Opinion

Script for The Matrix, if it were set in nonprofit and philanthropy

Written by Vu Le

Welcome back to work, everyone. I hope your holiday break was restful. I was able to hang out with my kids, and when they were asleep, binge-watched all the episodes of Shogun; it was glorious! But now we’re back to the grind, and it is cold and miserable. Sometimes, I think the people who believe we exist in a computer simulation may be on to something, and I find myself looking around, trying to break the fourth wall, hoping whoever is running this simulation would just give us all a reprieve from all this. Maybe they could simulate a world where the forces of good win for once.

Anyway, I’m reminded of the movie The Matrix, where the main character, played by Keanu Reeves, realizes he’s been living in a simulation, trapped along with other humans by sentient machines that are using humans as batteries while creating a fake reality to subdue them and keep them from rebelling. Of course, that makes me think about our sector, and what it would be like if The Matrix were set in nonprofit and philanthropy:

SCENE 1. NONPROFIT OFFICE. DAYTIME.

NEON sits on a duct-taped-patched swivel chair at his desk, which is piled high with reports, random paperwork, sticky notes, and granola bar wrappers. On his computer screen is a Word document with a chart on it. He is typing numbers into a small desk calculator.

NEON (under his breath): A budget in Word? What kind of asshole funder asks for that?!

A ping comes from his phone. He looks at it. “Follow the sticky dots.” He looks around, surprised to find a trail of round dot stickers leading out of the office.

SCENE 2. A PARKING GARAGE. NIGHTIME.

MOBIUS, a grizzled man, and EQUITY, a mysterious woman, both wearing sunglasses and dressed in clothing from Ross Dress for Less, approach Neon.

MOBIUS: Neon, you’ve been living in the Nonprofit Matrix, a world controlled by wealthy individuals and corporations, who created a sector to delude people from seeing how they’re hoarding money, avoiding taxes, and furthering inequity while convincing people they are the solutions to the problems they cause.

NEON: What are you talking about? I’m a good person. My nonprofit helps a lot of people.

EQUITY: That’s true, it does. But remember that improv workshop you took once, where you learned about “Yes and”?

NEON: Yes. And?

EQUITY: You are helping people AND you are helping capitalism uphold itself by charity-washing its most egregious offenses. You see, by setting up foundations and donating to nonprofits, the extremely wealthy get to feel good about themselves while the masses are tricked into believing excessively wealthy people are good. This is how wealth disparity maintains itself.

MOBIUS pulls out two containers, holding one in each hand. Equity pulls out a spoon from her pocket.

MOBIUS: We don’t have much time. Eat the edamame hummus and you go back to what you’ve known. Eat the roasted red pepper hummus, and we’ll show you the truth.

Neon hesitates, then takes the spoon out of Equity’s hand and uses it to eat a bite of the roasted red pepper hummus.

NEON: I don’t feel any different.

MOBIUS: You should feel fuller. Keeping nonprofit workers busy and subsisting on granola bars is a tactic Capitalists use to prevent nonprofit workers from having the energy to start an uprising. That’s why those of us on the resistance eat hummus. It’s full of protein and fiber.

EQUITY: We need to go. The Agents will be here soon.

NEON: Can I have the hummus for later?

MOBIUS: Of course. You’ll need both hummus to maintain your strength for the fights ahead.

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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.