How about we stop doing that?

Read on….

For You: Today’s Main Course

All of us in the United States are deep into election season.

And it’s a lot.

Have you noticed how, when something like an election is approaching, the hum in the air starts to reach a fever pitch? Like you can almost see the molecules vibrating all around you — and feel the same within you?

Yeah.

Things are a bit like that here.

With just over a week left, we’re seeing copious candidate debates aired… op-eds published… fundraising emails and texts overwhelming our inboxes… social media debates raging… and plenty of nasty attack ads (probably the worst of which has blown up over the past few days, ricocheting around the entire country and beyond from where it originated in Ohio, aiming to portray Amy Acton, a candidate for governor of the state, as a liar… and instead probably sinking her opponent once and for all, as he attempted to leverage the child sexual abuse she endured and her subsequent estrangement from her mother [who did not protect her daughter and remained married to her daughter’s abuser until his death], to record said mother questioning her daughter’s fitness for office… because the irony of that woman saying that about another woman who survived what she survived and went on to a successful life as a doctor and more has, thank God, seemingly been lost on no one, and no one seems to be buying what the ad was attempting to sell).

In the results of this Ohio story, I see some semblance of the justice and empathy we see so little of in our politics as they are today.

Isn’t it a bit hard to believe?!

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Once upon a time, my home state of Minnesota had a United States Senator who stood for a whole different kind of politics.

Paul Wellstone was the kind of politician who broke the mold:

• He was a small-town college professor and community organizer until he was first elected as a U.S. Senator in 1990.

• In that election, he was widely seen as an underdog, as he challenged a two-term incumbent who far outspent him (like seven to one), while he used scrappy, grass-roots tactics like traveling the state in an iconic bright green school bus.

• His upset victory gained national attention, as he was the only challenger nationwide to defeat an incumbent senator that year.

• Throughout his two terms in that role, he was often called “the conscience of the Senate.”1

• He saw his whole purpose in public life as helping people.

Wellstone was running for his third senate term in 2002 when he was killed — just eleven days before the election — in a plane crash in far northeastern Minnesota. This coming Sunday, October 25th, is the 24th anniversary of Wellstone’s death.

As we mark that anniversary this weekend, I think it’s worth reflecting upon how someone like Paul Wellstone would even relate to our political landscape today.

Who he was would probably either be completely illegible to so many people here in the United States today…

… and/or he’d likely be brutally skewered and attacked by those at the highest levels of our current federal government — a government that has made cruelty its calling card, selfishness a personality trait permanently tattooed onto its collective forehead, and disdain and disrespect for anyone who doesn’t fit the most narrow definition of “American” its only passport to true belonging in the club.

One of Wellstone’s most well-known phrases during his public life is oft-repeated, still, here in Minnesota:

We all do better when we all do better.

So simple…

… yet so easily misunderstood.

When my heart isn’t being broken into a million pieces by it, I find myself fascinated by the way we humans can take things that exist solely to ensure our collective well-being… and turn them into a zero-sum game.

We do this with “politics.”

We do this in “philanthropy.”

We do this all the time.

As I’ve written before here, “politics” is not some special brand of intrigue that only certain people participate in. If we’re human, we can’t not “do” politics, even though so many people love to say that about themselves. We “do” politics no matter what. We need each other. We are irrevocably interdependent on each other. Sometimes we give. Sometimes we receive. But always, we are inter-connected. And what we call “politics” is simply how we organize our collective life together.

In that way, there’s a degree to which philanthropy is much the same as politics and government. In fact, I’ve written about that here before too:

A country is a collective — by definition. And the collective of our country organizes itself, and cares for itself, via this thing we call government. In other words, our government is the means by which we the people care for ourselves and each other. In other words, our government is philanthropy.

We all do better when we all do better.

This is not just a nice campaign slogan.

This is axiomatic.

Yet somehow — despite the “inescapable network of mutuality” that we’re a part of, according to Dr. King; despite these active realms we’ve created, ones we call things like “politics” and “philanthropy,” that allow us to care for each other collectively; despite the undeniable fact that any one of us humans will always have far more in common with every other human than we’ll ever have alienating us from each other…

… we seem to keep convincing ourselves that only some of us can do better at any one time, so we better fight each other for resources, and then we better hoard those resources for ourselves, and then we better come up with all kinds of reasons why those other people aren’t worthy of access to any of the resources…

… or, at the very least, we’re convinced people have to prove their worthiness with at least 20,000 words or credit reports or sobriety or “matching” grants or the right degree from the right institution or a y chromosome or the proper costume or going along with the cruelty or not asking too many questions or buying into the status quo because doing otherwise would disrupt too many things and too many people.

Isn’t it all so tiring?

Isn’t it all such a waste of energy?

Why do we do this to ourselves?

We all do better when we all do better.

When I thrive, you thrive.

When you thrive, I thrive.

All flourishing is mutual.2

We all do better when we all do better.

Like, for real for real.

This is the truth.

This is the actual reality we live in — despite how much we keep trying to convince ourselves otherwise.

So.

How about we start acting like it?

Conversation: Your Real Real

I really want to know your more detailed and nuanced thoughts, too. Let’s start a conversation on this topic. Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Practice: Make It Yours

Here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Step away from the social media, the fundraising emails and texts, the arguments, the drama of “politics” for a few moments.

• Reflect on a time you felt like an integral part of a collective of people.

• What were you doing?

• What helped you really feel a part of the collective?

• Was there anything the other members of the collective did to help you feel like you belonged within it?

• Were there any ways that you helped others feel a part of it too?

• Really reflect on what the “magic sauce” was.

• Then:

  • Ask yourself: how can I create that again, now, in my current life?

A Gift: Something to Take With You

Politics is not just about power and money games. Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives — about lessening human suffering in our world and bringing about more peace and justice.

— U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone
July 21st, 1944 - October 25, 2002

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For You: Today’s Main Course

The world around us seems to become gnarlier by the day.

Violence. Misunderstandings. Yawning-and-ever-widening gaps between the haves and have-nots. Harshness. Insults. Rampant consumerism.

All of which often bring us to…

Overwhelm.

Grief.

Loneliness.

Cynicism.

Doesn’t it often seem like these things are all “winning”?

Friends, I’m here to tell you that these things will win — they’ll keep dominating the headlines and our lived experience, continuing to grow and spread — if we keep choosing them.

Say what?!, you may ask.

I’m not choosing violence! I do my best to understand people! I give my money and my time to support my community, especially those who are falling through the cracks! I attempt to move with compassion! I try to respect everyone I encounter! I’m trying to reduce my carbon footprint!

If those things are true for you, I love it.

And…

… there is more we can do.

We always talk about all the problems as “out there,” don’t we? The systems we lament are “out there.” The things we can easily see need to change are “out there.”

And here’s the problem with that understanding.

One, it’s not entirely true.

And two, it places all of the onus and power outside of ourselves. And that’s just not true, either. Like, not at all.

And wouldn’t you rather know you have the power, here?

Because you do.

And that means you’re not helpless.

You’re not a victim.

Fatalism is not your birthright.

We humans co-create every single human reality.

Systems don’t really exist “out there.”

Systems are actually “in here.”

Systems exist within us, as who we are and how we are in this world are part and parcel of those systems’ manifested, interconnected realities — which live and move and come alive within us.

The ways we have been conditioned by the world around us live and perpetuate within us. And then, when we allow ourselves to react in knee-jerks to the world around us, we’re simply recreating that world as it has already imprinted us — as it already is, in other words.

The alternative?

Consciousness.

Awareness.

Presence.

What if, instead of reacting in knee-jerks to the ways the world around us comes to us, we simply met it with groundedness and awareness… and responded to it in a way we consciously chose?

In general, we humans don’t do this.

So that’s why I bring it up.

This is a very important change we all need to make, if we want the things we witness in the world around us to actually change.

Need a bit more practical explanation?

I got you.

Ways this may come up for you:

1. If something’s not clear to you, just ask others to clarify. No more sitting in meetings or conversations feeling lost, or like you’re having to assume things. Don’t assume. Don’t stay confused. Ask. A word is being used, and you’re not sure how everyone’s defining it? Ask. Something from the past is being discussed and you weren’t there? Ask. You’re being asked to do something and you don’t understand how to go about it? Ask. Ask. Ask. Get used to asking. Get used to requesting clarification, regularly. Clarification is your friend (and the friend of everyone around you, because you’ll be actively bringing clarity with you wherever you go).

2. If you’re mad, don’t stuff or act out the anger. Speak it, calmly. The world as we know it has no idea how to handle anger. Many have been conditioned to just stuff it (which doesn’t actually work, because it eventually finds its way out, either by going sideways at someone else, or by damaging your own body/being). Many more have been conditioned to puke it all over anything and everything around them. Neither of these methods is helpful, even though one or both of them are far-and-away the most common responses to it. The alternative? Honor it by speaking it. Calmly. Share it with those who need to hear it. Use your words. Then hold the boundary that those who’ve received your words need to honor your anger and its message too.

3. Don’t run from conflict. Embrace it. We’ve got a couple typical extremes on this one, too. On the one end of the spectrum, people avoid conflict like the plague (which is about as successful as stuffing anger, because it too always finds its way out into the light). The other extreme is to be aggressive and pugilistic, seeing fights everywhere and gleefully seeking them out (which, unfortunately, seems to be getting more and more common, especially in the media multi-verse). This is not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about accepting that conflict is inevitable, in human relationships; if we’re in human relationships, there will be conflict. And that conflict does not need to mean the end of the relationship (because no relationships would exist, then!)… nor that somebody gets canceled… nor that somebody needs to subjugate themselves… or some other less-than-ideal outcome. Rather, if conflict is embraced in a healthy way, it often becomes a means to deepen the relationship. Often, you’re able to deepen your understanding of yourself too. Conflict is necessary. Conflict is expected. Conflict is healthy. Conflict stretches us to grow and change. Managing conflict well is the ultimate form of adulting.

4. Everyone gets to be inside the circle of care. Unless they’re actively spitting on it. And even then, they’re in once they stop the spitting. Many of you reading this will think you’re already well on your way to this one — and you may be. Certainly, certain political persuasions are far from this reality, and folks with those worldviews are unlikely to be interested in this project. And yet, even folks attracted here likely have people to whom they have hardened their hearts. Be honest with yourself, and you’ll probably realize you’re doing this at least sometimes, with some people. Hardness and harshness are the norm in this world by far. We don’t need any more of it. Can you imagine how different this world would be… if more and more of us didn’t allow ourselves to harden? If wherever one of us was located on this Earth… was a place that every single human was embraced warmly, with compassion? Imagine those spots on Earth — those spots where each of us is living — like nodes. Then, imagine those nodes gradually starting to grow bigger and become interconnected. Can you see how quickly norms could start to change? If more and more of us had that experience of being accepted into the circle of care, knowing that we were loved and accepted just as we are… and that we’d always have our needs honored? Can you even imagine how different this world would be?

5. We live as though all other living things around us are our beloveds. Related to the point above, we don’t have to have an enemy. Anywhere. Sure, we can have people who are yet-to-be-friends. We can also have people who we maintain clear boundaries with, if we’ve learned we need that for our own well-being. And yet, that process is just about loving ourselves — not hating them. We don’t need to hate anybody. We can live as though there’s not such a thing as an “us” and a “them” — there is only “us.” We can live in a way that acknowledges and respect and honors how interconnected we are, not only with every other human being, but with every other form of life. We can relax into a Universe that is kind, beautiful, and joyful, because we know that we are surrounded by all of our living relatives, whose whole purpose of existence is to live in harmony with us, as ours is to live in harmony with them — and then our lives can become simply the joy of pursuing and experiencing that harmony.

6. We live as though everything we do affects all of our beloveds around us. Do you know what a relief it’d be for us all, to stop living as though we’re islands? Do you realize how much we could relax, if we didn’t feel like we were constantly in some kind of Squid Game-like competition for survival, with all the other humans and living things around us framed as our rivals? Can you imagine how differently you’d move in your life, if you not only believed — but knew in your bones — that every single thing you did (and even felt and thought) directly affected all of the humans and other living things around you? Can you imagine if you lived in a world where every single human and other living thing around you was beloved to you? Wouldn’t this world seem like some kind of paradise, then?

When I imagine more and more of us living this way, I can hardly contain my hope for what this Earth home of ours can become.

What do you think?

Conversation: Your Real Real

I really want to know your more detailed and nuanced thoughts, too. Let’s start a conversation on this topic. Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Practice: Make It Yours

Here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Choose one of these suggestions this week.

• Reflect on it every morning.

• Then, endeavor to actively practice it throughout the day.

• Reflect on how it went in the evening.

• Next week, try a new one.

• And so on…

A Gift: Something to Take With You

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For You: Today’s Main Course

Last week, I published We Love Nonprofits for Their Potential, Friends — & They Keep Letting Us Down… and I have to say, it can be easier to notice and point out what’s wrong with something… than to envision how it could be better, and propose that vision for others’ consumption… and potential criticism/cynicism.

But idealism has been my jam for a long, long time.

And I’ve always called myself not only an idealist but, even more, a practical idealist — which to me means that I’m not just looking at things with rose-colored glasses and proposing pie-in-the-sky ideas but, rather, I’m grounded in practical reality and how to make something materially better in a way that will actually work.

So I’m doing a bit of that today here.

Without further ado….

1️⃣ Egos take a seat.

Have you noticed how much egos muck up the good nonprofits can do? Forget the good, have you noticed how they so often completely gum the gears of operations, to the point that they can barely function?

I gave several examples of what this looks like in practice last week, and I am sure you have many of your own examples too.

Friends, we’ve got to stop letting egos run the show.

Egos are actively harmful to the work of nonprofits, because, according to nonprofits’ very organizing and legal principles, these organizations belong to the community served the very second they obtain their 501c3.

So if staff, volunteers, or other humans involved with nonprofits are behaving as though the org is actually theirs… or that the work of the org is about them… they are actively undermining that org’s entire purpose.

The alternative I’m proposing?

People involved with nonprofits realize that they need to be especially self-aware and conscious. They realize that, if they simply unconsciously react to things they encounter in the work, they’ll just be continuing and reinforcing the unhealthy conditioning they’ve had from the world around them (a world that created the problems the nonprofit had to be created to address in the first place, natch).

In that effort, they regularly meditate, so that they can learn to be mindful and present, able to notice when their ego is taking over. This practice allows them to more objectively observe situations they encounter — and consciously respond to them, rather than resorting to knee-jerks.

Their entire approach to the work is with the understanding that they are simply stewards of something meaningful and important — stewards who may have received the responsibility of caring for this mission from others, and who will likely pass it on to yet others after they are gone.

They know they’re not here to prove anything.

They never insist on their way, because they’re aware that their perspective may be flawed and incomplete, that they always need to understand and incorporate the experiences of other community members.

They don’t ever assume they know everything, because they’re always aware of their limitations and biases.

They happily pass on work to others who seem better prepared to do it, since their only goal is to find the best person to do the work in the best way possible, for the good of the org and its mission.

Because they know and admit how much they have to learn (always), they will always be open to being taught, to changing their mind, to being shown a new way to understand something they might not fully understand yet.

They cede power — especially the power of decision-making — to people who have real, on-the-ground, lived experience with the work.

They easily, quickly, and often share credit with others, because they know that no success is possible alone.

They don’t ever get caught up on which version of an edit is used… or which items get added to the agenda (or even which order agenda items are in!) unless they can see a way the meeting will be genuinely better for all with a change… they don’t ever play petty games with others, always giving the benefit of the doubt to them and being willing to work through conflict fairly with them, knowing their shared commitment to the mission is the most important thing… they will always tell the truth and be honest, even when/if it doesn’t reflect well on themselves, because they know that everybody involved needs a clear, accurate picture of what’s currently real, in order to make effective decisions about what to do next… and, last but not least, they approach a nonprofit as the collective effort it is.

They know they’re here as place-holders, stewards.

They know they are simply taking a role on a ship that was already sailing somewhere before they got on it… and that the ship will continue sailing there whenever they disembark. They know they have only to do their role as well as they can while they’re in it, to help the ship ultimately reach its destination. They have only to care for the ship and their fellow crew members… and to make sure the ship remains on course.

Can you even imagine?! Can you even imagine how different nonprofits would be with just this one change? And yes, I get it. I know that this is not that juicy thing we all love to do: blaming a “bad guy” somewhere out there. This one is not always fun, in fact. This one is “in here” — for all of us. This one gives work to ALL of us, asking each one of us to take responsibility for the change. But I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think we could do it. I think we can. I KNOW we can.

2️⃣ Power and decision-making lie with those with real-life experience.

I referenced this in number one above. And honestly, folks, it shouldn’t take a lot of explanation or elucidation.

In a better world of nonprofits, no one would ever make a pivotal decision…

… unless they had, at the very least, talked to someone with real, on-the-ground, lived experience with the mission’s work.

But ideally, they wouldn’t just talk to someone before making the decision themselves. Rather, they’d actually hand over decisions to those with real-life experience of the mission’s embodiment and reality.

No qualification should trump lived experience, when determining who is handed power and allowed to influence decisions and direction. Not academic degrees. Not a suit or tie, or nice shoes. Not a fancy title. Not an impeccable resume full of similar work with steadily increasing responsibility and leadership. Nothing.

Honestly, what better qualification could there be for this work than real-life experience with it… to inform what is most needed?! Are other things even really that important? And if other things ARE important, can’t leaders who belong to a community and share its lived experience easily be helped by people with that expertise, all while prioritizing their own expertise and know-how above all else? We can — and must — begin to adopt this mindset in nonprofits.

3️⃣ Default funding for nonprofits exits the hamster wheel… and becomes general operating, flexible, multi-year, renewable, based in a sustained relationship between funder and fundee.

The hamster wheel of one-time, limited funding that must constantly be chased, the iron grip of donors’ need for control and credit and over-involvement in the work…

…dissolves, once and for all…

… and in its place, funding just freely flows, like water, to wherever it’s most needed, wherever the community is raising a need, demonstrating a problem that has arisen, and telling funders how it must be solved.

Like refreshing, life-giving water, funding just flows…

freely, quickly, and responsively.

Dollars don’t come with limitations… demands for data… requirements of compliance… expectations for orgs to enact funders’ theory of change… but rather, they’re freely allowed to enact the org’s theory of change.

Dollars are given for general operating needs — so that orgs can assign them as needed. Dollars are flexible — because everybody who’s ever spent any time around nonprofits knows that unexpected events and flexibility are the name of the game. Dollars are multi-year, renewable, and repeatable — and, as an extension of the full investment and genuine partnership they bring, they facilitate a sustained, meaningful relationship between funders and fundees.

How completely world-changing would this be?! If this was a reality, nonprofits and their staffs would free up SO MUCH wasted time and energy — and they’d suddenly be able to pursue SO MUCH MORE innovative strategies, without being distracted by the constant hum of anxiety over funding, having to genuinely worry whether the org will even be here next year… so much so that they might actually be able to move the needle on the problems they’re addressing. Can you imagine?

4️⃣ Staff professional development moves from “just winging it”… to a high priority in nonprofit budgets for money and time.

Nonprofits would realize that “just winging it” is not professional development, that professional development is absolutely necessary… and that effective professional development is not free — that if we want to offer our org’s staffers effective professional development, we know we’ll need to generously budget for that.

As a provider of professional development for fundraisers myself, I’m continuously floored how often folks tell me they’d love to participate… but they don’t have the funding for it from their employer… NOR do they make enough to pay for it themselves… OR they lack both of those things AND, even when I offer them a scholarship, they tell me they’ll not be granted the TIME by their employer to participate. When things change for the better, these problems will quickly disappear.

People will have generous funds… and plenty of time… to pursue professional development, because nonprofit leadership will realize that that is quite literally what will make or break their ability to be successful and achieve their missions.

Leaders will realize that they don’t want to just throw spaghetti at the wall anymore, because they’ll see how much the work they’re doing is often deeply affecting other people, and/or our shared planet, and/or our collective well-being. So they will take it seriously enough to ensure that they — and all of their staffers and volunteers and everyone working on the mission — are as prepared and supported as possible, so that they can do the best work possible.

Professional development will be as prioritized and important as fundraising… and accounting and budgeting… and as the programs of orgs — as much of a focus as those things are.

The beautiful thing about this one is that it’s one of those win-win-win kinda situations. Yes, the individuals getting professional development benefit. AND the orgs they’re serving benefit. AND the other orgs they work with over time will be served. AND the mission will be served. AND the entire community will be served. You just can’t go wrong with investing in professional development for nonprofit staffers — and that will finally become the normative belief in the nonprofit sector.

5️⃣ Our shared humanity is centered in every relationship, every strategy, every decision, every action, every priority. No one will ever have to worry if the money, or a competing priority, will trample the humanity of anyone involved — because the humans and their humanity will always be prioritized.

The fact that we care as we do this work will mean everything, and that care will be valued by — and shared by! — everyone else around us.

Our care will no more be a liability.

Nonprofit work will no longer be measured and evaluated as though it’s a machine — where inputs drive predictable outputs as though we’re stamping widgets and advancing them along a conveyer belt to a transport truck ready to whisk them away to waiting consumers — so that we have to become machines to enact the work the way it’s contextualized.

We will no longer go go go, do do do.

Instead, we will start to prioritize being together.

We will all regularly take time to pause, to take a breath.

We will grant each other so much more flexibility in how we work.

We will get to really know and genuinely appreciate program participants, our colleagues, our volunteers, and even our donors and funders.

We will make a point to experience the joy of community in this kind of community work — to make the work really about community.

We will no longer feel isolated. Misunderstood. Unseen. Unheard. Because all of us will be actively, consciously cultivating a dynamic and alive community for everyone involved with the org in any way.

I feel so joyful even just thinking about this. Just think about how much this would change our lives, our work. Just think about how much this would change the results of our missions. Just think about how much this would change the world.

6️⃣ Individual orgs will be de-emphasized and de-prioritized — and the well-being of the collective will be everyone’s focus.

Instead of nonprofit orgs becoming so myopic, because they’re running in their own personal hamster wheels focused on their own survival…

… the hamster wheels will stop (see above!)…

… everyone will look up, and around…

… and we who do this work will start working in purposeful, ongoing collaboration and cooperation with everyone else working in the community.

Individual missions will not be as important. Persistence of one org will cease to be a focus, while a mindset of doing-whatever-it-takes-to-solve-these-collective problems-in-our-community will animate everyone involved in this work. Sometimes that will mean two or more orgs will start operating as one, or officially merge. Sometimes that will mean the community will collectively decide to close one org in favor of another. Sometimes that will mean… who knows?

But the possibilities of moving forward collectively — to serve our communities as effectively as possible — will be so much greater when we’ve shifted our mindsets and approaches in this way.

The transformation here is similar to number one above. At the org level, there will be a sort of de-emphasis of an individual org… to prioritize the good of the whole. And once that happens? Nothing will be able to stop the good things we can accomplish — collectively, collaboratively, in community with each other.

________________

What do you think?!

Thoughts?

Feedback?

Further discussion?

Please pop off in the comments!

Is it just me…

… or would these changes completely change our communities — and our whole world — for the better?

Conversation: Your Real Real

I really want to know your more detailed and nuanced thoughts, too. Let’s start a conversation on this topic. Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Practice: Make It Yours

Here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Consider and reflect on all six of these suggestions.

• Decide which you could actually start to enact.

• Start to enact whatever you can.

• Share this post and these perspectives with others in the field (including other suggestions YOU have for positive transformation in nonprofits!).

A Gift for You: Something to Sit With

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Today we’re going to start a discussion about the ways nonprofits both let us down… and deeply inspire us with their potential.

We’ll start with the former today (I’ve outlined seven ways we’re let down below, and I ask you to comment with things you’ve experienced that aren’t covered)… and the latter will be our focus next time.

Read on….

For You: Today’s Main Course

This week, I was talking to a nonprofit bud, after we had debriefed another seriously messed-up nonprofit situation involving an ill-prepared board of directors and executive leader, both of which were absolutely not open to feedback or learning, to overcome their significant blind-spots and deficiencies…

…and we were having that typical shaking-our-heads, asking-why-we-keep-doing-this kind of moment — one I’ve had so many times over the years, I couldn’t even begin to count how many times it’s been.

You know that one, right?

What came out of my mouth next, so naturally, made her stop, widen her eyes and mouth, and exclaim:

“That’s IT! THAT is why.”

What did I say?

I said we believe in their potential.

I said we keep our commitment to nonprofits — despite how much they keep disappointing us, traumatizing us, demoralizing us, and/or sometimes even screwing us over — because we believe in their potential.

We believe in their potential, don’t we, friends?!

We just know they can be better.

So this week, I’m putting forward seven reasons I believe nonprofits keep letting us down… and next time, I’ll share at least seven ways I think they could, alternatively, reach their actual, full potential… that we all seem to sense is possible, even though most of us have never actually witnessed it.

Without further ado….

1️⃣ Egos are running the show.

Look at the example I started with.

If a board member or executive leader needs help and learning in order to do their job well — as those for that org I mentioned do — and they refuse to acknowledge that they need it, how will it happen? Spoiler alert: it won’t. And the org and the humans it serves will be the ones to suffer. People could literally be harmed, or sometimes even die. Is protecting our egos really worth that?

Another example: the org leadership that’s convinced that they know best, which means they never ask their staff (who often are much closer to the actual work of the org) for feedback or accountability or correction — nor, of course, do they ask the same from those served by the org.

Another example: founders of a nonprofit org calling it “my” org, as though it didn’t belong to the community served the very second it obtained its 501c3 designation.

Other examples: pissing matches over the version of a document used; power struggles over setting an agenda; squeezing certain people out of the work or opportunities to lead because you “don’t like them;” someone choosing to do something essentially because it makes them look good; someone refusing to share credit for a win when the effort was collective; someone refusing to tell the truth because they don’t like how it reflects on them; and more.

All of these examples have the same general outcome. The mission suffers, while the individual egos involved jockey for what they believe they need (status; pride; position; credit; adoration; etc.).

How destructive for the community, yes?! What a shame, that work that’s supposed to be about the community… ends up being about individual egos instead. How counterproductive, that a collaborative process that could add up to greater than the sum of all of its parts… instead ends up defaulting to work that can barely escape the boulder-weight of pride and arrogance.

2️⃣ People who have no idea what actually works, on the ground, in real life, are handed all the decision-making power.

We all know this one.

Board members who are Certified Professional Accountants… are given the authority to determine how many families are allowed to access trauma counseling this year.

Or someone who went to grad school and got an MBA… is considered more qualified to lead a nonprofit that serves kids in foster care than someone who went through foster care themself.

Or people who have experienced homelessness, or addiction, are treated with suspicion and will never be trusted, because of the societal taboos and stereotypes we have created around these things — so much so that, even though an org’s programs are serving one or both of those populations, folks with these experiences would never be asked to advise on or, God-forbid, even make decisions about programs serving those populations.

Make it make sense! Honestly, what better qualification could there be for this work than real-life experience with it… to inform what is most needed?! Are other things even really that important? And if other things ARE important, can’t leaders who belong to a community and share its lived experience easily be helped by people with that expertise, all while prioritizing their own expertise and know-how above all else?

3️⃣ You’re constantly on a hamster wheel because of the way funding works (one-time, limited funding that must constantly be chased).

My fellow fundraisers will feel this one in their bones.

We go so hard, charging into and through our fiscal year-end. Many of us are hella motivated by a goal of any sort — but also, we know how many people are relying on us to reach our goals. Sometimes, again, lives even depend on it.

As year-end approaches, we skip meals. We skip family commitments to put in “just one more hour,” or hold “just one more event,” or have “just one more donor meeting.” We write appeal letters (or donor emails) at home in our pajamas, on the weekends, because that is the only quiet time we can find to focus.

And then, midnight at the end of the year passes… and it almost doesn’t matter if we met our goal. Hopefully we did. Often we even exceed them! Sometimes we don’t, and then come some really hard conversations.

But no matter what the outcome was, no matter how hard we worked, no matter how much we sacrificed, no matter how much we raised…

… the reality is almost as if none of it happened, because we literally have to start from zero all over again.

We just finished scaling a massive mountain… and suddenly, we find ourselves at its base all over again, needing to start re-climbing.

How ridiculously Sisyphean it all is! Because of how our budgeting works and the fact that our funders have historically refused to commit to multi-year funding that we can actually rely on, we’re forced to start from scratch every year. What a waste of energy and time! HOW MUCH work essentially just pours down the drain, because we weren’t allowed to carry it over into a new fiscal year? How much innovation and strategy is undermined because nonprofit leaders have no ability to plan for the future without the persistent hum of anxiety that unreliable, unpromised, unsustainable funding — and thus being forced into the disempowerment of relying on the decisions and whims of other human beings — creates?!

4️⃣ Professional development is usually “just winging it.”

I’ll let a friend lay this one out.

She just posted this today on LinkedIn:

”Over the last two weeks I’ve met with a handful of emerging and middle managers in the nonprofit sector who are either ill-equipped or completely unequipped to do their jobs, have nothing in the way of training documentation, no sense of guidance — like they’re supposed to just come in knowing what the job entails and how to do it right.

And then they get treated like an annoying, disruptive force when they ask for help, or are hesitant to perform a task because they’ve never received the proper training to do the thing (even after asking for it).

Problem is, the training is usually only documented in the brain folds of the person who did it before them — and sometimes they can't be bothered to write it all down. The person who can do the task in their sleep had to wing it, so why can’t people in the role now just do that too?!”

People. People! “Winging it” is not professional development. And effective professional development is not free. So if we want to offer our org’s staffers effective professional development — and we should! — we will need to budget for that. As a provider of professional development for fundraisers myself, I’m continuously floored how often folks tell me they’d love to participate… but they don’t have the funding for it from their employer… NOR do they make enough to pay for it themselves… OR they lack both of those things AND, even when I offer them a scholarship, they tell me they’ll not be granted the TIME by their employer to participate. Make it make sense! Do we really want people just struggling on their own… and/or throwing spaghetti at the wall… when the work they’re doing in nonprofits is often deeply affecting other people, and/or our shared planet, and/or our collective well-being?!

5️⃣ Humanity is completely sapped out of what should be the most human work.

We get into this work because we care.

And before we know it, it’s like our care becomes a liability.

When nonprofit work is measured and evaluated as though it’s a machine — look at how we construct “logic models” for grants, for instance, where inputs drive predictable outputs as though we’re stamping widgets and advancing them along a conveyer belt to a transport truck ready to whisk them away to waiting consumers — we have to become machines to enact the work the way it’s contextualized.

We go go go, do do do. We often don’t have time to pause, or to take a breath. We often don’t have much, if any, flexibility in how we work with program participants. We often don’t even get to really know and genuinely appreciate participants, or our colleagues, or volunteers, or even donors or funders, as so much of our relating is hurried along and constrained by time or other resources.

We often don’t get to experience the joy of community in this kind of community work — because the work, as it’s currently set up, is not really about community.

So often, we end up feeling isolated. Misunderstood. Unseen. Unheard. And if we’re feeling like that, imagine how historically marginalized people like our program participants must feel!

How have we managed to make this most human work so very inhumane?! Why do we so often de-humanize ourselves and others in this work? How have we managed to take an effort that is supposed to be an antidote to the ills of capitalism… and transpose capitalism’s ills right on top of it?

6️⃣ You never have the resources you need to do a good job.

Name the resource you need for this work, and it’s scarce.

Money.

Time.

Support.

Training.

Supplies.

Back-up.

Time off. Space for your personal life. A living salary or wage. Healthcare. Mental healthcare. Funding for retirement.

You’d think that, if we really cared about this work, we’d do everything we could to resource it over and above what is needed for success.

You’d think that.

But that’s not reality.

And thus, this question really must be asked: how do we expect endeavors that involve working with human beings — historically some of the most messy, complex, and chaotic units that exist within this giant Universe — to be successful with the barest of bare minimum in every kind of resource? Pray tell, how?

7️⃣ Even though we’re called “nonprofit” and everybody outside the field thinks we don’t care about money, in real nonprofit life, everything always comes down to money.

In a world dominated and driven by capitalism, anything that takes away from profit (which is of course things like all of the resources mentioned above) is something to limit. Because profit must be prioritized before everything else.

And you might think — in a sector labeled “nonprofit” — that that might not be true here. But you’d be wrong. Because yes, even though folks not-in-the-know think that we don’t prioritize money within nonprofits, money is consistently the main driver of every decision and action within nonprofits — largely driven by the scarcity mindset created by the lack of reliable funding and resources we’ve already laid out.

To be real on this one? Instead of the “nonprofit sector,” maybe we should call this sector the “most-minimal-profit-despite-how-hard-we-might-try-to-save-coins-in-every-little-action-and-activity-which-creates-a-never-ending-loop-of-scarcity-and-under-investment-and-struggle-and-social-problems sector.”

________________

That’s it for today, friends.

Thoughts?

Feedback?

Further discussion?

Please pop off in the comments!

And tune in next time for the companion discussion for this post — outlining the true potential of nonprofit work that keeps us all here, despite the many difficulties and dramas called out above.

Conversation: Your Real Real

I really want to know your more detailed and nuanced thoughts, too. Let’s start a conversation on this topic. Visit the comments section!

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Practice: Make It Yours

Here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it:

1. Reflect on all seven of these phenomena.

2. You can surely nudge the way to improvement in some way on at least one. Figure out which one is within your realm of influence.

3. Discern: what might you do, to nudge things in the right direction?

4. Then go do that.

A Gift for You: Something to Sit With

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You …

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