Opinion

Scary Nonprofit Stories for Halloween, 2024

Written by Vu Le

Hi everyone, as Halloween is coming up, here are some stories guaranteed to give you shivers. As usual, they are not for the faint of heart, so don’t read them by yourself. Write your scary stories in the comment section.

BURIED

The nonprofit was small and scrappy. The staff prided themselves on being resourceful, so they always took whatever free stuff that was offered and hardly ever threw anything away. A pallet of math text books. 3,000 swag pens from another org that had shuttered. 200 infinity scarves.

One day, their event coordinator went missing, his phone left behind mysteriously at his cubicle. For days the community searched for him, with no signs of his whereabouts. Sometimes, though, the staff could swear they heard pounding or scratching coming from the walls.

One evening, the ED was working late when her pen stopped working. She decided to go get out some of the swag pens in the supply closet. As she opened the closet, a feeling of dread and horror overwhelmed her.

For inside, lying on the floor behind boxes of 20-year-old gala program booklets, was the event coordinator. She screamed.

“What? What?!” said the event coordinator, sitting up. “Oh thank goodness,” he said, “I accidentally locked myself in here. I tried to yell and pound the walls for help, but these 300 D.A.R.E To Keep Kids Off Drugs teddy bears absorbed the sounds. I’ve been surviving on these jars of beets that expired in 1994.”

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” said the ED, laughing, relieved, “our luncheon is next week!”

Read full article here.

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About the author

Vu Le

Vu Le (“voo lay”) is a writer, speaker, vegan, Pisces, and the former Executive Director of RVC, a nonprofit in Seattle that promotes social justice by developing leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration between diverse communities.

Vu’s passion to make the world better, combined with a low score on the Law School Admission Test, drove him into the field of nonprofit work, where he learned that we should take the work seriously, but not ourselves. There’s tons of humor in the nonprofit world, and someone needs to document it. He is going to do that, with the hope that one day, a TV producer will see how cool and interesting our field is and make a show about nonprofit work, featuring attractive actors attending strategic planning meetings and filing 990 tax forms.

Known for his no-BS approach, irreverent sense of humor, and love of unicorns, Vu has been featured in dozens, if not hundreds, of his own blog posts at NonprofitAF.com.