How to charm your program officer and have the best site visit ever!

There are few things in the nonprofit world as exciting and nerve-wracking as the site visit, the final step before getting a piece of that sweet, sweet funding. It is kind of like a date, a date where if you fail to impress, you may have to lay off staff and possibly not be able to help hundreds of clients who need the services, leaving you to weep alone in your office bathroom, consoling yourself with an entire bar of Trader Joe’s Pound Plus dark chocolate with almonds.

Program officers are special people. Smart and good-looking—in fact, scientifically 27% better looking than civilians—they can be intimidating. However, despite their great complexion and impeccable sense of style, they are also human. So if you are fortunate enough to get a site visit, there are things you can do to increase your chance of it being a successful one. Just follow these tips below:

1. Leading up to the day, make sure to remind your staff that there is a site visit. Everyone should act naturally, but it doesn’t hurt to have one or two staff unexpectedly say something like, “It’s nice to meet you. I would stay to chat, but I am helping one of our kids with her college essay. Shucks, I love this job.”
2. Refresh your knowledge of the foundation by exploring its website, focusing specifically on its investment priorities/jargon. This will allow you to say impressive things like: “I understand that one of your strategic priorities is shifting the paradigm to enhance collective impact efforts focused on the sustainability of thriving place-based urban-agrarian developments. This is why our Unicycle for Guns program is such a great fit. In addition to reducing violence through allowing youth to trade guns in for unicycles, we have also started organizing both gun control advocates and the acrobatics community to work together to change policies at the state level.” See how impressive that sounds?
3. Refresh your knowledge of your narrative and budget. After such a long time, you may forget all the details, which may be very embarrassing, since your program officer’s job is to thoroughly go through your application line by line and budget item by budget item and get clarification during the site visit. They will be extremely specific with their questions, such as “On page six, paragraph three of your narrative, you state that you will be providing workshops in the evenings four days per week, but on line 29A of the budget, there is only funding for a part-time staff to do three days per week. Also, looking at your staff bios on your website, I know that Jorge, the staff in charge of this project, will be taking night courses to earn his MSW while simultaneously planning his wedding. Who will be in charge of these workshops in the evening then, and what will you do when Mercury is in retrograde in November?”
4. If the site visit the requires the presence of a board member, meet beforehand to refresh your board member on the program and how it aligns with your organization’s mission, values, and strategic plan. Depending on your board member, you may also have to do a refresher on your organization’s mission, values, and strategic plan.
5. If the site visit is at a program, tell the clients ahead of time to expect some people, so that they don’t freak out. You want everyone to act natural, so consider whether or not you should tell clients that a funder is visiting. Also consider whether it is a good idea to have one or more clients walk by casually and say things like, “I don’t know where my life would be if it weren’t for this program. Shucks, I love this program and the organization that runs it.”
6. On the day of, dress appropriately, depending on the size of the grant. The bigger the grant, the more professional you and your staff should look. Grants under $5,000 you can pretty much do what I do and just roll out of bed and pop a peppermint into your mouth. $5,000 to $25,000 smart casual is best. $25,000 to $75,000 business casual. $75,000 to $150,000 semi-formal. $150,000 to $1million, business attire. Anything over $1million: coat, tails, top hat, cane.
7. Have a pad of paper and a pen ready, and jot down notes once every few minutes. It’s good to remember all the stuff your program officer tells you, but even if you don’t need to take notes, pretending to do so will make it seem like you’re engaged. It is also good to have a copy of your grant application printed out. If you forgot to have your grant application printed out, just gather whatever random but official-looking papers into a stack and keep it in front of you.
8. Your program officer unconsciously senses the power dynamics, so they will try to make you comfortable with light-hearted chatter and jokes. Make sure your laughter is appropriately hearty, but not too prolonged or strained.
9. Have an agenda prepared. The program officer usually already has their agenda set, but it is good for you to have something down also. It makes you look competent and invested when you can open strong during the introduction, like “I know you have a list of things to go over, but if we have time, I also want to touch base on these items I jot down while thoroughly reviewing the Foundation’s funding priorities. These items include evaluation, sustainability, and how our mentorship program aims to be carbon neutral by 2020.”
10. Be calm and don’t try to BS. Program officers are trained to sense fear and deception. You should know your program and organization well, but there will be moments where you do not know the answer to something. If that happens, it is best to say something like “I’m sorry, but I do not know how many of our clients are actually gluten intolerant due to Celiac Disease and how many are just jumping on the bandwagon. I’ll double-check and get back to you.”
11. Be transparent yet optimistic and solution-focused about your challenges. Your program officer will point out major weaknesses in your program and organization. Admit to those weaknesses and discuss what you will be doing to address it: “Yes, a major challenge for our organization is that we were founded as a doomsday cult. It will take many years for us to move past this image. However, the board and staff have created a communication plan around this issue, and we all strongly believe that we can move forward while providing high-quality non-doomsday services to our clients.”
12. Watch your body language. I’ll elaborate later about body language in nonprofit work. For now, just remember try to mimic what your program officer does. Mimicking of body language, when done right, makes you a lot more relatable and approachable. Do it subtly, though, or you’ll creep people out. For instance, if your program officer crosses his legs, wait ten seconds, then cross your legs also. If they lean forward, wait ten seconds, then lean forward. If they cough hysterically, wait ten seconds, then cough hysterically.
13. At the end of the meeting, you will be given a chance to ask questions. You will not impress if you don’t have any questions to ask, so think of a few in advance. Here are some examples of good, relevant questions to ask: “So what about our program in particular that interests the Foundation?” “Do you see your strategic priorities changing in the next few years?” “What are the next steps? When can we expect a decision from the Foundation?” Refrain from asking non-relevant questions like “So, I’m developing a musical about nonprofit work, would the Foundation be interested in funding that as well?” or “Are you single?”
14. Send a short and sweet thank-you email. It may be helpful to reiterate in a sentence or two about how your program is so awesome and how it aligns with the foundation’s strategies, but don’t go overboard. In a paragraph, express your thanks for the program officer’s visit, apologize for any mishaps that occurred—”my apologies for the terrible compost smell that lingered over our conversation”—continue on any inside jokes that developed during the site visit—”next time, we’ll definitely have weasels as a line item in our budget!”—confirm any action items that you will be taking, along with concrete deadlines—”we’ll revise the budget and get it to you by 5pm Friday”—and express some hopeful vulnerability—”We’ll keep our fingers crossed until we hear from the Foundation.”

There you go, just follow the above tips and you should have a swell site visit. Please add other tips you can think of in the comment section, and forward this to all your friends and relatives.

Related post: Site Visits, Uncomfortable, Yet Terrifying

Europe’s nonprofit structure: The good, the bad, the stylish

The past few days have been intense, filled with 10 to 15 hours daily of meetings with government officials, local business leaders, education leaders, city planners, etc. The lunches and dinners are also packed with interesting stuff. In Copenhagen we toured the city by bicycle, learned about the port’s development while riding down the canal on a boat, talked with top officials of the Danish Parliment, got a briefing from an association of employers, had dinner with an industry leader in her office, toured and chatted with the publicly-financed radio and television station, rode the light rail and learned about its development, spent a night at a wine maker’s mansion and learned from him the challenges employers are facing with the inheritance tax and the high costs of hiring workers, toured a “ghetto” where many of the immigrants are living, and sat through a beautiful opera where I was struggling to stay awake after 12 hours information.

Each of those events would make a great blog post, if I had more time and weren’t so lazy. With everything being so fascinating, I didn’t think it was taking a toll on me, until one of the other fellows told me “Every morning, it looks like someone had broken into your hotel room and beat you.”

“Oh yeah?” I said by way of a comeback, “well your face looks like a smorrbro [the traditional Danish open-faced sandwich] that had gone bad.”

The above is only half the stuff we have been doing, though. Between meetings, I have been able to talk to the locals, interviewing the taxi drivers on their views of the welfare system, questioning waitresses on their thoughts on the education system and the European Union. Each of us fellows also get paired up for one-on-one meetings with local leaders around topics pertinent to our work back home. For me, those topics include immigrant integration, the nonprofit structure, the education system, and where to find good chocolate. I only have a couple of hours until our dinner meeting, so I’ll focus on the nonprofit structure and will explore the other topics, as well as how Europeans perceive us Americans, later.

The nonprofit structure, as we know it, does not really exist in Europe, as least not in Belgium and Denmark, where I’ve had a chance to explore. Or maybe it does, but not nearly to the same extent that we do in the US. I had dinner with an Executive Director of an umbrella organization that is trying to build capacity of the local groups here. Right away I could tell that there is a marked difference between our two countries, as “Laurent” looks young and healthy, even stylish, in contrast to us EDs in the US, who are worn, gaunt, beaten down by time and stress, our hair gray, our faces marked by crisscrossing wrinkles, the results of too many annual events and endless nights worrying about budget gaps and which staff we may need to lay off.

“Almost 100% of my funds come from the government, who set the money aside each year,” said Laurent, chewing on his gnocchi with pesto sauce at the modest Italian restaurant we were in, “so 90% of my time is spent working on improving programs.”

“90%!” I said, nearly spewing my Belgium Leffe Blond beer onto Laurent’s boyish face and fashionable scarf. “What…what about fundraising events?” I asked, “Do you ever do those?”

“Never,” he said, and I had to drink some more beer to keep from crying. The people here pay high taxes, which go to take care of basic needs of the public like food for the low-income, and healthcare and education for everyone. Individual donations are rare, as most people consider themselves already giving what they could to the greater good through their taxes. With the State taking care of so much, there are few nonprofits here, and those that exist seem to get dedicated funding set aside for them each year, allowing them to not worry too much about sustainability. They can focus on their work. In a way, this is a remarkable system.

On the other hand, there are plenty of weaknesses. The government cannot possibly take care of everything, leading to huge gaps in services and innovation. It has made me think of how ridiculously creative nonprofits are in the US, with programs to teach kids leadership through gardening or cooking or radio, to help seniors through art or dance, to build community through biking or neighborhood cleanups or whatever. These are things that seem to not be as prevalent in the two countries I’ve visited. Some of the gaps are vital services that have not risen to the level of national attention; for example, the plight of abused children in Denmark, who go unnoticed by the government and general public, as few nonprofits exist to amplify their voices.

Another weakness is who gets funded. If you get a slice of government pie for your organization, you’re pretty good. If you don’t, finding funding will be incredibly difficult, as individuals don’t give, and major corporations, also paying high taxes, do not feel an intrinsic obligation to give to local causes. “They give to the local football [soccer] team,” said Laurent, “because it is tangible. Everything else, they think the State should take care of it.”

It is especially challenging for the immigrant and refugee communities, whose unique and diverse cultural needs cannot possibly be handled by the government. These cultural associations have a hard time in the US, and doubly so in Belgium and Denmark and I would guess other countries in Europe. Most are volunteer-driven, falling under the umbrella of an organization like Laurent’s. And Laurent, an ED here, does not understand my point about the importance of funding these groups to move them out of the voluneer model and into a sustainable one with full-time staff and professional credibility. “If we fund them to hire full-time staff,” he said, “and the staff leave, they take with them all the connections to the community. Volunteer community leaders, however, usually stay, so there is sustainability.” This mimics the inefficient model we often see in the US, where nonprofits led by communities of color are deprofessionalized, paternalistically sheltered under the aegis of a “wiser and more sophisticated” umbrella organization that absorbs 95% of the funding while the smaller organizations do all the direct service work. Here it might actually be worse.

In Denmark, the social welfare system seems to be even stronger, which means nonprofits have even less of a presence. I talked to “Hannah,” a woman who is passionate about her work with abused kids and I was shocked to learn how little the government knows about and protects this vulnerable population. Hannah has been having a hard time finding funding for her work.

“People see me on the TV,” she said, “and they send flowers and chocolates, saying what a hero I am.”

“Flowers and chocolates?” I said, “you need money! Tell them to send you money and get their friends to send you money!” In my righteous zealousness, I started elaborating on the US nonprofit structure, with its ED and board and development director and program director and strategic plans and individual donors and stuff, concepts that are completely foreign here. Hannah’s eyes lit up. “Please,” she said, “email me about your American nonprofit structure. Maybe you should move over here and help me set this up!”

This is kind of a tempting prospect. Maersk, the Danish shipping company, just last week donated $200 million to the Danish education system. From what I hear, this is very generous, but the Danish education system is well funded by taxes. This gift from Maersk would be much better spent to close the cracks in the social welfare system, cracks that passionate people like Hannah are trying to tackle with very little experience and support.

Despite all the flaws of our nonprofit structure in the US, a structure that ages and burns us staff out and makes us resemble beat-up leather shoes, it nonetheless has some great stuff going on. We are more creative, honing our programs to target specific needs of our clients. Our donors and corporations feel more of a sense of duty to help strengthen our community.

Still, we can learn a whole bunch of stuff from Europe, too. I would love it if funding were as stable so that we can spend more time—90%!–on actually improving our services instead of trying to keep our organizations surviving for one more year.

I’ll be thinking more about these things as I visit the other European countries. I just arrived in Lisbon today and will be observing Portugal’s various systems. Will write more later. There is a lot to think about.

An Executive Director’s Self-Evaluation

Hi everyone. For the first time in my eight years with the organization, my board has decided to conduct a performance review. These are two words that send chills up and down every Executive Director’s spine, on par with “budget deficit” and “annual event.” The board had a clandestine meeting three weeks ago to talk about my performance as an ED. Soon they will meet with me to deliver feedback.

I’m nervous. I just know they’re going to say something like, “Vu, you’ve developed a reputation as a drunkard and a loudmouth. That’s affecting VFA’s image. We need you to stop mixing drinks at work. Also, funders are saying you’ve been dressing up as Oliver Twist during site visits and literally begging for money.”

As part of the ED review, the board asked me to fill out a self-evaluation. This is a very important part of this process. Never do a performance evaluation without asking the evaluee to self-evaluate. Mainly because it’s very hard to remember all the stuff they did. More importantly, though, the distance between one’s perception of oneself and others’ perception of one may be significant, and highlighting and discussing any significant differences in perception is helpful to fostering personal and professional growth and/or bitterness.

The evaluation form is three pages long, and at the end, it asks for a summary of three key strengths and three key areas of improvement. I am listing them here, with the hope that it will inspire EDs and staff of other organizations to self-reflect. Only when we stop to take a break and reflect on our strengths and weaknesses will we improve and/or grow resentful:

My strengths this past year:

Strength 1: Empowering staff to make decisions and take ownership. This involves coaching skills, such as asking strategic questions to encourage staff to self-problem-solve instead of solving problems for them. For example:

Staff: One of the tutors in our program is constantly late and has a bad attitude. What should I do?

Me: Well, what do you think you should do?

Staff: I was thinking of having a one-on-one with her to get her perspective. What do you think?

Me: I could tell you, but first, what do you think I should think?

Strength 2: Fostering a culture of strong teamwork. This involves encouraging staff to collaborate on projects, support one another, and mutually resolve problem:

Staff 1: Vu, tell Staff 2 she needs to be in VFA’s monthly video update

Me: Please be in the video update, Staff 2.

Staff 2: I don’t want to be videotaped!

Me: She doesn’t want to be videotaped.

Staff 1: Vuuuuuuu!!

Me: You two figure it out! This custom-framed unicorn poster is not going to Velcro-tape itself up on the office wall!

Strength 3: Conserving VFA resources in order to focus the team on our mission and not get distracted.

Potential partner: Hello Mr. Le, we are conducting a community-wide research effort to improve community safety, and we need to start by gathering input from communities of color. Can VFA help us by organizing—

Me: A focus group of some of our clients?

Potential partner: Yes, exactly!

Me: How much are you providing in funding?

Potential partner: Fun…ding…?

Me: (Click)

My areas for improvement:

Area 1: Not letting personal pet peeves, such as when people use “literally” wrong, negatively affect the organization:

Potential donor: Hi, I visited your amazing after-school program, and I want to make a donation to VFA.

Me: Aw, thank you! That’s so thoughtful.

Potential donor: My pleasure. You guys are literally building bridges between different cultures

Me: We don’t want your money.

Area 2: Being more open and receptive to constructive feedback:

Colleague: My table overall had a good time at your dinner, but there were just way too many speeches. They dragged the evening down and sapped the energy out of the room:

Me: Your FACE sapped the energy out of the room.

Colleague: Also, you may want to spend more funds on the audio-visual stuff, since the sound was rough and muffled.

Me: Your FACE is rough and muffled.

Colleague: And you should put up more signs so guests know where to go. There weren’t enough signs.

Me: Your FACE is not enough signs.

Area 3: Improving on time management, keeping better track of outcomes, setting and meeting goals more often, being more effective at fundraising, spending more time cultivating donors, providing more professional development for staff, better engagement of the board, less watching of Portlandia during work hours, improving the financial management system and delivering reports on time for board meetings, increasing frequency of communication with the community, and coming to work with hangovers less often.

Well, there you go, that’s the most honest self-assessment I’ve done in a long time. I hope the board is satisfied. I’ll work on those and whatever other reasonable things they bring up, but I have my principles and there are certain things I am not going to compromise on. For instance, I am not going stop our “casual weekdays” dress code, and I’m not going to disband the Nonprofit Fight Club that I started with some other EDs.

Nonprofit Cocktail Recipes

A while ago I wrote about self-care, and how we should all try to find time to do the things that make us happy. For me, one of those things is mixing drinks. It makes me happy to discover or invent new cocktails. Here are several that are inspired by people and concepts in nonprofit work. I also asked friends on NWB’s Facebook page to send in their own recipes, and those are listed at the end. Please submit your own inspired creations in the comment section.

The Executive Director

1 oz vodka

2 oz grapefruit juice

2 oz passionfruit juice

1 more oz vodka

Another oz vodka

Put ice into glass or mug. Pour everything else in and stir. Garnish with more vodka. Drink at either 9am or 9pm at the office. Strong, and slightly bitter.

 

The Retreat

1½ oz coffee liqueur

1½ oz brandy

1 oz nighttime cold and flu medicine

2 Tylenol Extra Strength tablet

Pour coffee liqueur, brandy, and cold and flu medicine into glass without ice. Drop in Tylenol tablets. Drink the cocktail slowly while discreetly playing games on your smartphone.

The LOI

1/6 oz dry gin

1/6 oz Kirsch

1/6 oz orange Curaçao

1/6 oz dry vermouth

1/6 oz sweet vermouth

Strip of lemon peel.

Mix all ingredients together with ice and strain into a shot glass. Garnish with lemon peel strip. Give it to someone. If they like it, make them another, but instead of using 1/6 oz for each ingredient, use 1 full oz, but change orange Curaçao to blue Curaçao and Kirsch into blackberry brandy.

 

The Strategic Plan

½ oz blue Curaçao

1 tsp raspberry syrup

¼ oz maraschino liqueur

¼ oz yellow Chartreuse

¼ oz Cointreau

Chill everything for several hours, including a shot glass. Slowly and carefully pour the liqueurs in the order listed over the back of a teaspoon into shotglass. Do not stir. When done correctly, you will have a colorful, multi-layered drink that is not only delicious, but beautiful to look at. Do not drink it. Show it to everyone, then put it in the fridge and then throw it out after a year or two. 

The Annual Event

1 piece edible gold leaf

2 oz Cinzano extra dry vermouth

½ oz framboise

½ oz black Sambuca

½ oz pureed sardines

rose petal, lime wedge, lemon peel twist, raspberry, pineapple piece, candied hibiscus, black truffle shaving, cape gooseberry

Put gold leaf into glass. Shake Cinzano, framboise, and Sambuca with ice and pour into glass. Float pureed sardines on top. Garnish with rose petal, lime wedge, lemon peel twist, raspberry, pineapple piece, hibiscus, truffle shaving, and cape gooseberry. Drink up, rest for three months, then start gathering ingredients to make another one.

The Earnest Volunteer
Contributed by Krystyna Williamson

1/2 ounce dark rum
Jamaican ginger ale
1/2 tsp lime juice
mint leaves
1 1/2 ounce simple syrup

Muddle the mint in the syrup, add the rest and stir gently. Comes in on fire, heads off in three directions, and never really gets the job done. 

The Corporate Foundation Administrator:

Contributed by J. Eric Smith

2 parts Jagermeister
1 part Mayonnaise
1 part Worcestershire Sauce
1 part Cottage Cheese

Mix ingredients, shake vigorously, and drink very, very, VERY slowly, smiling all the while. If you gag or frown, you do not get the grant. Ever.

The College Intern

Contributed by Claire Petersky

1 1/2 oz vodka
3/4 oz peach schnapps
1/2 oz creme de cassis
2 oz orange juice
2 oz cranberry juice
1/4 cup white sugar
Orange slice and maraschino cherry for garnish

Very sweet, has some power – but you don’t want more than two of them.

The Development Director: 

Contributed by Sharonne Navas

1 ½ oz Bailey’s Irish Cream
1 ½ oz Butterscotch Schnapps
¾ oz Goldschlager
1 tbsp 151 Rum
1 dash Cinnamon

Mix all ingredients with ice in a shaker and pour into glass. If your Development Director has gotten the organization to fundraising goal by mid-year, you can light this drink on fire. If the Director hasn’t, you can light him/her on fire.* Win-Win!!

The [Certain Grantor]’s Website

Contributed by Claire Petersky

5 cherries

Angostura bitters

Lemonhart 151 rum

3 oz gin

1 bar spoon rosewater

½ oz lime juice

Place cherries in your mixing glass, add sugar. Place equal portions of Angostura bitters and Lemonhart 151 rum into an oil mister/sprayer. Mist the Angostura mixture through a flame. Flame until sugar caramelizes. Fill with ice and add gin, rosewater, and lime juice. Then, because the cocktail has timed out, throw the entire concoction down the disposal. Take a bottle of sriracha and splash a drop in your eye. Beat head against your kitchen countertop. Repeat from the beginning, at least three times.

***

(*Note, Nonprofit with Balls does not condone the setting of anyone on fire, even Development Directors who haven’t met outcomes).

The Sustainability Question, Why it is So Annoying

This morning, I woke up early and realized I was face-to-face with my son, Viet, who has been sleeping in the same bed with his mom and me. Looking at our sweet little baby, who was still sleeping peacefully, one tiny hand under his soft and rosy cheek, I was filled with warm fatherly thoughts. Namely: “When is this kid going to get a job and help pay for his keep?” I was tempted to wake him up and say, “You do realize that childcare for you each month is literally more than our mortgage, right? You better enjoy this while you can, little dude, because when you turn 18, you’re on your own.”

And that makes me think about the issue of sustainability of nonprofit programs. In every grant application, there is the “Sustainability Question,” which is basically, “How will you sustain this program or project when funding from the So-and-So Foundation runs out?” This seems absolutely reasonable at first glance, but honestly, it’s one of the most annoying questions we face. Most of us nonprofit professionals absolutely hate this question, and each time we see it, we have to leave our desk, go on a walk, maybe do some yoga or watch “The Daily Show,” then come back to our desk, take a deep breath, and write something  like:

“We will continue to develop our staff and board’s ability to fundraise and diversify our revenues, including building relationship with other funders, as well as cultivating support from corporate sponsors and individual donors. Our special events continue to increase in revenues, and the board is leading the effort to explore earned income through program fees and the door-to-door sales of inspiring macaroni artwork made by the children in our extended-learning program.”

All of that is basically a euphemism for “We will leave you alone and bother other people.”

“Just once,” said my ED friend, Director Maureen, “here’s what I’d like to put in response to that question:”

• Program staff and the board will triple the amount of time they spend praying for money
• Program participants will be asked to pray for money to provide for their services as well
• 10% of general operating funds will be utilized to purchase Power Ball lottery tickets
• Fund development staff will regularly consult a reputable psychic to help track which direction foundations are trending to support

Why is this question so aggravating? Why does every time I answer it, I feel like crap? I sent out an email to my ED friends in the field, asking for their thoughts, and the responses were passionate and insightful. While the issue is complex and requires a lot more time to explore, I’ll try my best to summarize my colleagues’ thoughts. Overall, the Sustainability Question is annoying and frustrating because:

Sustainability is in large part determined by funders, not nonprofits. As much as we love individual donors, many of us still rely on grants, and grants are usually small and one-year in duration. We get a bunch of one-year grants that are Frankensteined together to support programs, each one with their own set of demands and restrictions, (which I explored here in “Nonprofit Funding: Ordering a Cake and Restricting it Too.”). As one ED puts it, “Why is fidelity to the mission so highly valued and expected of nonprofit leaders and staff but funders expect to ‘sleep around?‘ One year and you’re out. [They] don’t even come back and ask.” This lumbering, unwieldy, tenuous system is the antithesis of sustainability, so to be asked how we will maintain and grow our programs within it is kind of like setting a fire and asking how we will be putting it out.

Sustainability depends on the whole organization being strong, yet funders do not like providing general operating funds. Really great programs do not magically appear out of thin air. It takes real people, people who need, like, an office to work at and healthcare for their stress and carpal tunnel and stuff. These things are critical, and yet we have to constantly fight for them. “We will cultivate relationships with individual donors and corporate sponsors, etc.” sounds great, but that requires development staff, which is fundraising, and no one likes to fund “fundraising” and “admin” expenses, because those things are so frivolous and useless.

The nonprofit model is unique in that success at carrying out our missions leads to increasing costs, not revenues. The more successful programs are, the more clients they will serve, the more staff and other expenses will increase, without a proportionate increase in support. An example is VFA’s Saturday English School (SES) program, which provides English and Math support to recent-arrival immigrant and refugee students every Saturday for three hours. Five years ago, we had 30 students show up each session. Because of how awesome the program is, we now have over 150 students each session. This is a five-fold increase in number of students served. The expenses tripled, since more students means more snacks, more teaching staff, more curriculum material, etc. But funders are not going to triple the amount they provide; if we’re lucky, they’ll renew at the same level, and we’ll have to go search for other, newer funders to provide support. This is the Program Growth Paradox, where the more a program is successful and expands, the less sustainable it is.

Other reasons cited by my ED colleagues include “we know very, very well that not every program that literally changes people’s lives for the better can become self-sustaining” (but should be funded anyway, see “Nonprofit’s Ultimate Outcome: Bringing Unicorns Back to Our World“), “I have no clue where my future funds will come from so everything I say sounds like BS” and “after five or more friggin pages of explaining just HOW MUCH you need the bucks, you are now invited to totally reverse yourself” and “I will think about this and get back to you after I have several drinks to calm down.”

Credit: James Hong, VFA’s Director of Operations

The most serious challenge with the Sustainability Question, however, is that it symptomatic of a divisive and patronizing system that perpetuates the unhealthy dichotomy of nonprofits as supplicants continually begging for spare change, and funders as benefactors. “How will YOU sustain this program? How will YOU sustain it after OUR funding that WE (might) give YOU runs out?” We now feel like the underemployed college-grad living in our parents’ basement, freeloading off of their good will, until they call us in for a serious talk about our future and demand to know what our plans are to find a job and inform us that it’s for our own good that in six months they will kick us out. We feel like Oliver Twist, who has to beg for another bowl of gruel from the…uh…that one guy, who serves…gruel…

OK, I haven’t read Oliver Twist.

The Sustainability Question is aggravating because the responsibility is overtly placed on nonprofits’ shoulders to fix problems in the world that we didn’t cause in the first place. Once the question is asked, “It immediately becomes somebody else’s problem,” writes one of my ED friends.  It feels like funders are at the end of their ropes trying to “help” us nonprofits and if we fail to sustain our work, it is all our fault. This is not working for our field.

Every once in a while I meet a program officer who used to be a nonprofit staff. “Ah,” they sometimes reminisce, “I miss being on that side of the table.” And I would say, “Tell me what it’s like on your side of the table?” And we would talk, and I would learn that being on the other side of the table has its challenges, and that it’s not all completely awesome, with ergonomic chairs and dental AND vision insurance and with each person getting access to the company unicorn to ride to important meetings.

But that makes me think, Why the heck are we on opposite sides of the table in the first place? Aren’t we all trying to solve the same problems? Why is the relationship between funders and nonprofits so adversarial? It is ineffective. We should be on the same team, where the quarterback supports the…uh, linebacker so that he can make a, um, rim shot at the…fourth inning…

All right, I don’t know anything about sports. Point is, nonprofits and funders must be equal partners, with different but symbiotic roles, and sustainability of the work must be shouldered by both parties. We nonprofits think all the time about sustainability, even without being prompted, and we will continue to build strong programs and diversify our funding. Funders, as equal partners, should provide multi-year funds, general operating funds, capacity building assistance, and help connect us to other funders and partners. And come visit the programs once a while! We must work together to figure out how to sustain and advance the work. We have to, because the needs of and challenges facing our communities are only going to increase.

***

More on funder-fundee relationships: The Wall of Philanthropy, Wildlings, and White Walkers

Nonprofit’s ultimate outcome: Bringing unicorns back to our world

The concept of “outcomes” has been well-beaten into all of us nonprofit folks. So much so, in fact, that I start to apply this concept to all sorts of non-work stuff. For example, watching Game of Thrones. Outcomes: reduced stress, increased knowledge of pop culture and thus increased social status.

Outcomes and metrics are great and necessary, but I am wondering if we are starting to take them too far. Every once in a while, we in the field do the infamous “so that” exercise. We start with an activity, let’s say tutoring kids, and we think about the effects: We tutor kids so that they can get better grades in school…so that they can move up a grade…so that they can graduate from high school…so that they can get into college…so that they can graduate from college…so that they can get a good job. Therefore, tutoring kids helps them get a good job. Sweet!

But at what point in the “so that” chain is it OK to stop and say, that’s a good outcome to fund? At what point does it become ridiculous? In recent years, it feels like we nonprofits have been pushed to expand this chain, because the further up the chain we go, the stronger and more compelling the outcomes seem to be, and the easier it is for funders and donors to rationalize funding programs. But sometimes it makes no sense. Because of the funding dynamics, we often have wacky conversations like this:

Funder (on a program visit): So how many hot meals does XYZ Organization serve each week?

ED: In a typical week, we provide about 900 meals to low-income seniors

Funder: That’s wonderful. What are the outcomes of your program?

ED: Well…uh…the seniors come in hungry, and they leave full

Funder: Yeah, but what does that do in terms of impact? Can you elaborate?

ED (remembering the “so that” exercise): Oh, yes, of course. When low-income seniors have access to nutritious food, their health improves, which means they function better. Healthy, well-functioning seniors lead to stronger communities. It also reduces accidents, which every year cost the state millions of dollars in emergency services.

Funder: Excellent! What evaluation instruments do you—

ED: But that’s not all! Those millions of dollars that would have been wasted on emergency services can now be invested in education, infrastructure, and economic development. Those investments will lead to a stronger state, which leads to a stronger United States, which will allow us to be better guardians of the globe, which may lead to world peace. And world peace means that the unicorns may return. The ultimate outcome of our hot-meal program is for the self-exiled unicorns to return to our world!

All right, that last part is something that we might think when in this situation, but would never say out loud to funders or donors, who wield the power of life and death over programs. We learn to say the right words because we know how vital these services are, but on the inside, we’re screaming “People not being hungry is a great outcome already! Gawwwwwww!!”

A couple of years ago, I helped start the World Dance Party, which is just a giant multi-cultural/multi-generational potluck party where people learn eight different dances in mini 20-minutes lessons, and everyone dances. That’s it. No lectures, no fundraising. It is free and attracts 200 to 400 people of all ages and backgrounds. The outcomes of WDP include getting neighbors to get to know one another and to feel connected to their community. I sometimes get blank stares when I tell people this, though, as if they’re expecting something sexier, like that these World Dance Parties, through getting neighbors to know one another better, reduce gun violence by 25%.

Funders’ push for “more compelling outcomes” goes too far sometimes, forcing us nonprofits to claim to be responsible for outcomes that make no sense for our programs. After-school arts or sports programs, for example, should not have to be directly responsible for and judged on increasing graduation rates, or getting kids into college. They increase kids’ confidence and love of learning and teamwork and a host of other skills. Those are absolutely wonderful outcomes by themselves and should be funded.

If we think about it, everything we do in this field has one ultimate goal: to increase happiness. All of us are happier when everyone’s basic needs are met, when we all live in safe and strong and supportive communities, when we all continue to learn and grow and reach our potential and contribute back.

But increasing society’s happiness is too fluffy an outcome, so we usually stop the “so that” chain at things like reducing crimes and saving taxpayers millions. The insidious effect of this sort of thinking is that we lessen the intrinsic values of human lives. Sheltering our homeless so that they are not battered by the elements for even a single night, that is itself intrinsically worth doing, because we don’t want our fellow community members to suffer. Building confidence and creativity in kids through teaching them photography or beat-boxing or poetry, that is itself intrinsically worth doing, because all kids should have opportunities to grow and explore their world. Having fun World Dance Parties so that people can feel connected to their neighbors and to their community, that is itself intrinsically worth doing because everyone deserves to feel a sense of belonging.

Sure, the above activities and other stuff we do in the field will lessen crimes, save society money, etc., but those effects should be considered awesome bonuses. They should not be the main reason why we do the things we do. We should do our work with the belief that every individual life has an intrinsic value independent of its value to society.

Only when we all truly believe that, will the unicorns come back to our world.

Youth Development: Why it is just as important as Early Learning

For the past few months, I’ve been thinking. Mainly about a Broadway show highlighting nonprofit work, called “501c3, the Musical.” It’ll be awesome, and I’ve starting coming up with titles and lyrics for potential songs, for examples “Another Evening in the Office” and “I Should Have Listened to Ms. Cleo.” (Hit me up if you have any connections to Broadway producers).

But I’ve also been thinking about the youth development field. Specifically about the difficulties of seeking funding for direct service youth programs as more and more funders shift their focus to collective impact efforts and early learning programs. It is the nature of the work that the funding tides shift back and forth from one worthy concept to another. But still, it has been frustrating and discouraging, and I don’t think I am the only youth development professional who feels like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, fighting constantly to save programs that serve youth, to convince funders that our society’s well-being depends on our having strong services along the entire continuum of our kids’ journey from birth to adulthood.

Two years ago, I served on the Families and Education Levy advisory committee, which was determining how to allocate the $232 million in funding that we would be asking of Seattle voters. The early learning advocates were organized, providing impressive data on return on investment, showing that a dollar invested in high-quality early learning programs could yield an eight or ten-fold return to society. They had convincing research results on brain development and a compelling argument that an ounce of prevention was so much better than a pound of cure.

No one in their right mind would argue against the importance of early learning, and now that I have a kid, I appreciate it even more. What is alarming, though, is that we have started moving into this zero-sum mentality of funding and programming. I remember during one Levy meeting when someone said, “We don’t have much funding, and if we spread it around too much, it won’t be very effective. I propose we invest all of the funds in early learning.” Several others agreed, and I probably pissed off a few people by opposing that idea, saying that we have to support kids at all points of their lives.

Youth Development, as a field, has many weaknesses. First, the term “Youth Development” is confusing. When we hear “Early Learning,” we instinctively have an image of what that is. It is easy to understand: Children, learning early, and thus getting a head start in life. “Youth Development” meanwhile, what the hell is that? It sounds like we’re trying to reverse aging. What’s the definition of youth? And developing what? What are we trying to develop our youth into?

Second, the field itself is nebulous and disorganized. “Youth Development” encompasses so many things: mentorship, tutoring, extended learning, leadership, arts, sports, media, mental health counseling, identity formation, environmental stewardship, career exploration and job searching, etc. Because the field is so broad, we have only started to pin down our common goals, compelling research, key messages, outcomes, evaluation tools, etc. In fact, Youth Development, as a field, is similar to the lanky, awkward, potential-filled youth that we serve. We are trying to find our identity and our place in the world. We have made great progress working together though organizations like Youth Development Executives of King County (YDEKC), whose board I am on. Still, we are behind and are playing catch up with other much more well-organized fields.

Third, it sounds crass, but let’s face it, babies and small children are much cuter than the pimply-faced and cranky older kids and adults they grow up to be. Just thinking back on what I was like as a teenager, with the braces and the severe acne and the constant sullenness, I can see why it is just easier to invest in the little kids, with their big adorable eyes, innocence, and endless curiosity. (I still have severe acne, but at least most of it is masked by wrinkles). We are programmed to protect our young, and when we have compelling research on brain development and return on investments, funding early learning programs is a sexy no-brainer.

But we must have a balanced approach. Despite all the weaknesses of the youth development field, or because of them, it is more important than ever to invest in youth programs. Just because we, the adults, have not been the best at organizing ourselves and our work and coming up with a more compelling name than “youth development,” it doesn’t mean our kids should be punished.

But that’s what’s been happening. An Executive Director colleague told me last week several hundred thousand dollars in grant funding was moved from her organization’s youth program to fund early learning. Across the board I hear of more and more youth programs being cut. It is depressing. This approach is discouraging, and it is counterproductive. Usually the first programs we cut are programs that kids love–like art, sports, nature exploration–programs that keep them motivated to learn and to remain in school. We MUST support youth programs as strongly as we support early learning programs, for several reasons.

First, kids get older. They will soon grow out of early learning programs, and life only gets more and more complicated. They may now face bullying, identity issues, clashes with their parents, academic challenges, hormones, discrimination, finding a sense of belonging, comprehending the nature of the world and why awful things happen to good people on the news, and multiple other stuff, usually in a single day. All the gains kids make early on in their lives through great early learning programs will likely fade unless we continue to support them through these turbulent years.

Second, many kids do not have the opportunity to benefit from early learning programs. Many of our struggling kids are immigrants and refugees who arrive to the US when they are older, bypassing early learning programs. The ones who arrive after the age of 12 face the greatest challenges, dealing with the above barriers while also experiencing language problems, cultural adjustment, and parents who work several jobs and are never around and who are also struggling themselves. We cut programs that support these older kids, and we wonder why they keep disproportionately failing in school or ending up in the criminal justice system.

Third, the return on investment for youth programs is just as high as for early learning programs. As this analysis shows, an investment of $1 in youth leads to a benefit to society of $10.51, assuming that the program helps the youth to graduate from high school and get a job and pay taxes and stuff. This doesn’t even yet account for the savings we’ll get by not having the kid going to jail and costing tax payers tons of money in dealing with crimes, etc. Yeah, the analysis is not perfect, but it is a good start. We youth development workers just suck at communicating these types of messages.

I know we’ve been talking about making the choice between prevention and cure. But for a second, let’s stop talking about our children as if they are diseases. Instead, let’s agree that all our kids deserve a good start to their lives, and that’s why we should invest in early learning. High-quality early learning programs are critical to our kids’ success.

But as children grow, things get more complex and more challenging, so in addition to a good start to their lives, they need a good adolescence, and a good bridge to their careers, and that’s why we must all invest in youth programs. With everything that our kids face every day, trying to grow and learn and understand themselves and get along with their friends and family and graduate from high school and take care of their acne problem and apply to college and find a job in this challenging economy, it is more critical than ever that all of us—early learning advocates, youth development advocates, collective impact advocates, funders, policy makers—work together to support our kids throughout their ENTIRE journey from birth to adulthood.

10 Steps for Writing a Kick-Ass Nonprofit Organizational Budget

Every year, at about this time, I start having night terrors. A lot of this is due to watching Game of Thrones and seeing all my favorite characters killed to death in gruesome ways. But it is also because VFA’s fiscal year ends in June, and we must go through the annual budgeting process, which is about as much fun as juggling baby porcupines.

Actually, no, baby porcupines are cute. Budgeting is about as much fun as juggling open jars of spicy chipotle mayonnaise. It’s messy and painful.

So I thought I would write down the steps to developing an awesome budget for a small to medium organization. This is not a guide for those who are starting a nonprofit, but rather for new EDs or board members of organizations that have been in operation for at least a year and will need to develop next year’s budget, or anyone who needs a refresher. Follow these steps below, and you will have a kick-ass budget that you can proudly show to your friends and family.

Step 1: Rally your team. This may be your finance committee. If you don’t have a finance committee, assemble a Budgeting Task Force. Make sure you call it “Task Force,” since Task Force sounds cool, like a team of superheroes who are called into action when the organization sends a distress signal (and at the end of every fiscal year, we are all sending distress signals). Include your board Treasurer, your Accountant/bookkeeper/finance person, one or two key staff, and an astrologer.

Step 2: Have your finance person provide data on up-to-date spending actuals for each program, as well as administrative and fundraising expenses. It is important to know how much you’ve been spending in each category this year, so that you can ignore all of it while you develop next year’s budget.

Step 3: Talk to your key staff to figure out the programming expenses for the next fiscal year. Ideally you will have a strategic plan on which to base next year’s staffing and programming (I’ll write later on how to develop a kick-ass strategic plan). If you don’t, it is important to get an idea from your staff what it is they need to make their programs successful next year. They are in the trenches, so they know best about programming stuff.

Step 4: Unfortunately, many requests can only be fulfilled in a mythical magical world with sufficient unrestricted funds, so you must bargain with your staff and be creative to reach middle ground. For example, a staff may say, “I need a unicorn in order to effectively do my work,” then you say, “we can’t afford a unicorn,” and your staff will say, “without a unicorn, I can’t do so and so and I am burning out,” so then you say, “how about a work-study unicorn instead?”

Step 5: Personnel expenses are the biggest and most critical category in your budget, since it takes staff to make things happen. It is important that your staff are paid a fair and decent wage that are increasing with cost of living. Go borrow the United Way’s Wage and Benefit Survey from one of your nonprofit friends (or order it online if you’re one of those big nonprofits who can afford it). Look up all the positions you plan to keep or develop, and it’ll tell you what on average those positions are paid in organizations your size.

Step 6: Put your computer on hibernate, close your door, and gently weep for five or ten minutes, thinking about all your wonderful staff and how horribly underpaid they are, according to the Wages and Benefit Survey, and about all the stuff you could do if you only had more resources. Then dry your eyes, open your door, and if any staff happens to ask what’s wrong, just give them a hug and tell them you’re proud of them and that the work they do is so important and that they’re making the world better, then go on a walk to clear your head.

Step 7: Now that you have all your projected expenses down, you must look at the potential revenues. Review all the funders who supported you this fiscal year, and categorize each of them by “unlikely to renew since it was a one-year grant,” “possibly renewable, but is so restricted that it may actually cost the organization more to administer than the grant is worth,” “50/50,” and “no clue, since they’re in the middle of a strategic planning process and we’re not sure what their priorities will be next fiscal year.”

Step 8: It is now time to put your astrologer to use. Have them create a chart of where the planets are this year in relation to your organization, as that is the best way to predict where the rest of your funds will be coming from. Mercury (representing foundations), Venus (representing individual donors), and Saturn (representing government funding) are in rare alignment right now, which may mean that it is time to focus more fundraising energy on those areas. The tiny and distant Pluto, representing general operating funds, is no longer a planet, but it still greatly impacts nonprofits, so make sure your astrologer includes its trajectory in the charts.

Step 9: It is unlikely that you will have enough projected revenues to meet projected expenses, so start cutting things and finding creative ways to obtain resources. For example, can you ask for donations of food for programs from local restaurants? Can the children in your programs spend one or two hours a day making products such as shoes or backpacks that could then be sold? And do staff REALLY need dental and vision insurance?

Step 10: Once your Task Force agrees on the draft budget, voila, you’re pretty much done! Forward it to the rest of the board to review and approve. They’ll likely be shocked at how much they’ll have to help raise through individual donations and the annual dinner and will likely ask you to cut down expenses even further. Resist the urge to break down weeping. Just smile, give an inspiring speech about working together, and reassure your board that you won’t be submitting any grants on any day when Mercury is in retrograde.

The most crotch-kickingly craptastic grant application notice ever

Today, I paid 10 bucks to get kicked in the crotch by a funder. Well, not literally, but that’s what it felt like. We had applied for a significant grant (over 100K), in partnership with another organization. Yesterday, we were excited to get an email from this funder asking for the ED to come downtown for a meeting, and to bring copies of the grant application. Sweet! One step closer!

Normally, this is how a grantmaking process works: First, an RFP is released. We review the RFP, figure out if it’s a good match for our mission, rally potential partners, write the application, and submit it. Then we wait. Usually, one of three things happens. The best scenario, of course, is getting a phone call saying we got the grant, in which case, depending on the size of the grant, I close down the office, tell the staff to stop helping disadvantaged clients for the day, and we all go out for ice cream.

The most common scenario is we get a letter saying, “Blah blah, we had 300 applications and there is only so much funding to go around; your application, while strong, did not qualify; we’re available for feedback,” in which case, depending on the size of the grant, I close down the office, tell the staff to stop helping disadvantaged clients for the day, and we all go out for alcohol, and in an inebriated state we beg the bar owner to be a sponsor or at least for some sympathy fries on the house.

A third result is an email or phone call asking us to come in for an interview or a meeting, in which case, a whirlwind of activities happens, including reviewing the grant application (because by then, we’ve forgotten what we proposed, something about helping kids), doing a pre-meeting to determine who says what so that we don’t trip over each other, and determining logistics such as carpooling and whether we should color coordinate our interview outfits and get haircuts.

The interview stage does not automatically mean that we get the grant, but it is exciting to think that we are a little closer to being able to do some cool programming and help some great kids and families. I am on paternity leave, but this was a large grant, so I dragged my fellow ED from the collaborating organization, Sharonne, and one of my staff, James, and we drove downtown, getting there 30 minutes early to review our game plan. James had spent the previous night creating a chart to better illustrate our program model.

We walked into the room, ready to answer questions and dazzle the two grant reviewers, who seemed like nice women.

“So you know how this process works,” said one of the women, “we got 10 applications, and could only select 2. Unfortunately, VFA is not one of the two organizations. However, you came real close and just missed it by a couple of points.”

WTF? We looked at each other, confused. “We have some feedback here for you, and can answer any questions you have. Would you like to hear the feedback?”

Silently, we nodded, thinking this was the most bizarre meeting ever. She went through a long list of feedback about our applications, both good and bad, and we sat there, stunned, like we were in some weird sort of nonprofit twilight zone.

“So,” she said, “do you have any questions?”

We paused.

“Yes,” I said, “when did the notice about the grant go out? Did you send a letter saying that we didn’t get this grant? Because we didn’t get any notice…”

The women looked at each other.

“Well, uh, no, sorry, I know it’s a little cryptic when we called you in, but we didn’t want the word spreading about who got and didn’t get the grant, so we, um, wanted to call you in and talk to you, and THEN we send out the notices.”

I was trying hard to control my temper, and I could feel the anger rising in Sharonne and James.

“We feel blindsided,” I said, “Normally we get a rejection letter or phone call, and then we ask for feedback. We are used to rejections, so that is not the issue. You don’t call people in, leading them to think that they are advancing in the process, only to tell them they didn’t get the grant.”

“Well, uh, that’s the process that [our supervisor] set up.” She looked at her colleague. “That’s funny, this is the first time we’ve gotten this feedback.”

“I don’t appreciate this,” I said. I had had all of two or three hours of sleep each night for the past 18 days and was in no mood to be extra nice.

“Your assistant asked us to bring in copies of our grant application,” said Sharonne, “why would we bring copies if it’s just a feedback session?” She had driven over an hour to get to this meeting.

“Well, uh, we see what you mean,” one of the women responded, “we certainly didn’t need copies. We have so many!—“

“Which we thoroughly reviewed,” the other woman chimed in cheerfully.

“We’ll talk to our assistant,” they said.

We left, feeling extra crappy. Not getting the grant is one thing, and something that all nonprofits are used to even though it hurts each time, but driving all the way downtown and wasting our time preparing for this meeting only to get 5 minutes of feedback that could have easily been delivered by phone, simply because they didn’t want word spreading prematurely—that sucks. Since this was downtown Seattle, we wasted 20 bucks on parking the two cars, making us all feel like we each paid to get kicked in the gonads, and not in a good way.

“Let’s go get a drink,” I said, and others thought it was a great idea. After a mimosa in each of us at 11:37am, the episode seemed hilarious. This was hysterical! Ha, James stayed up making a chart! Sharonne drove up from Olympia! Me spending several minutes this morning figuring out if I should wear my red button-down shirt, which conveys power, or my purple striped button-down shirt, which conveys practicality. (I chose the purple one). We didn’t get the 100K grant that we had spent hours working on! It was really, really funny!

I love this work. It is never boring, even on some days when I wish for it to be.

Our waitress was extra nice when we told her what happened. “Keep trying,” she said. I should have asked her for some sympathy fries.

 

How awesome is having a baby?

Hi everyone,

My apologies for being absent the past couple of weeks. My little son arrived on Tuesday, after 13 hours of hard labor that were almost as difficult as some grant application processes. We’re naming him Viet William Prinzing Le. We got lots of good suggestions for names, but the auctioning off the baby’s naming rights mentioned earlier…well, that was actually an April Fool’s joke. (Although, I think we may just do that if we have another kid, maybe get some corporate sponsors. “Doritos Shamwow Le” does have a nice ring to it).

I am sleep deprived, looking like an extra from the Walking Dead. I have not had more than two consecutive hours of sleep for seven days. Don’t worry, though, the poor sleep and exhaustion hasn’t been affecting me at yes, yes we would love a donation, Benjamin Franklin, thank you!

Huh? Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, the baby. This has been one of the hardest few days of my life, trying to stay up to console the baby. For the first few days, he wouldn’t sleep without being held. Now he can for a short period of time, but once in a while, he jolts awake, and I have to tap him and say soothing things like “shhhhh, shhhh, Daddy’s here, and you don’t have to plan an annual dinner…” It is exhausting. And I have to learn all sorts of new stuff, like how to use cloth diapers (Since this is Seattle, the diapers are organic, gluten-free, and artisanal, made with hemp fibers). Having a baby changes you. Last week, I walked into the birthing center a boy. When I walked out, I was no longer a boy.

But a boy with an awesome baby! Sweeeet!!! Seriously, despite the exhaustion, the long nights, the hoarse voice, and the constant lingering smell of spit-up that surrounds me, this is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced. How awesome is it, you ask? Since this is a nonprofit blog, I’ll try to put it into nonprofit perspective:

• It is more awesome than a funder that you don’t know emailing you asking you to apply to a grant, and then you apply, and then you actually get the grant.
• It is better than a four-day weekend where you don’t have any community meetings and you can just watch like an entire Season of Breaking Bad or Arrested Development.
• It is better than giving someone feedback, and then seeing evidence that they actually used it and you no longer want to smack them each time you see them.
• It is better than getting a thank-you note from a student saying how much your program has helped her, with terrible spelling and a sweet but horrible drawing of you.
• Better than checking your email and finding someone has made an online donation. Better than meeting your annual dinner goal. Better than that feeling you get the day after a major event when you still have so much crap to do but at least it’s over and you can go splurge on some ice cream.
• Better than a retreat that actually leads to a doable action plan that everyone is happy about.
• It is better than cleaning up your cubicle and finding a gift certificate for a dozen vegan cupcakes that someone gave you but you promptly lost because your cubicle is the Bermuda Triangle of documents.
• It is better than beating traffic and arriving early for a meeting, so early that you can take a 15-minute nap in your car in the sunshine and then waking up and freaking out thinking you may have overslept but then realizing you still have six minutes so you set your alarm for five minutes and go back to sleep.

Having a sweet little baby is better than all those things. And almost as good as a multiyear general operating grant.