Today, Black women in the nonprofit realm constantly face spoken and unspoken rules on how to present our bodies, our voices, and our aspirations. This new kind of policing is unlike the respectability politics of old — the politics that would have you believe that advanced degrees and a business suit can keep you safe from harm. This new type of policing problematizes however we show up. It makes an issue of our joy, our bodies, our intellect, and our work ethic.
Essay Archives
A teen’s guide to putting the FUN in fundraising
By Allison Hood and Sophie James
VOX ATL is a teen-led organization. For us, that means teens are involved in every aspect of the organization — they serve on the board of directors, work as peer editors, facilitate community workshops, pick what new swag items we buy, and more. They also participate in fundraising efforts.
VOX ATL teens who have participated in our fundraising work have helped compile a list of what to do — and more importantly, what not to do — to ensure that you are keeping things VOXy.
Cultivate talent with the same energy level you cultivate gifts — especially with your BIPOC support staff
We need to make intentional power shifts within our organizations to promote emerging BIPOC leaders. Those leaders are probably in your office right now. And that power shift can be initiated by every manager becoming an advocate for their staff’s career advancement.
The 40-hour work week is more harmful than helpful. Here’s what to do instead
Why are we still forcing ourselves to work an 8 hour day? How can we better manage employee workloads? And how do we better assess employee performance in order to prevent employee burnout?
White-focused philanthropy is on the way out; a philanthropy that unites us is taking over
Recently, USA Today published an opinion piece titled People-focused philanthropy is on the way out. A philanthropy that divides is taking over, by Elise Westhoff. The basic premise of this article casts a critical eye toward the recent national conversation about community, equity, race, and justice. It suggests that holding space for philanthropy to refresh or reinvent itself in response to current events — or for philanthropy to acknowledge how systems, policy or politics — has had a disparate impact on groups of individuals and causes harm to the donors themselves.
Silence is complicity: What is unsaid speaks volumes
Welcome to the social profit/nonprofit sector. You know, the good sector, the one that has long basked in its reputation of doing good work. It’s an inherent goodness that is unquestionably bestowed upon it.
However, for far too long Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour have absorbed all that the sector has on offer — the good, the bad, and the downright harmful and reprehensible.
And their stories are disturbing.
Three times trying a community-centric approach paid off
In mid-February, I sat in a development committee meeting. Like most meetings I attend, I was the only non-white, non-cis person in the room, sitting on mute, listening to an all-white, all-cis group share their ideas for how we could monetize an educational week of events.
I’m an executive director who has worked for free for nearly 10 years. Is it still even worth it?
Eight years ago, I had an idea. The idea was inspired by what I had seen at other organizations around the country, but for where I resided, in Central Virginia, it was a new thing. After about a year of testing this idea out and playing with it in a real-world sense, I decided to commit to seeing it come to fruition. I would end up spending so much of my time — without compensation, mind you — working relentlessly, because I believed in it.
The fact-based fallacy of accountability to donors
There are so many reasons the notion of accountability to donors is not only misplaced but factually illogical. I’m not talking about the significant ethical reasons that have been covered so well in racial equity and social justice forums. I’m talking about logic-based, fact-based arguments. Because once we begin down the logic trail, the entire donor-centric model of accountability begins to crumble on its own.
That time an ‘equity office’ made me grasp how mandatory DEI training harms the most oppressed
By Krystal Kavita Jagoo, MSW, RSW
Some know my employer as “a globally top-ranked public research university in Toronto” but having survived employment there since 2018, I know it as Jordan Peterson’s stomping grounds.
Focusing on fundraising goals is harmful — let’s measure love instead
In the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic, Oregon Food Bank (OFB) said goodbye to financial goals. (Not entirely, of course — resource development is still an important strategy for ending hunger and its root causes, after all.) To be more accurate, what we said goodbye to were financial goals as a driver of decision-making and as a measurement of staff performance.
Are universities REALLY ready to take on antiracism? An Open Letter to UT Austin
By Marcus Cunningham and Michelle Vryn, CFRE
Focusing on social justice and equity in philanthropy sounds like it should not be a new concept. Most people have dropped money into their church’s collection plate or bought a box (or three) of Girl Scout cookies. Philanthropy is all about charity and compassion, right?
In reality though, charity and compassion are actually contrary to the way many powerful institutions operate.
Take the recent example of The University of Texas at Austin’s response to open records requests on donor responses to changing the Eyes of Texas school song, a tradition that perpetuates racist origins.