Hi everyone, I am heading to Vietnam this week for a much-needed vacation. I’ll still be writing each Monday, but can’t guarantee the quality of the blog posts, since I’ll be stuffing my face with street food and coconut juice. But, before I go, let’s address some irritating trends that have surfaced in our sector. […]
9 annoying nonprofit trends that need to die
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Is your organization or foundation unknowingly setting Capacity Traps?
Happy Fall, everyone. Time for pumpkin spice in everything. And butternut squash, which I have never gained a liking for. It’s in or on all sorts of stuff: ravioli, pizza, bread, ice cream. I just don’t get butternut squash! Anyway, today’s topic. My organization, Rainier Valley Corps, develops the capacity of communities-of-color-led nonprofits by sending […]
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“I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas” and other nonprofit holiday songs
Hi everyone, happy holidays. I hope that you are taking it easy these next couple of weeks. This week, instead of reading serious articles about our sector, I learned about the dark origins of Christmas carols. Apparently, back in the olden days, carolers were drunk hooligans who went door-to-door demanding to be let in and […]
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Some positive feedback and appreciation for funders
A few months ago, our grantwriter and I dealt with a grant for $4,000 that comprised a five-page narrative and about 10 attachments. Luckily, of course, we have most of those documents ready in our Master Grant folder. The kicker, though, was the unusual requirement for us to print out a document with ten labels, […]
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A Call to Inaction: Nonprofits, Give Your Staff a Break
Hi everyone. Once a while, I do a call to action. For example, if you haven’t written a review of a foundation on Grant Advisor lately, or encourage your grantees to do so, please do it! Grant Advisor is like a Yelp for foundations, and everyone who writes a review gets a basket of gluten-free […]
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Answers on grant proposals if nonprofits were brutally honest with funders
Hi everyone. Before we start, if you haven’t written a review of a foundation on GrantAdvisor.org, or asked your grantees to review you, please take a moment to do so. GrantAdvisor was launched a few months ago to address a pervasive problem in our sector. No, not the mice problem, although that too is pervasive […]
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Answers on grant proposals if nonprofits were brutally honest, part 2
Hi everyone. It’s been a rough few weeks, but I’m starting to feel hopeful again. Before we begin this week’s not-serious-at-all post, thank you to all the monthly patrons of this blog on Patreon. We are more than halfway to our goal of 250 patrons. Once we reach that, I’ll eliminate all the random ads from […]
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The game of nonprofit is flawed. Learn to play it so you can change it.
Every once a while, an up-and-coming nonprofit professional would ask me, “What advice would you give us folks who are just starting in the sector?” This is how you know that you yourself are no longer an up-and-coming nonprofit professional. I am trying to embrace my status as one of the grizzled old-timers with the […]
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NAF, GPA, and GrantAdvisor Team Up to Launch Fundr, a Tinder-like App to Match Nonprofits and Foundations
Hi everyone, I have super exciting news. As some of you know, for the past year, I have been on the Leadership Panel of GrantAdvisor.org, which is basically a TripAdvisor-type site where nonprofits can anonymously provide feedback about funders. So far the site has had over 1700 reviews of nearly 600 foundations across the US. […]
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20 simple things you can do to help end the Nonprofit Hunger Games
Hi everyone, a couple of things before we get started. First of all, April is National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, Unicorns Unite (a book I co-authored on funding dynamics) is having a #NonprofitHaiku contest on Twitter. Tweet out a haiku by 4/12, tag it with #NonprofitHaiku, and by 4/15 I and the Unicorns Unite […]
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Funders, you want to help build organizational capacity? Then stop trying to build organizational capacity and just give Multi-Year General Operating Dollars (MYGOD!)
Hi everyone, before we tackle today’s fun and exciting topic, a couple of announcements. First, our administration is stepping up its concerted attacks on immigrants and refugees, preparing for further ICE raids to terrorize families and children. Here are few things you can do in response. Please take some time to do them. Second, my […]
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It’s time to completely reimagine the role of foundation program officers
Over a decade—and a million white hairs—ago I ran an after-school program serving low-income kids. The program went well, until one day when two-third of the kids didn’t show up. This was demoralizing. The program had started gradually decreasing in attendance, but this was the worst it had been. I literally slid down a wall […]
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10 archaic and harmful funding practices we can no longer put up with
Hi everyone. I hope you are hanging in there. I’ve heard from so many colleagues of the devastating impact that...
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What are we willing to give up to end the Nonprofit Hunger Games?
Hi everyone, a couple of notes. The Nonprofit AF Facebook page is still locked due to FB refusing to confirm...
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