The mysterious, secret lives of foundation board trustees
Hi everyone, if you’re in Seattle next Monday, May 4th, 6pm to 8pm PT, please join me and fellow rabble rouser Glen Galaich, author of CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short, for a no-bullshit conversation about philanthropy. RSVP here so we know how much hummus to order.
It’s been half a year since my book was released. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy, read it, made it a part of their book club, or sent it anonymously to various funders with ominous notes like “read chapter 8…” Because of you, the publisher is already hounding me to start working on my next project.
I think I have an idea that they’ll like. It came to me during a Q&A at one of my keynotes where I was talking about philanthropy and what we need to unlock our sector’s full potential. Someone remarked, “Vu, it seems the people who really should be in these rooms having these types of conversations, are never here. I’m talking about foundation board trustees. They hold all the power!”
Yes, this has for decades been a huge obstacle in our sector. Foundation trustees are probably the most powerful people in our sector, and yet they are elusive as the ghost orchid. These folks, with a few very cool exceptions, are never found among us peasants. Whenever I think of them, I imagine cloaked figures, like druids, having secret meetings at night in a forest, chanting in ancient tongues, around a fire.
It’s a serious problem, because foundation trustees have such influence on the sector, and yet because they have little first-hand experience with various issues and they are seldom in community to learn, they are probably the least informed people in our field. It makes little sense. We need to find a way to understand and connect to them.
So here’s my book idea: I’m going to infiltrate a foundation’s board, observe their behaviors in their natural environment, gain the confidence of the trustees until I am seen as one of them, and move them toward effective grantmaking purposes. The book will document this process, in diary format. Here’s what imagine some sample excerpts of what this book could look like:
Day 1: Dear Diary, it would be a lie to say that I am not nervous. I am trembling and could barely hold down the hummus I had this morning. Jane, who is on the board and who convinced the rest of the trustees I might be a valuable addition to the foundation, reminded me that trustees could sense fear. And poverty. I had ditched my normal outfit, bought at Ross Dress for Less, in favor of higher-end brands, to blend in. For weeks now, I have been practicing the language of foundation trustees, trying to use phrases like “how are our stocks doing,” “what does our general counsel say,” and “can we just allocate funds to a DAF to fulfill our 5% payout requirement” naturally, without hesitation.
Day 12: Dear Diary, it has been two weeks now since I joined the foundation’s board. At first, they showed signs of suspicion. After all, I am not white or from an Ivy League school, and I still have one eye with an involuntary twitch from years of gala-related stress. I made a mistake at the onboarding retreat when I took out a reusable container from my jacket to take home some leftover food, gaining shocked stares. “Ha ha,” I said, “that’s just my impersonation of a nonprofit leader, heh…” That did not placate them. Thinking quick, I muttered “Whoa, it seems our corpus is doing well, huh? The DOW must be surging.” They were distracted, and I was quickly able to abscond with several tiny sandwiches and a La Croix Pamplemousse.
Day 28: I am starting to win most of the trustees over and they are beginning to accept me as one of their own. Some are more welcoming than others. Edith, for instance, chair of the board and a dowager of some renown, is still suspicious, constantly testing me; today she asked me where I “winter.” Then there is Aedhyn, who used his family wealth to open a business selling “healing sand” to the health obsessed. This is volcanic sand with supposed beneficial properties when ingested in small quantities, popular among tech bros. Aedhyn has invited me to the secret ceremony the rest of the board only makes oblique references to. I suspect this to be the event where the foundation’s strategic plan is formalized.
Day 67: As I become more ingrained into the group, I find myself pulled unconsciously into the gravity of groupthink. At a board meeting this week, a program officer gently proposed the foundation give unrestricted funds, and I could feel a sudden disdain rise within me. How dare this program officer bring up such a suggestion. Does she not know that we, the people who have the least amount of lived experience combined with a complete removal from the daily reality of people most affected by injustice, would know best? The rest of the board immediately shut down the conversation, citing “accountability." The program officer looked so crestfallen. I must be careful, lest I am further drawn into this group that I may no longer recognize myself nor my purpose.
Day 174: Last night was the strategic planning ceremony. When the moon was at its brightest in the sky, we all donned our embroidered cloaks and filed into a clearing in the forest, where a towering pyre made of grantees’ program reports greeted us. Throughout the night, we walked slowly around the fire, Edith invoking the Gospel of Wealth, her Gregorian-like humming punctured by loud droning chants of “protect the corpus!” and “perpetuity!” from the other trustees. Finally, the Bones of Strategy—chicken bones retrieved from one of Carnegie’s meals—were scattered upon the ground, and the pattern they formed was deciphered using the Book of Strategies. Alas, the bones formed no obvious pattern, so the decision was made for the foundation to go on hiatus for two years to figure out our strategic priorities.
Day 365: It’s been a year now since I have joined the board of trustees. The board no longer doubts I am one of them. They talk freely in my presence about whatever occupies their minds, which is often about how to ensure our sacred endowment does not dwindle, regardless of how the rest of society fares. Next week, we have our board retreat at a remote island owned by one of the trustees. The event will include the Rite of Perpetuity, where an executive director will be chosen to dress up as a deer and then released into the forest while the rest of us, armed with bows and arrows, pursue them. If they can survive until sunrise, they will be given a 10-year grant. None ever do. The corpus always wins.
There you go. I hope my publisher Wiley likes the idea.
Now, if you’re offended by this post and think it’s outrageous the way I’ve portrayed board trustees of foundations, it’s not my fault. We rarely see trustees out on the ground and engaged in vital conversations needed for us to tackle the pressing problems facing our communities. Until they act like partners and not mysterious all-powerful figures sending down mandates from on high that the rest of the sector must obey, we can’t help but imagine what they’re up to and how they come to their often-nonsensical decisions.
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Vu’s book, Reimagining Nonprofits and Philanthropy, is out. Order your copy at Elliott Bay Book Company, Barnes and Nobles, or Bookshop. If you’re in the UK, use this version of Bookshop. If you plan to order several copies, use Porchlight for significant bulk discounts. Also, if you're buying 25 copies or more, I'll be glad to call in for a 50-minute discussion; please contact NWBspeaking@gmail.com.
