Category: Opinion

It’s been nearly three years since I stopped being a nonprofit executive director. My skin looks healthier, my eyes less sunken and haunted, and I’ve started reverse-aging and now look like my kids’ father and not their grandfather. Best of all, I only wake up once or twice a year screaming “Cashflow! Payroll! NOooOOOO!!”

Being a nonprofit ED/CEO, or any other high-level leaders, can be rough. The systems and norms we have put in place often place unrealistic amounts of responsibility and stress on leaders. Combined with a capricious funding system that forces everyone into default survival mode, and we can understand how leaders burn out and why few younger professionals want to assume leadership roles.

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Y’all, I have a confession to make. I am not sure I like the whole “abundance” thing. In many ways, this concept became prominent in our sector because of our ingrained scarcity mindset, where we are so freaked out about potential lack of funding that we underinvest in everything, leading to poorly paid, exhausted staff who sit on crappy chairs, typing on a 10-year-old computer, with 48 dollars and a dozen Beanie babies as retirement savings.

Because it’s trendy, so many people are using the term abundance all the time. But it’s not really defined. I’m not sure we all have the same common understanding of it. I see some colleagues sprinkling “abundance” in conversations like fistfuls of confetti who are some of the most scarcity-ridden people ever. Is abundance just about money? Is it about relationships? All of it? At the risk of oversimplifying, here are some thoughts on abundance, starting with a few different “spheres” of abundance:   

Abundance of money: Cash. Benjamins. Bread. Hummus. Being abundant in this sphere means you’re not constantly worrying about resources running out. That doesn’t mean spending carelessly and recklessly. It’s about making wise and thoughtful decisions, such as paying people decent wages, providing paid family leave, etc., knowing that these investments often lead to more resources coming in, not less. It means not hoarding donors or funders. It means foundations increasing their payout rates and giving out more money each year.

Abundance of imagination: Those who are abundant in this area strongly believe that things can change, that we can create a world that’s better, that this reality is not all there is. The abolition of the prison industrial system, the ending of the electoral college, the possibility of a just and equitable society—these are a few things we can make progress on if we don’t have a scarcity of imagination. This does not mean ignoring the current challenges plaguing society, or basic human inclinations. We can see the world as it is, and yet can imagine the world as it could be, and work toward that vision.  

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Hi everyone, in honor of Juneteenth, I want funders and donors to remember that only 1.8% of traditional philanthropic dollars go to Black-led orgs. So, if you’ve released or are releasing a statement about Juneteenth, back it up by giving significant money to Black orgs and movements.

In our line of work, there are amazing board members who make our lives easier. They look out for staff; remember their birthdays and send flowers; advocate for equitable policies like paid family leave and sabbaticals; and pick up the tabs at lunch and coffee.

And then there are board members whose unholy presence constantly threatens to open a gate for ancient god Cthulhu to enter this reality and cover the land in a thousand years of agony; who are so irritating and possibly destructive that you imagine a giant squid-faced being ravaging the world and you think “that might not be so bad.”

Many of us have encountered those latter board members. You may be dealing with one or more right now. Ideally, the board chair or ED/CEO having an honest conversation with this board member would resolve the situation. But because of power dynamics, the way that boards are set up, and some board members’ oversized ego, that may not work, and heck, the honesty might backfire on you. So what do you do?

One strategy that some of us have been deploying is to give problematic figures some public recognition, complete with a plaque or trophy of some sort, and this may be enough to get them to leave with minimal blowback and revenge ideations. I call this technique the Plaque and Sack, and it often works because it plays to people’s sense of self-importance. This is not something to use lightly. But here are some tips in case you decide to go that route:

1.Watch out for natural opportunities for plaque and sacking: The end of someone’s term of service; when they express doubts about whether they should stay, in an effort to fish for compliments; a gala coming up. What would be ideal is the trifecta: You have a board member whose term is ending soon, they express doubts about renewing, and you have a large public event coming up. Or, in some circumstances, it’s a weekday, and you can no longer stand this board member’s face.

2.Head off any opportunity for them to renew: Make sure you close any potential doors that could allow them to renew their term or otherwise stay. Say something like, “Jeremy I know your term is coming to an end. We’d like to thank you for your service and send you off with some much deserved public recognition at our gala.” If they say, “well, I was thinking that maybe I can step down after—” cut them off by placing one finger on their lips and saying, “Bup bup bup, no Jeremy, do not ruin this beautiful moment by being humble.”

3.Get an actual plaque of some sort. Not a piece of paper. A real, shiny plaque or trophy they can hold. Something that looks expensive and has their name engraved on it. Depending on the ego of the person, you may need some fancy item made out of glass. Preferably asymmetrical, because that just looks cooler. Ensure it’s not sharp though. You don’t want anything that can be used as a weapon should the plaquee figure out what’s going on.

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Hi everyone. Just a reminder, before we dive into this week’s post, that the pandemic is not over. Some of y’all are acting like it is. Cases are surging. Get your boosters, wear masks, avoid indoor dining when you can, and stop double-dipping when you’re eating with other people lest you want me to smack the chopsticks out of your hand.

A few months ago, a colleague told me that they were writing a grant application. One of the questions was “what is your board’s giving rate? If it’s not 100%, please explain why.” This is a silly and archaic question that all funders need to stop asking. My colleague had written an answer to the effect that her org believed it was inequitable to focus on money as the most prioritized contribution, that they valued time and lived experience, and so they didn’t have 100% board giving nor did they care to measure it, etc. A dose of refreshing honesty so rare in our sector, like decent chairs and retirement savings.

Unfortunately, the development consultant they had hired put the kibosh on it, saying that the answer my colleague had suggested was risky and would freak out the funder. The org listened and changed the answer to some wishy-washy malarkey that the consultant assured wouldn’t cause the grant reviewers to clutch at their pearls and collapse on their fainting couch. This consultant led the organization to miss an opportunity to help change the sector for the better through delivering much needed feedback and a serving of reality to this funder.

All right, fellow consultants, we need to have a talk. (I don’t do a lot of consulting, but I do enough to be considered a consultant, and I have a facilitator’s kit in my car trunk at all times) At our best, consultants help bring in a new perspective and certain skills and tactics that could really help an organization and its important work; plus, we help sustain the growing sticky-dots and easel paper industry and those it employs. At our worst, we consultants get paid a bunch of money to help entrench organizations in survivalism and competition, perpetuate the hunger games, inflame tensions, reinforce white moderate philosophies and practices, quash visionary ideas, and prevent change and progress.

I don’t think many of us got into consultancy to do any of that. Many of us became consultants because we want to advance a more just and equitable world while avoiding having a boss and a regular schedule so we could watch TV and nap in the middle of the day.

If you are a consultant who is trying to make the world better, here are some questions you can ask yourself when you’re working with clients, to gauge whether you are doing that, or whether you’re getting paid and actually just making things worse:

Are you nurturing creative, progressive ideas, or crushing them? There’s been exciting stuff being considered in the sector, as well as people challenging of traditional practices. At an org I was leading, for example, when I left as the ED, the staff wanted to explore a new distributed leadership model. They also wanted to work closely with the board to choose the new leader(s), instead of going the traditional path of having the board make the decision. The consultant we hired, however, instead of helping us think through these exciting ideas, freaked out and called emergency meetings with the board to handle this staff “mutiny.” Thanks in significant part to this consultant, a great opportunity for exploration became weeks of stress and board/staff tension. Luckily we found another consultant who was encouraging, and it worked out, but I could imagine other orgs listening to this consultant and missing the chance to experiment and innovate.

Are you prioritizing the survival of the org over the effectiveness of the sector? Yes, I know it is the org and not the entire sector that hired you and that’s paying for your time, but are you really OK with just helping nonprofits survive in the hunger games, versus working to change systems and thus help bring forth a more equitable world? If the latter, then you must consider how your and your clients’ actions affect the entire field. For instance, you may know from experience that an org saying backward-ass things like “100% of your donations go to programming” will lead to more funding, but you need to consider that this is harmful to other orgs, to the entire sector. Help your client understand the situation and the risks and implications of their decisions. Encourage them to think beyond just their own mission and purview.

Are you helping orgs actualize their vision, or are you conditioning them to be incremental? Many consultants think it’s their job to help nonprofits be pragmatic. There are definitely times that require pragmatism and realism, but we’ve gone way too far in that direction. Many funders and consultants have trained nonprofits over time to think small, to think incrementally, to believe that if they serve 500 people one year and 550 people the next year—an increase of 10%, hallelujah!—that they are succeeding in their mission. Many of us have lost our imagination. We have sacrificed vision at the altar of mission. The world needs us to be more ambitious. Our visions must be as big and bold as the breadth of injustice itself. And you, as a consultant, must determine whether you are encouraging an organization to remember and realize the expansive vision it had set forth, or whether you are shoving it down the safe and boring corridor of incrementalism and complacency.

Are you facilitating thoughtful actions or are you training nonprofits in toxic intellectualizing? Our sector loves reading white papers, forming committees, having meetings, putting sticky dots on walls, researching problems to death, and thinking that these things are the same as, if not better than, taking tangible actions to address issues. And I see many consultants encouraging and condoning this. Yes, I know and agree that the process is just as important as the outcome. But we’ve often become so enamored with process, with thinking, that we’ve over time lost our ability to mobilize, organize, and take bold steps. We already have board members who are very risk-averse, and we have funders—who are the most risk-averse and the greatest toxic intellectualizers of all—reinforcing this sort of behavior. You, the consultant, can help bring balance.

Are you challenging white supremacy, or are you upholding white moderation? Imagine a nonprofit client wants to take a public stance in support of gun reform, or abortion rights, or defunding the police, and it asks you for your opinion. Would you encourage them? Or would you praise their courage, say that you agree completely, and then advise them to wait for a better time, or to take aligned but less controversial actions? If you gravitate toward the latter, then you’re the sort of white moderate Dr. King warned was the biggest barrier toward justice: The well-meaning people who inadvertently stop progress by focusing on civility, non-controversy, and delusional can’t-we-all-get-along sensibilities. And you’re training the nonprofit to think the same way, creating a horrible cycle. I’ve seen both white consultants as well as consultants of color falling into this trap. Our world does not need more white moderates. Don’t be one. Don’t encourage others to be.

Consultants have an outsized influence in the sector. People often listen to you when you say the same stuff that internal staff and board members have been saying for years but no one would listen to them. You need to be thoughtful about how you wield such power. The above questions are a starting point for reflection.

The injustice facing our community has grown in scope and severity. We need nonprofits and foundations to dispense with distractions, risk-aversion, survivalism, isolationism, incrementalism, complacency, toxic intellectualizing, and white moderation. As consultants, you can help nurture nonprofit and foundations’ bold visions, focus, determination, collective actions, and unapologetic stances on equity and justice.

Or at least, if your client has a grand vision and wants to do amazing and creative things, don’t be the well-paid small-thinker standing in the way.

More from Vu Le…

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Over the past several years, we’ve been hearing the term “culture of philanthropy” a lot. According to the 2013 report Underdeveloped, by Haas Jr. Fund and CompassPoint, culture of philanthropy incorporates these key elements:

“Most people in the organization (across positions) act as ambassadors and engage in relationship-building. Everyone promotes philanthropy and can articulate a case for giving. Fund development is viewed and valued as a mission-aligned program of the organization. Organizational systems are established to support donors. The executive director is committed and personally involved in fundraising.”

Haas also provides a great list of what a culture of philanthropy looks like, in this follow-up report, “Beyond Fundraising: What Does It Mean to Build a Culture of Philanthropy?”

It’s been a few years now, and “culture of philanthropy” has worked its way into our lexicon. People use the term all the time, often latching on to the first element mentioned above, the one where fundraising is not just the purview of fundraisers, but that everyone participates in fundraising.

This embrace of culture of philanthropy can’t possibly be bad, right? But as I talk to colleagues, I am hearing increasing skepticism and concern at this concept. Nell Edgington, for example, raises alarms about our sector’s tendency to focus on individual organizations’ fundraising tactics while continuing to ignore sector-wide issues.

My main issue with the concept of culture of philanthropy is the lack of equity analysis. This has been the common challenge with so many concepts that have been advanced in our field: Collective impact, strategic philanthropy, logic models, etc. Because of this lack of equity analysis, we often take things as “best practices,” and over time, it can cause a lot of harm to our work. Collective impact, for instance, at least in Seattle, where I am located, often resulted in a bunch of funders removing funding from grassroots marginalized-communities-led organizations and consolidating funding to grant to white-led, gatekeepy backbone organizations (See “Why communities of color are getting frustrated with Collective Impact”).

My colleague Gloris Estrella and I were discussing culture of philanthropy, how white-centric is, and how it may be dismissing philanthropy as practiced by marginalized communities. “Many BIPOC cultures have philanthropic values embedded in them since the beginning of time. Taking care of the collective, the community, is central to how folks show up in the world. Organizing meals for families with newborns or folks experiencing a death in the family, etc.”

This above point made by Gloris crystalizes what has been bothering me and other colleagues of color about the culture of philanthropy. Philanthropy is a deeply ingrained value of many marginalized communities. But it may look different than how our white-dominant sector thinks about philanthropy. In many marginalized communities, there have always been community support for deaths, births, weddings, and other life events. Women in villages often create lending circles. Neighbors look out for one another’s children. Relatives live with and are often taken care of in their old age by the younger generations. These things would truly fall into this sphere of “philanthropy” if we use the definition of “the love of humanity.”

Updated to add: It’s not that white communities don’t do mutual aid or neighbors don’t look out for one another (they do), but these things have not really been seen as “philanthropy.” Philanthropy, over time and as envisioned by white-dominant culture, is primarily about people with more wealth helping out those with less wealth, and being treated with deference and gratitude for doing so.

The culture of philanthropy, the way our sector currently defines and implements it, then is really about everyone being involved in fundraising strategies that focus on building relationships with donors in order to raise as much money as possible. That’s not philanthropy; that’s fundraising. Philanthropy and fundraising are two separate things. They may be deeply interrelated, but they’re not the same.

That may be one of the reasons why some colleagues of color, as well as white allies, are frustrated with the concept of culture of philanthropy. Of course, people are not monolithic, and my experience talking to colleagues provides only a small sample size of the sector. Still, here are questions we need to ponder before we further advance the idea of culture of philanthropy the way it is currently understood and implemented:

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A while ago, a colleague and I, both haggard executive directors with involuntary eye twitches, were having lunch. Our conversation led us to our boards, and he told me of how his board chair scolded him for the egregious crime of forwarding a funding opportunity to another nonprofit. “He was mad that I helped our ‘competition’ by letting them know of a request for proposals from a foundation. I figured why wouldn’t we share RFPs with one another?”

Fast forward to now, several years and a pandemic later, and unfortunately, I still hear stories like this. Boards of directors are truly some of the biggest stressors in the sector, often more harmful than helpful, as I’ve written about here and here. But it’s partly because we’ve trained boards to think and act in certain ways, ways that over time help to entrench siloing, competitiveness, and survivalism.

Over the past two years, it’s been awesome to see the Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) movement expand across the sector. Nonprofits are doing amazing things, like lifting up other missions, inviting donors into conversations about race and wealth disparity, dropping archaic practices like recognizing donors by levels of giving, etc. But community-centeredness shouldn’t just be limited to fundraising. Everything would benefit from community-mindedness. For example, it would be great if our hiring practices focused less on getting the best talent for our specific org, and more on developing talent for the entire sector.

In the same way, boards need to evolve to be more focused on what’s best for the community, not simply what’s best to advance specific missions. So, taking cue from the CCF movement and its principles, here are some tentative principles for the Community-Centric Board (CCB).

1.The work of the board must be grounded in racial, economic, and social justice: Boards are often way behind staff in getting trained and engaging in conversations and reflection on these issues. This frequently sets back organizations, as board members are often imbued with formal power that they use to prevent progress from being made. Too often the work of examining systemic racism, white supremacy, privileges, etc., is seen as an afterthought by many board members, or something they reluctantly sign up for. Yes, boards only have so many hours a month, but this is essential.

2.Boards must constantly reflect the communities being served: Our sector is rife with white saviors and other kinds of saviors, and this is especially present on boards. For a board to be effective and to minimize the potential harm it may cause, its members must reflect the community it’s serving in terms of race, gender, income-level, disability, etc. As communities continue to diversify, the board must be constantly alert to ensure it’s still reflective of the people it’s serving.

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Hi everyone. Before we get started, here are a couple of awesome videos. This one by Memphis Music Initiative that includes a hilarious (and wince-inducing) skit of how Harriet Tubman would be treated by a foundation if she were to ask for support today. And this poignant musical sketch by Human Services Council vividly illustrating the lack of funding in the sector and how it has been affecting the hardworking professionals dedicated to making the world better.

OK, onto this week’s topic. Will Smith just won the best actor Oscar, which reminds me of another movie where he was nominated. In “The Pursuit of Happyness,” Smith plays Chris Gardner, who, along with his young son, has been experiencing poverty and homelessness, living in subway stations and public restrooms. There is scene where Chris is asked by his boss at his unpaid internship to loan him $5 in cash for cab fare. He can’t afford to loan his boss $5, but he is in competition for a paid position, so he reluctantly hands over the money. To his boss, this was a simple transaction; the lack of $5 didn’t mean much more than a very mild inconvenience. To Chris, it was devastating, as he may not be able to afford bus fares to get back to his son.

I bring this up because it reminds me of a pervasive phenomenon in nonprofit. I’m calling it “Higher-Income Solipsism Syndrome (HISS).” This is when people who are more financial secure, through a lack of awareness brought on by their privilege, create and endorse philosophies and actions that negatively affect people who are less financially secure. Here are examples of various ways this may manifest:

• An independently wealthy person takes a paid position at a nonprofit. But because they don’t have to worry about money, they don’t advocate for increased compensation for themselves. This depresses compensation overall, as well as possibly make other staff look greedy for demanding raises.
• Someone is on the healthcare plan of their high-income-earning spouse. They don’t prioritize high-quality healthcare for the rest of team because they personally don’t need to worry about it.
• A financially secure board member who doesn’t have children or whose children are all-grown-up blocking measures to bring paid family leave for the staff.
• Someone insists that unpaid internships are okay, without realizing they have their parents financially supporting them while other interns may not
• Higher-paid staff ask lower-paid staff to donate a portion of their wages back to the organization in an annual employee-giving campaign, insisting that it’s “only $5” or whatever
• Staff, board, or volunteers go out for lunch or dinner and splitting the bill evenly because they can afford it, not considering how it affects people who ordered less expensive items to stay within their budgets.  

A colleague emailed me this message:

“I work for a mid-sized nonprofit in one of the wealthiest counties in my state, so the cost of living is very high here. We also have an abundance of wealthy do-gooders that work here (as a result of said community wealth). I can’t afford the cost of putting my child on our health insurance, but when I speak up, I am told that I am the only parent there with an issue. This is because the other parents all have their kids on their spouses’ insurance.”

It is a serious equity issue that greatly affects low-income people, single parents, and those experiencing homelessness. There are racial, gender, and disability elements at play, as people of color, women, and disabled people on average earn less than white people, men, and non-disabled people. In the movie “Happyness,” it is a homeless Black single father who has to loan a white man his last few dollars, the latter being so completely oblivious of the hardship it’s causing because his multiple privileges have shielded him from being aware of how his actions are affecting people who don’t have the same level of economic stability as he does.  

Financial security tends to run parallel with the increase in power and authority in our world, which means higher-income people are more likely to be decision-makers. In our sector, we often have higher-income senior leaders making decisions that are often reinforced by board members who, due to the way our boards are structured to attract people with wealth, are frequently higher-income themselves.

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Hi everyone, if you follow my ramblings for the past few years, you know that I point out various flaws in our sector. We have a lot of them, from our ridiculous traditional board structure, to the various time-wasting shenanigans of foundations, to the way we’ve been conditioned to appeal to the ego of rich mostly white donors, to how poorly paid many people are, to our propensity to intellectualize and not take action, to our crappy hiring practices, and to our office equipment that is held together with duct tape and bungee cords. And there’s plenty of other things we need to point out and improve on.

However, although it is not always apparent, I really genuinely love our sector. And I criticize it because I see our potential and I am optimistic that we can change and improve. It’s a lot like visiting your relatives and they just point out your appearance and all the stuff you’re doing wrong, but you know that it’s because they believe in you. When mine are like “You’re getting old, why don’t you find a real job or open a business like your cousins, and also you should try putting this eucalyptus oil on your face for your horrible acne,” I know they say all that stuff because they care.

Which is why it’s annoying when I or others point out the weaknesses in our sector, and the responses from colleagues (both from nonprofit as well as from other sectors) go along the lines of “See, nonprofits are toxic as hell” or “there’s something about nonprofit management that’s just so dysfunctional” or “that’s why I left the sector to go into for-profits.” It’s expected when it’s people who don’t have any experience working in nonprofit looking down on and bizsplaining to us. But it hurts a bit when it’s us saying these things about ourselves.  

The nonprofit sector, with everything we need to fix about it, is not any more dysfunctional than other sectors. Every sector sucks in both common as well as unique ways:

Corporations: The vast majority of businesses fail with a few years, and 46% of those failures are due to incompetence. Many that succeed do it through exploiting workers, avoiding taxes, and destroying the environment. The reason so many nonprofits exist is because of how much of the world has been screwed up by so many corporations. And a major reason so many of our philosophies and practices are so dysfunctional is because we adapt stuff from the corporate world. Right now there are endless stories of people quitting terrible bosses and companies because they’re treated like crap.

Government: Designed to be run by white men, and this hasn’t changed much. Many colleagues who leave nonprofit to go work for the city or county talk about the great pay and benefits. But they lament the inefficiency and endless bureaucracy: “Please fill out these 18 forms so you can get a box of staples for your cubicle.” Plus, they have to respond to the changing tides of politics and the capricious whims of various elected officials, many of whom are incompetent or vindictive or both.    

Academia: I follow some academics on Twitter and the stories they tell are all chilling. Ph. D students being overworked and having severe mental health challenges. The rampant racism and sexism. Narcissistic advisors power tripping. A Squid Game around research and publications. Adjunct faculty being paid so poorly they are literally unable to afford food.

Media: Here’s a long list of things that need improving in the media. Tons of racism and sexism there too. It’s very white- and men-dominated, just like every other sector. Journalists are underpaid and overworked. And now many media companies are focused on getting clicks and making profit, which has led to sensationalism, both-siding, and misinformation, with terrible consequences.   

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