a speaker at an event, and you notice most of the other speakers listed are men, let the conference organizers know.

Be thoughtful about when you should refuse engagement: If something is not inclusive online, refrain from “liking” and sharing it. Engaging with these posts leads to algorithms further disseminating them, which means you are helping normalize lack of diversity and reinforcing the content creator’s lack of thoughtfulness. Meanwhile, those who are included in lists, invitations to speak, etc. should be intentional about when you accept these opportunities. Sometimes, the most significant thing you can do is turn them down, and maybe recommend other people who aren’t often featured. It would be the equitable thing to do, but also, do you really want to be the 19^th dude on a list of top 25 experts on fundraising, or the 4^th white person on a panel talking about…anything?

If someone calls you out, take it graciously: It can make you feel like crap to get feedback that a list of experts you like, panel, podcast guest roster, book recommendations, or whatever you put together is composed almost entirely of white men or white women. But be appreciative, especially if it comes from a person of color or of other marginalized backgrounds. Most of us don’t want to constantly deal with this stuff. But it’s in our faces all the time. So if someone takes time and energy to let you know something is amiss, when they could be watching Sex Education’s final Season on Netflix and not deal with the stress of handling your potential fragility and defensiveness, be grateful. Thank them and make corrections.

Be intentional about who you follow and who follows you: Regularly check your social media followers, as well as the people you follow. If most of them are white, male, non-disabled, cisgender, etc., then chances are, you are in a certain bubble, and you’re more likely to amplify people and opinions that uphold dominant systems. Make more effort to follow and connect with people who are not in dominant groups: people of color, women, women of color, transgender people, LGBQIA people, neurodiverse people, lower-income people, etc.

“Over”-representation of people from marginalized communities is good: The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked when would there be enough women on the SCOTUS, and she said, “When there are nine.” Because people from dominant identities are represented everywhere and all the time, it is completely OK when they are not represented. For example, a panel of mostly or all white men is not good. However, a panel of mostly or all women of color is amazing!

Read full article here.

Hi everyone, a quick note before we get started. If you’re in Seattle and available the evening of October 26^th, please join me at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) for a book reading I’m doing of my book, Unicorns on Fire, which is a collection of some of my favorite blog posts, but in print. It’ll be fun. We’ll be sharing scary nonprofit stories, taking photobooth pictures, and giving out NAF merch as door prizes. It’s free. Register here so we know how much hummus to buy for the hummus bar.  

If you work in this sector, you’ve probably experienced your fair share of bizsplaining. This is a term my friend Allison Carney coined where someone from the corporate sector who often has little to no nonprofit experience, talks down to nonprofit professionals. It manifests in several ways, including, but not limited to:

1. Criticizing nonprofits by comparing them with for-profits: “Nonprofits leaders are so disorganized, unlike all these amazing, highly competent leaders who run businesses.”
2. Assuming their experience in for-profit makes them qualified to school nonprofits: “I retired from a 40-year career in banking. I’d love to mentor a nonprofit leader or two.”
3. Believing nonprofit work is easier than for-profit work: “Being a corporate lawyer has been so stressful. Sometimes I daydream about quitting and starting my own nonprofit.”
4. Using corporate terms and concepts as if we’ve never heard of them: “Have you heard of revenues projection?”
5. Insisting that nonprofits be more like for-profits: “Nonprofits should be more like for-profits.”
6. Believing volunteering or using nonprofits makes them expert: “I’ve been a board member of several nonprofits, so I know how to run one. That’s why I’m applying for this ED position.”
7. Arguing about nonprofit issues as if the bizsplainer’s opinions about them are as equally valid as the opinions of someone in nonprofit: “I disagree. I think nonprofits should all be forced to pay taxes.”
8. Ignoring glaring issues in for-profits: “Wow, nonprofits have a unique problem of people of color quitting.”
9. Believing for-profits are the solutions for every problem: “Nonprofits should just all go out of business and let social enterprises take over solving social issues.”
10. Being unable to detect irony, such as understanding the problems caused by for-profits: “Maybe if nonprofits acted more like for-profits, they’d be more successful at solving issues like poverty and homelessness.”

I’m sure there’s plenty of other categories. It’s weird. It’s rare when nonprofit folks have the same patronizing attitude toward for-profits. There are probably a few nonprofit people who have no experience in another field saying something like, “I’ve never run a restaurant before, but I have eaten at several, and I think you need to consolidate with other restaurants in your neighborhood into one mega-restaurant, to lower overhead costs” or “When I’m retired from my career in youth development, I’d love to open my own medical practice. It seems so rewarding!”

But that’s not common. Most of us don’t go butting into the intricacies of medicine, law, architecture, engineering, or underwater welding with the same breathtaking combination of arrogance and ignorance that many for-profit people come at us with. And none of this is to say that there are no good for-profit folks who enter the nonprofit sector and become awesome; there are, and their secret is that they’re humble enough to put aside their ego and learn from the folks who have been here in the sector for a while.

If you’re dealing with a bizsplainer, it can be exhausting, frustrating, and sometimes bewildering. Some bizsplainers mean well but just don’t realize how condescending and ridiculous they’re being. Think of them like adorable toddlers with LinkedIn accounts who are learning the ways of the world. If you have the time and patience, feel free to help educate. Remember, not everyone has had the same experience we do, and society does not do a very good job educating people on the intricacies of nonprofit dynamics. It does the opposite, which is to further misinformation, such as on overhead, etc.

So unless it’s obviously otherwise, assume at first that the bizsplainer is well-meaning, and calmly provide context, statistics, and counterarguments. One time, a bizsplainer said to me, “You nonprofits all should sell things to earn revenues. Like my church. It sells sausages each weekend.” I calmly explained how earned revenues can be great but is not realistic for most nonprofits. He took it well.

The real issues are with the bizsplainers who are trolls and who like riling people up. Here are some tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years:

Remain calm: Trolls like to wind people up, and the more irritated you are, the more gleeful they get. They can sense when their prey is flustered, and they will attack. Don’t engage with them as if they were rational human beings who are open to change, because most of the time, they’re not.

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Read full article here.

For decades, our sector has had this refrain: “Donors and funders deserve transparency. They have a right to know how nonprofits spend their donations and the outcomes they achieved.” Many of us agree with this, including me. Yes, nonprofits should be transparent. They need to report their revenues, expenses, program activities, and the results of their work. And most nonprofits do, as required by law. In the US nonprofits are legally required to file 990 tax forms each year. Most orgs release annual reports. Throughout the year they also let people know what they’ve been up to, using newsletters and other forms of communication.

The challenge is that for some reason the above level of transparency is not enough, and we’ve all convinced ourselves that not only do donors and funders deserve to know specifically how the dollars they contributed were spent and what outcomes could be personally attributed to them, but also that this somehow makes sense.

Let’s talk about financial reports. One time I spent 15 hours trying to dissect out how much my organization was spending on each line item from the $75,000 grant a foundation provided us. Since this funder had a different chart of account than us, we first had recategorize our line items to match theirs. Then they also had a different fiscal year, so they only wanted a report on the expenses that fell in their particular fiscal year.

They wanted to know, among other line items, of the $890 we spent on postage that year, how much of their 75K was spent, but only from beginning of September to end of August. $172.28, I recall, according to my calculations using Excel formulas, the help of a staff member who loved sudoku, and some light dabbling in the arcane arts, which I can’t really talk about, but it did involve a bit of beet juice as a vegan substitute for chicken blood.

I’m going to call this accounting that requires disaggregating out expenses based on who contributed what: Donor-Adjacent Financial Tracking (DAFT). DAFT has been so prevalent in our sector that we’ve just all taken it at face value. Many funders seem fully bought into this, as evidenced by the constant silly, aggravating, and pointless financial reporting, like the above, that they force nonprofits to do.

The same goes for outcomes. I’m going to call it Contributor-Linked Outcome Disaggregation (CLOD). One funder to my last org not only requested a breakdown of how we spent $25,000, but also what outcomes their $25,000 achieved. “Please explain what outcomes were specifically attributable to the grant fund that we allocated to your organization” they wrote on the grant report instructions. This was followed up with “Please also indicate what outcomes you achieved that were NOT attributable to the funds we gave your organization.” I wept softly into my lunch: a container of hummus and some raw cauliflower florets, leftovers from a prior community event (Cauliflower florets are always the least popular!)

These examples seem extreme. But this sort of thinking—that individual expenses and outcomes can be attributed to individual donors and funders—is pervasive in our sector, manifesting in various degrees, and so we’ve all just accepted it as normal. Most funders will think it’s perfectly fine, even best-practice, to ask a nonprofit to parse out what their 10K or 100K specifically accomplished, and to do it on the funder’s own timeline, and not what timeline makes sense for the nonprofit’s programs and services and fiscal year.

Can you imagine if for-profits are expected to do this? Picture someone going to a store to buy a laptop:

Customer: “Here’s $750 for my laptop. At the end of the year, I want to know how you spent the $750 I gave you and how it helped your bottom line.”

Cashier: “Uh, we’re a publicly traded company, and in the US the SEC requires that we file financial reports every quarter, as well as file annual and 10-Q and 10-K reports. You’re more than welcome to those reports.”

Customer: “No, bro, I need a detailed report of how much of my specific $750 you spent on each line item. For instance, of the $750, how much went to your rent, how much to your CEO’s salary, etc. And also how my $750 affected your stock price.”

It’s time to admit that this is a delusion, a charade we’ve all be upholding. And a destructive one.

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Read full article here.

Hi everyone, last week was my kids’ first week of school. This always brings bittersweet emotions as I watch my little ones find their lines, reconnect with their friends, and increase a notch in their confidence and independence. I know the days of them holding my hands as we walk to their classes each morning are numbered, as are the moments when they turn around to wave to me before they disappear behind the walls and doors of their school. It’s beautiful. But also heart-wrenching, when I let myself ruminate about the unforgiving passage of time.

But this post is not about my kids. While dealing with the logistics of school starting, I was filled with appreciation for the nonprofits and nonprofit professionals in our sector. Kiet, my younger one, asked when his “art classes” will start up again. This is an after-school program run by a local organization here. Last year, I dropped by the program, and the wonderful staff were leading creative games and having the kids express themselves by drawing on little squares of paper.

Kiet loved these classes, and it was so great last year to see his eyes light up as he explained what he drew and what meanings and emotions they conveyed. It’s the patient, creative, caring nonprofit professionals who taught my son these skills, working in partnership with the amazing educators and paraprofessionals at their school.

In the afternoon, when the final bell rings, our kids wait in the cafeteria, where staff from another nonprofit walk them to an after-school program. There they get snacks and engage in various activities. One day last Spring, I came to pick them up early, and the kids were outside at a local park, playing tag, watched by the kind, patient program team. Viet, my older one, was sweating profusely, running around the field. Unlike his little brother, he’s a shy kid who often just wants to camp out at home; it was nice to watch him laugh and joke around with the other kids. He ran over when he saw me. “I’m having fun. Can you come back in like an hour?”

Throughout the year, the afterschool program partners with various other nonprofits, including a food truck that comes once a week and provides delicious warm meals for children, most of whom are low-income. “Daddy,” Kiet said one evening, “they have vegan food, and their rice and beans are better than yours.”

We are not low-income, and I was a bit hesitant that my kids were taking food meant for other kids, but in interacting with the friendly, dedicated servers, I recognized the nonprofit’s thoughtful approach of ensuring no kids felt left out or less than.

I always say that our sector is like air, whereas other sectors are like food. Air and food are both vital, but air does not get the same level of appreciation. Because it’s invisible and automatically consumed, no one appreciates air until they are forced to pay attention, like when they’re planning to dive underwater or climb a tall mountain, or when it’s not there.

Though I work in and speak and write about our sector, I too have been taking for granted these amazing nonprofits all around me. I often walk around my neighborhood, and there are nonprofits and nonprofit professionals everywhere. There’s the food pantry providing staples to hungry families. There’s the climate nonprofit working to advance green solutions. There’s the bike-focused nonprofit that helps youth increase their confidence through fixing up bicycles among other activities, where my seven-year-old got his first bike.

I’ve seen nonprofit staff and volunteers standing on the corner to get folks to sign petitions for sensible gun laws and other needed legislations. On a wall, there’s a vibrant mural painted by kids organized by an art nonprofit. On a community bulletin board, there’s a flyer for an event in the park put on by a music nonprofit. I see tiny homes built by an organization that supports homeless people.

I pass by dozens of nonprofits every day, and often don’t think much about it. Yet these nonprofits are making my neighborhood and the world so much better. My 76-year-old father, until he returned to Vietnam recently, told me how a friend of his took him to visit a nearby senior center. I like the thought of my dad and his buddy dropping by the center, making friends, playing Bingo, building community.

I know our sector is far from perfect. I spend a lot of time pointing out everything we need to improve on. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I deeply and profoundly love our sector and the people in it, and the pride I feel in being a part of it. For all its challenges and barriers and imperfections, it’s filled with some of the kindest, hardest-working, most brilliant, most dedicated individuals.

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Read full article here.

A while ago, a colleague mentioned a funder who required a whole-ass grant proposal from their current grantees to renew their grant every year. Requiring a full proposal for renewal is very annoying, but common enough, like the philanthropic equivalent of pinkeye.

This one funder, however, specified that grantees could not copy and paste information from previous year’s proposals. This forced grantees every year to spend time rewriting their mission statements, community needs, program descriptions, evaluation methodologies, budget narratives etc. using different words and phrases, even though most of that information remains the same.

If I ever wake up in the middle of the night recalling the name of this foundation (or if you know them), I will be sure to publicly bestow upon them the glorious title of “Crappy Funder of the Milky Way Galaxy.” They would get a plaque they can display for being a condescending, time-wasting fopdoodle. That’s right, I said fopdoodle, because only Old English can convey how archaic and vexing this funder is.

With AI-supported grantwriting platforms like Grantable increasingly being used in our sector, nonprofits can better deal with clueless funder malarkey and shenanigans like the above. Someone can paste answers from last year’s grant proposal into ChatGPT, for example, and ask it to paraphrase, saving them time and energy that can be used on much more important work, such as running programs or turning some milk crates into a makeshift filing system.

With the rise of AI-assisted proposals, I bet some funders are probably experiencing a combination of fear, anxiety, and possibly resentment. With the barriers being lowered, they may be flooded with more grant proposals. They may no longer be able to judge and discard proposals based on ridiculous and inequitable criteria like spelling and grammar. They may use AI themselves to read, summarize, and possibly even select proposals for funding, which brings with it some ethical considerations of its own. This article from our colleagues in Australia provides a good summary of how many funders will respond to increasingly-AI generated grant applications.

However, I am less interested in how funders WILL respond, and more on how they SHOULD. While there are tons of crappy, fustilarian funders in our sector, there are plenty of amazing ones. For those who are trying to be thoughtful about the increase in AI-generated content and what that means for their work, here’s some advice:

Let go and have a Zen-like acceptance of a new normal: Generative AI is a tool, and if it’s a useful tool, people will use it. You can resist and fight it, or you can accept this as what people will be doing from now on. And it could be a good thing. Funders get all the information they need in the formats they want, while nonprofits conserve their time and energy to focus on helping people, saving democracy, or anything else that’s more important than trying to count words in characters and other menial, pointless tasks that most grants require. That’s a good thing.

Refocus on your value of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Many funders tout Equity as one of their values. AI, when it’s used with intention, can help advance this. As it’s been mentioned many times over the years, grants are inherently inequitable, tending to reward the organizations that have more fundraising resources and can play the game most effectively. This leaves out many organizations led by marginalized communities, who often can’t compete. AI-supported grantwriting can balance things out a bit. Funders who value DEI should find ways to work with this.

Recalibrate your criteria and parameters: If you’re freaked out that you may receive significantly more grant proposals now that it’s easier to produce grant applications, then spend more time refining your parameters and criteria. Especially around eligibility. Use your equity lens to ensure funding goes to the communities that are most affected by inequity and injustice. If you care about Black communities, for example, ensure your grants are only accessible to Black-led organizations, based on criteria like their ED(s) being Black, along with 75% of their board members, and 75% of their senior staff, or whatever makes most sense. When criteria are grounded on equity, it won’t matter that proposals are AI-generated, because only so many organizations will be eligible in the first place.

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Hi everyone, for the past two weeks I’ve been dealing with ongoing violent coughs, wheezing, and occasional migraines. Chest x-rays finally concluded I have pneumonia. (My ten-year-old: “So can you transform into different animals now?” “No, son, that’s Nimona.”). I am now on a delightful cocktail of antibiotics, inhalers, and various other medications. All that to say, I am not exactly the most coherent right now and might start hallucinating again at any moment, so thank you for your understanding. Yes, Ms. Scott, I would love for you to fund Nonprofit The Musical!

This summer, I went back to Vietnam for three weeks. There, among amazing food and beautiful scenery, as usual I strove to answer questions from various relatives on what it is I do. It doesn’t help that I left Vietnam when I was eight, so my Vietnamese vocabulary is limited, which is not helpful when trying to explain complicated things like equity, grantwriting, and hummus, the trademarks of our profession.

But it turns out, none of my family over here, who all speak English, understands it either. I have given up trying to explain to them what I do and instead have decided to cultivate a mysterious brooding persona, akin to a vigilante superhero with a troubled past (“They call me…The Caped Capacity Builder…”)

A reason many of our families have little understanding of what we do could be that our sector isn’t very visible in society. Newspapers will have a business section, but not a nonprofit/philanthropy section. Local TV news programs will have a sports segment, but no dedicated space to highlight the important work our sector does daily.

It’s kind of annoying. There are shows are chocolate sculpting and glass blowing, about firefighters and ice truckers, and like a billion shows about cops. I am now watching “Fisk” on Netflix, a hilarious show about a no-nonsense lawyer at a wills and probate firm in Australia. But there’s barely anything about our work. There are a few things, like “Loot,” which I analyzed here. And technically, universities and hospitals are nonprofits, and there’s lots of shows about them.

The point, however, is not that we need more shows about nonprofit and philanthropy, which we do. The lack of shows and dedicated news segments about our work is a symptom of how quiet and modest we are as a sector. Other sectors, especially for-profits, tend to be very vocal, to the point of insisting they know how to do our own work better than we do. Our sector, on the other hand, is the opposite—mostly quiet and unassuming. Kind of like Dunning-Kruger, but for entire fields.

I remember attending an amazing conference a few years ago where people came from all sorts of fields: tech, medicine, nonprofits, etc. All were there to figure out how to solve global problems like poverty and infant mortality. The loudest, most self-assured people were the tech bros. They had the least knowledge about the issues, and their solutions were often not based in reality (“we need an app to help homeless people use GPS to find shelters”), and yet they were so confident and eager to share their ideas. It was inspiring in a way.  

I think there are reasons why we’re generally not as loud as other fields. The work of advancing equity and justice attracts those who tend to be less focused on themselves and their own well-being (and some of whom may have a martyr complex). Meanwhile, society has a philosophy where those with wealth get more attention, propped up by sayings like “beggars can’t be choosers,” and our work often does feel like begging the wealthy for funding. Then, we ourselves reinforce it with fundraising philosophies like the expectation of constant gratitude toward donors. And, it’s a women-majority profession, like teaching and nursing, and these professions, because of patriarchal BS, tend to be less loud and arrogant than men-majority ones.

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