nonprofit field
Next week my organization is having its annual dinner , which means that right about now everyone is busy and on edge. Occasionally we share our anxiety-induced nightmares with one another as a form of stress relief: “There I was, sitting at my table next to the Mayor and Benjamin Franklin.
ED Life
Hi everyone. This is not going to be a high-quality post, because I spent many, many hours this weekend watching House of Cards on Netflix. Darn you, Frank Underwood, you creepy, effective bastard and your ruthlessly efficient wife! Now it is 12:30am and I am only beginning to work
ED Life
Every once a while I get a chance to infiltrate the campus of a major corporation like Microsoft. Usually it’s to beg someone to join our board or to be a sponsor of our annual event (ideally, both). These places are very different from nonprofits, but luckily, I’ve
Cultural Competency
Note: This post was written in 2014. For this year, the Lunar New Year starts on Thursday, 2/8/16, ushering in the Year of the Fire Monkey. Everything else still applies though. Lunar New Year is coming up, and those of you who still keep referring to it as
ED Life
Hi everyone. Our computer got infected with a virus, so I couldn't work on my blog post today. I am on a tablet, typing approximately one word per minute. This paragraph has taken one hour so far. I'll put up the post later. Meanwhile... An Executive
Funder Relations
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
ED Life
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
ED Life
Today, I was at the grocery store trying to decide whether it was worth it to buy twelve organic blueberries for five dollars, when I noticed chanterelle mushrooms. Chanterelle mushrooms! Already?! There is nothing in the world that I love more than chanterelle mushrooms, and yes, that includes my wife
nonprofit field
[Note: The set of creatures originally comprised Dragon, Unicorn, Phoenix, and Lion-Turtle. Due to copyright and other reasons, it has been changed.]Most of us in the field have done various “behavioral styles” activities. With so much of our work being relationship-based, it is important for us to understand one
Board Relations
Most people who know me know that I have only one pair of shoes and one belt. They are both made of vegan fake leather and look crappy. That’s because I got married and thus no longer have any incentives to look attractive. Plus, we Executive Directors of small
Office Culture
For the past several weeks, VFA has been packing all our stuff and doing other things to move to our new office location. This year, it dawned on me how important work space is. I mean, seriously, we spend like 50% of our time at the office. (In fact, VFA
Board Relations
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 my org’s fiscal year ends in June, and we must