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.
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.
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?
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. 
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. 
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.
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.
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.
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. 
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. 
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? 
Hi! This is a message from your friendly, eager-to-please nonprofit fundraiser. All of us got together, and I drew the short straw … and I now have the task of telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have been summoned to pull back the curtain and reveal everything. Everything we want you to know — but are afraid to say — about philanthropy.