The Nonprofit Reframe

Whether it’s unrealistic job postings or just awful salaries, we do ourselves no favors, nonprofit people. Hiring stories, candidate stories, job description stories, we’ve got them all!

Episode Highlights

●    PUT THE DAMN SALARY IN THE POSTING

●    Brittny’s Hashtag: #PayYourIntern

●    What does “cultural fit” mean?

●    Stop combining finance and HR positions

●    The sector is small. Don’t burn bridges.

Resources

●    Canva – The best thing to happen to nonprofits in tech. 

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Nia and Brittny get animated talking about all of the challenges associated with grants from ridiculous questions, insane stats and even what color paper to use.

Episode Highlights

• Did you survive the longest month of the year?
• January has SO many reports!
• What is the true power dynamic inherent with grant funders?
• How does that affect relationships? Programming?
• Are video grant applications the answer?
• It’s still the nonprofit hunger games.
• Funder jeopardy...can you guess the foundation?
• Give your grant writer a break. It’s not their fault. 

Brittny's Hashtags

• #weloveVu
• #podcastgoals
• #everythingcomesbacktoVu

Resources

• Vu Le’s Nonprofit AF blog: https://nonprofitaf.com/

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When being “busy” doesn’t serve you well, but it supported by the nonprofit sector. How do we find balance? Can we even? 

Episode Highlights

●   Finding moments when you’re winning in the battle for balance!

●    How bad pay leads to even worse balance for nonprofit employees.

●    Stop asking people to go “above and beyond” in performance reviews. It supports a culture of bad boundaries.

●    Can we get cupcakes on Fridays, too?

●    Relationships within nonprofits can get…icky.

●    Just. Say. No.

●    Brittny’s Hashtag: #boundariesforthesector

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Regardless of how you say it, galas are a big deal in nonprofit fundraising. They can also be a nightmare for staff. 

Episode Highlights:

●    Attendees: Don’t approach staff with feedback during a gala!

●    Brittny’s Hashtag: #earlybirdpricingworks

●    The big cliffhanger: Will Brittny get a dress before her gala?

●    Working with event committees and keeping them on mission

●    When the salmon is raw

●    Gala speakers forgetting to make the event.

●    Staff burnout at its best. REALLY calculate the return on investment and streamline.

●    Online auctions!

●    Is Atkins still a thing?

●    Don’t mess with our seating charts!

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Businesses, companies, corporations, for-profits. Whatever you want to call them, we know that partnerships between for-profit companies and nonprofits are absolutely necessary to affect real change in our communities. But how often does that actually happen?

Episode Highlights

• What does it look like? Volunteerism, matching gifts, sponsorships, etc.
• 5% of all philanthropy is corporate giving.
• Is Big Brother listening in on Brittny or is it just karma texting her?
• Nia jumps in on the hashtag game with #VolunteerDuringStaffTime
• How to make a corporate partnership go “poof!”
• Is a real “partnership” even possible? Nonprofits bending to meet the needs of companies.
• Crickets, tumbleweeds, and tiny horses as workplace giving fairs

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Listen as we barely keep it together, discussing the outrageous in-kind donations we’ve been given, what to do with them and how to politely say, "NO."

Episode Highlights

• A Quick Definition: In-kind donation is a gift of goods (physical items) or services that are donated to a nonprofit.
• Why are in-kind donations important to nonprofit organizations?
• The problem with in-kind donations: Nonprofits don’t have the storage space for all of them, people giving stuff the organization does not need, people giving stuff that is so used it is not usable, and the staff time dealing with it all.
• The importance of having an in-kind donation acceptance process and setting boundaries like: Where should people drop stuff off?Create a wishlist and only accept what is on it. Ask for photos and dimensions of items before accepting. Ensure that everyone internally know the process?
• How do we say no to items we do not need or want without offending someone?

Resources

• Marie Kondo, the tidying expert and star of the hit TV show “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo”, developed the KonMari method to encourage tidying by category keeping only things that speak to the heart. 

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Let’s get into an uncomfortable space. We have to discuss white saviorism and where it plays out in nonprofits.

Episode Highlights

●    An episode FILLED with caveats

●    White Saviors: White people who set up services or programming without actually involving the people accessing services in developing the programs or determining what services are actually needed. White people assuming they know best and enacting programming to “save” others.

●    A quick overview of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: And why we don’t say Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity

●    How Brittny avoids having to answer hard questions

●    Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos’ playing white savior

●    Allyship and Power-sharing in nonprofits

Resources

●    This American Life Episode on Betsy DeVos

●    Tiny Spark Podcast: What can we do about the white savior complex?

●   NPQ: On A Mission To Make White People Uncomfortable

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Overhead is confusing and a ridiculous measure of a nonprofit’s value, impact, and success. And yet, we keep having to talk about it.

Episode Highlights

●    What is the “Overhead Myth”?

●    How are other organizations perpetuating it?

●    How can donors truly evaluate the effectiveness of a nonprofit?

●    New Hashtags from Brittny: #ItsAllTheWork

●    To restrict or not to restrict when giving.

Resources

●    More podcast episodes can be found here

●    You can download a copy of the episode’s transcript here

●    Check out Dan Pallotta’s popular TED Talk, “The way we think about charity is dead”: https://blog.ted.com/correcting-the-overhead-myth-how-dan-pallottas-ted-talk-has-begun-to-change-the-conversation/

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Passing an annual budget is merely the numbers behind a really exciting year ahead.

Episode Highlights

• How budgeting is like Survivor,
• Harvesting your grant tree,
• Board Members, stop asking for the probability of revenue coming in,
• How to pass a budget with grace,
• Zero Based Budgeting: Why It Holds Back Nonprofits,
• Be better than Congress: Pass the budget before the new fiscal year,
• New Hashtags: #InvestInTheGrowth

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Teach Them Young

Philanthropy is a huge topic, not just because it impacts nonprofits so intimately and critically, but because it’s very imperfect. We know we’ll have lots of topics to cover.

In this first of many episodes on philanthropy, we discuss everything from small to big gifts, young to old, and the absolute necessity for everybody to engage.

Episode Highlights

• Teaching children about Philanthropy and Volunteerism
• Shrinking numbers of small and mid-range donors - Big Issue!!
• Donor Advised Funds and that conundrum
• New Hashtags from Brittny
• #RebirthOfGiving
• #FuelingASolution
• Stewardship of smaller donors: Don’t forget them!

Resources

• Get Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing The World by Anand Giridharadas
• Follow Vu Le and get more great analogies and hilarious nonprofit-related content at https://nonprofitaf.com/
• Full Transcript Available at

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