“Staff, Retreat!”
Vu Le chronicles the life of a nonprofit executive director – the good, the bad, and the ridiculous.
EDiquette: 13 Common Courtesies that All Nonprofit EDs Should Follow
Last month, 13 Executive Directors got together, and the topic of ED-to-ED interaction came up. So, in a mostly sober state, we hammered out a list of common Executive Director etiquette, aka "EDiquette.” Here they are, in no particular order...
Being a Nonprofit with Balls, Part 2
Two weeks ago I had lunch with Luke, whom you may recall from “Being a Nonprofit with Balls.” Luke had come to VFA a couple of months ago asking us to rally 15 to 20 community members for a focus group. I had just woken up from my daily ED power nap and was kind of groggy and in no mood to be accommodating, so we got into a fistfight.
Special Event Planning: About as much fun as 19 consecutive root canals
For the past eight months or so, VFA has been hatching one of our baby turtles, the annual event. I am not an event planner. In fact, I and other Executive Directors find the process of planning a special event so horribly painful that the Department of Homeland Security should consider using it as an interrogation method: “So, you refuse to talk, huh? Well, let’s see how defiant you are after serving six months on an annual dinner planning committee!”
The Staff 360, an Instrument of Pain and Enlightenment
About once a quarter, the VFA staff conducts what we call a “Staff 360,” a time dedicated for team members to give each other feedback in 8-minute one-on-one meetings. It’s like speed dating, but instead of talking about how much you love Modern Family, you give and receive constructive feedback that will help improve team dynamics and, more importantly, prevent people from hogging the entire bag of Tim’s Cascade jalapeno-flavored potato chips.
Site Visits: Uncomfortable Yet Terrifying
I always get excited about site visits. We write these grants telling people about how cool our programs are, but to have funders actually come down and visit is affirming. And terrifying. It’s a weird contradiction, like it’s your birthday—yay!—but you’re also getting a colonoscopy.
Being a Nonprofit with Balls
“I don’t BS,” I said, staring him in the eye, “if you want real community engagement, help change the traditional way of doing things.” Was I out of line? The VFA staff work ridiculous hours managing programs and several other projects. I’ve never worked with a more dedicated team. Is it unreasonable for me to feel protective and to get annoyed with people who seem think we are selfish when we refuse to “collaborate”?
We need more shows about nonprofit work!
Like most executive directors, I come home exhausted from hours of telling staff what to do and taking credit for their work. To de-stress, I’ve started watching ridiculous amounts of television. There are plenty of shows about lawyers, doctors, detectives, cooks, servants, zombies, etc., most of them featuring attractive actors who spend endless episodes in frivolous romantic triangles with one another (except the zombies). And soon I started wondering, where are all the shows about nonprofits?!
Sticky rice cakes and the spirit of Tet
It is the season of Tet, a time when most of us put aside our busy schedules and wonder, “What the heck is Tet?” It is, of course, the Vietnamese new year, a celebration filled with joy and renewal and forgiveness and family and drinking and gambling and visiting the ancestors’ graves and drinking and then more joy and renewal followed by more drinking and then some gambling. Usually in that order.
Don’t get rid of that 3-legged chair, it’s my baby!
As a small nonprofit, we don’t take anything for granted. Funding for supplies and furniture is hard to come by, so when there’s free stuff, we usually take it. We, like other similar agencies, are like a nonprofit squirrel, hoarding supplies for the programming winter.
Why I Do What I Do
I was too young to appreciate all that my parents had gone through after the War, when our family lost everything, and Mom had to peddle 120 pounds of rice on her bicycle every morning to sell at a black market 10 miles away, coming home late in the evening, her face stung by the cold mountain air. Dad collected pine sap in the forests, carrying heavy buckets at either end of a shoulder pole.
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