Leading and Creating Movements with Vu Le
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In this episode of The Small Nonprofit, Maria welcomes Vu Le, a prominent voice in the nonprofit sector and the writer behind the influential blog Nonprofit AF. Known for his humor and sharp insights, Vu discusses his journey from “aspiring to be a doctor” to becoming a leader in community-centric fundraising and nonprofit advocacy.
He shares his thoughts on the systemic issues within traditional fundraising practices, the importance of ethical storytelling, and the need for nonprofits to engage in advocacy for systemic change. Vu's unique perspective and unwavering commitment to equity and justice provide invaluable lessons for anyone involved in the nonprofit sector.
Key Episode Highlights:
The Role of Humor in Nonprofit Work: Learn how Vu uses humor to address and analyze the challenges and absurdities in the nonprofit sector.
Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF): Understand the principles of CCF and why Vu believes it’s crucial for promoting equity and justice in fundraising.
Systemic Issues and Advocacy: Explore Vu’s views on the need for nonprofits to engage in advocacy and policy change to address the root causes of social issues.
Future Vision for the Sector: Hear Vu’s vision for a future where CCF principles are widely adopted and lead to systemic change.
Quotable Moments:
"We should be working as a sector to support one another, but we often don't. It's challenging, but it's essential for better serving our communities."
"Humor and baby animals are my go-to for coping with the frustrations in the sector. They bring some light to the heavy work we do."
"The donor-centered model often infantilizes donors while putting them on pedestals. We need to treat donors as equal partners and have honest conversations with them."
Actionable Tips:
Incorporate Humor into Your Communications: Find ways to add humor to your emails, social media, and meetings. It can help lighten the mood and make your message more relatable. Don't fear joking about your challenges. It can build camaraderie and ease tough talks.
Reevaluate Your Fundraising Approach: Focus on community needs and expectations. You may need to rethink your fundraising strategies. They should align with your mission of equity and justice, even if it means taking some risks.
Advocate Boldly and Consistently: Don’t shy away from advocacy, even on “controversial” issues. Speak out about systemic inequities. Use your platform to push for change in your community. Consistency in your advocacy efforts will help build credibility and drive progress.
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Next Episode Teaser:
Join us next week as we talk with Roz Zavras about the Center for Community Collaboration. Don’t miss it!
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Maria: Hey, so you already know who I'm talking to today because you clicked on this to listen to it I'm here with someone who needs no introduction, but I'll let you introduce yourself. Of course Vu.
[00:00:12] Vu: This Vu. I use he him pronouns and I'm calling in from Seattle which is on Duwamish and Coast Salish land and I write a blog called Nonprofit AF.
[00:00:21] Vu: com I was actually supposed to be a doctor like my parents always wanted, right? And I decided I just, I didn't want to do that and I wanted to do something that not a lot of people have been doing in my community, which is the Vietnamese community.
[00:00:37] Vu: And it is social work, it's community development and so I got my master's in social work. Which did not make my parents very happy and they are still trying to convince me to go back, to go to medical school.
[00:00:50] Maria: You could still become a doctor.
[00:00:51] Vu: Or at least do something else. That's better. Like run a restaurant or be an accountant or [00:01:00] something.
[00:01:01] Vu: Yeah, so I got my master's and then just went into nonprofit work. And I've been running a couple of nonprofits for the past few years. And then I left just to kind of rant at the sector for the last four years or so.
[00:01:16] Maria: Wait, when did you start Nonprofit AF? When did that start?
[00:01:19] Vu: It started in 2012, I believe, and it was called Nonprofit with Balls because it was referring to all the balls that we juggle all the time, like fundraising balls.
[00:01:29] Vu: No, I get it now. Yeah.
[00:01:31] Maria: Okay. And why did you start the blog? Were you looking for a space to create community, or was it something that you did because of work, or how did that start?
[00:01:40] Vu: I just needed an outlet, because I was always analyzing everything,
[00:01:44] Vu: and I've always been like the class clown. And so I liked being funny and analyzing things with a humorous bent. And there's a lot of humor in our sector. There's a lot of funny things and people are hilarious in our sector. [00:02:00] Oh, it was nice to just capture some of that.
[00:02:03] Maria: Hilarious is the only way to put it, I think. Yeah. But I love how you use humor to bring some light and some levity to the situation. Cause for me, how I've approached it is burn it down. I hate it. I am dying just like talking to this person humor has been really helpful and like finding that community finding some healing.
[00:02:24] Vu: So much stuff to be angry about.
[00:02:28] Maria: Honestly. And how do you balance that? Cause I am not great at it.
[00:02:34] Maria: I just feel myself like more and more angry and I'm like, how can they not get it? A few days ago when a local hospital announced tickets for their biggest fiesta of the year . I had the reaction of are you kidding me? Like, how? So I would love to hear how you kind of balance like advocacy with like your own feelings.
[00:02:55] Maria: And keeping motivated, but [00:03:00] also knowing that realistically, these people are not moving very quickly.
[00:03:06] Vu: Yeah, it is definitely challenging. I have to admit. And some days I'm just like, I don't want to get out of bed. I just want to watch Netflix all day because this is just so discouraging. And sometimes I feel like a lot of things I've been saying, which I've been saying for over a decade now, right?
[00:03:24] Vu: And it's just so slow to change sometimes and we've been ranting about these same things over and over again. Like we're still talking about overhead. Why are we still talking about overhead? That should be just like, I'm just getting more and more frustrated and discouraged, but what gives me hope is like people in the sector, I really appreciate the people in our sector. Like everyone is working really hard. Most of us are in the trenches trying to make the world better
[00:03:49] Vu: and I know many people could be doing something else and make more money. And maybe be more respected by their families and stuff, but instead we choose to be here struggling [00:04:00] every day to make our world better. I'm just very appreciative of the people in our sector.
[00:04:06] Maria: That's true.
[00:04:07] Maria: Whenever you talk to someone who gets it, it makes it a lot easier that has been really healing, like the community and the people.
[00:04:13] Vu: We have great people. I think some of the best people are in the sector.
[00:04:18] Vu: And I think what's been so frustrating to me is we have brilliant people who just do not have the resources. They need to just make things better just to unleash the potential of the sector and that's what I, it saddens me like I see just like people who are so smart and who have the solutions, especially from our communities, from marginalized communities who are like if, we just do this.
[00:04:41] Vu: It will solve all these problems. And then they go to funders and the funders are like, no, I don't know. Do you have a strategic plan and do you have a logic model and a theory of change? And it'll take us 12 months to get back to you. Maybe we'll give you 4 percent of what you asked for. And [00:05:00] then these people just get beaten down and just tired.
[00:05:02] Maria: I agree. I want to talk a little bit about community-centric fundraising as a movement. So a more formalized thing, cause before it was very easy to see myself in it. Like I get it and other people get it and only people who get it are using these terms.
[00:05:16] Maria: But now it's grown so much and we do have some really good people. We are having the conversations more publicly in conferences and stuff like that.
[00:05:25] Maria: But I feel like change is still happening incrementally, if at all.
[00:05:31] Vu: Yeah I've been really, just really proud and impressed by the community-centric fundraising movement and how it has been spreading. There's just so many brilliant people there. The global council has been so great and I just see more and more signs of organizations using it, discussing it.
[00:05:49] Vu: There are like communities of practices springing up. There are people just documenting what they're doing differently. Like one group here in Seattle just stopped doing these raise the [00:06:00] paddles, right? Cause we have these events where people are like, raise the paddle. Who's donating at 10, 000 and who's donating at 5, 000.
[00:06:07] Vu: And we've been so used to this system of just rewarding the people who give the most money. And the more money you give, the more attention and special treatments that you get. Yeah. And it's very counter to like the principles of equity and community. So I'm really glad to see that is starting to can't, to take whole, like these ideas of grounding fundraising and more in equity and justice it's been really cool.
[00:06:34] Vu: So I think the future is like more of that, but going even further. I would love for us to start talking to our donors more openly about like reparation about returning stolen indigenous land, about them paying their fair share of taxes. And not only that, but like joining the movement to change tax laws so that other people and corporations are paying their fair share of taxes too.
[00:06:59] Vu: And that is just a [00:07:00] given and we don't fight it so hard, and in some ways, we do need to talk about like, where are our taxes going? Cause right now it's funding weapons of war and a genocide. But I think that the idea that people should be paying taxes and those taxes should be used to invest in our infrastructure, in our communities that is not something, that we should be fighting all the time, but we should be disputing.
[00:07:23] Vu: So I'm excited to see CCF kind of start advancing towards like advocacy and really advancing the conversations that way. How about you? What do you see for the future here?
[00:07:36] Maria: Ooh. I see more outspoken people. A lot of people are saying the quiet part loud and maybe they're not always having a platform, but they're definitely emboldened by one person being louder.
[00:07:51] Maria: So yourself or Liz LeClair, like saying the quiet part out loud. And it's oh, yeah, good. Other people are thinking this because sometimes you might just, think I'm the [00:08:00] only one who thinks this, so just like seeing it out there has really inspired me and a lot of other people to go and also say the quiet part loud and I think that will inspire more people.
[00:08:12] Maria: So at a minimum, they won't be able to turn, turn away and just pretend it's not happening like that's not going to be an option anymore.
[00:08:20] Vu: I hope so. And Liz has been amazing. She's so great and so fearless. I'm just really appreciate all the conversations she's been pushing regarding NDAs and sexual harassment in our sector and just like terrible behaviors that we've been putting up with because we want to raise money like that has been one of probably one of the one of the worst things about our traditional fundraising practices is that it's been protecting donors.
[00:08:51] Vu: Who do horrible things like sexually assaulting fundraisers and stuff. And then a lot of EDs or boards are like just put up with [00:09:00] it because they're a major donor. Like nothing, no amount of money should be prioritized over the wellbeing of people. Let's have these conversations.
[00:09:11] Maria: I actually have Liz on the podcast to talk about accountability. Cause in her case, she brought it to the media and there was still no accountability and like now she's going through a court case. And I'd love to talk to you about the same thing. So how do you ensure accountability with organizations?
[00:09:29] Vu: Yeah, we've been so nice as a sector, we've been trying to encourage funders to do things differently.
[00:09:37] Vu: And to not be so crappy. And what I realized is that being nice oftentimes does not work because what happens is that a lot of funders don't believe that this is them or they don't believe that they have to be held accountable because, we're just calling out very vaguely hey foundations don't require excessive reports.
[00:09:57] Vu: And they're like what are you, what are these people going to do? [00:10:00] But during the pandemic and the, like the very first few months of the pandemic, there was one funder who was still requiring grantees to print out copies of their proposals and then hand deliver them to their office.
[00:10:13] Vu: And this is when we were all shutting down and the community members were like there's a pandemic. We're trying to not have any physical contacts. And the funders were like, no, we still require this. We don't believe it's all that serious or whatever. And I had to call them out. Because they were jeopardizing people's well being.
[00:10:35] Vu: And so that, the hashtag Crappy Funding Practices was born from that. And I started calling more and more people out. And now, there's still so many crappy practices that a movement had to be launched. And now it's going, that's, like on LinkedIn there's posts just calling out funders by name now, because I think that unfortunately reached a point where we just have to use public shaming as one of our [00:11:00] tools now.
[00:11:00] Vu: Because. when people's lives are being jeopardized. And it's not just during the pandemic, right? Because when funders waste our time, they are preventing nonprofits from doing life saving stuff. Like we have nonprofits like literally saving lives by staffing suicide hotlines, for example.
[00:11:18] Vu: And you're forcing them to do all these shenanigans. That's terrible. It needs to be called out.
[00:11:26] Maria: So this is definitely a form of advocacy. But, have you seen nonprofits collaborating with each other to push for things?
[00:11:35] Vu: I think definitely our sector has been very squeamish historically about engaging in advocacy work, engaging in lobbying, policy, political work. There are some brilliant organizations that are doing this work that have been out there just working to advance policies to 5 0 1 c fours in the United States, who've been endorsing political candidates, trying to get more progressive leaders [00:12:00] elected.
[00:12:00] Vu: The problem is that they've always been underfunded. Funders don't wanna fund them, and they really should be funding them because they are instrumental to our world. 5 0 1 c threes in the United States can do advocacy work, but we are so terrified of doing it and funders are terrified of funding it.
[00:12:20] Vu: Progressive leaning funders have been terrified of funding any sort of advocacy work, and I am not so sure how much it has changed over the past several years. I don't see much change happening.
[00:12:33] Vu: Which is very disturbing because right now EDI has been under attack. Thanks to the U S Supreme court's decision to overturn affirmative action. And then the fearless fund being sued because they're trying to get more funding to Black women, entrepreneurs.
[00:12:49] Vu: They're getting sued for doing that. And so instead of us doubling down as a sector and saying, no, we really believe in this, we need to double down. I have a lot of funders like, oh no, we [00:13:00] don't want to get sued. Let's no longer, let's just abandon our principles and our values. It's been very disappointing.
[00:13:09] Maria: So in Canada, in 2012, we had a prime minister who basically really push for organizations to not do advocacy. And through the CRA, the Canada Revenue Agency, they were revoking charitable status. So if you were too advocacy y, you could lose the ability to receive donors and to name yourself as a charity.
[00:13:34] Maria: And that fear caused by those events has stayed around what is the fear for American nonprofits?
[00:13:43] Vu: I would imagine it's similar, the fear of losing funding. And the fear has been reinforced by funders being very fearful. And let's be honest, it's not funders in general, it is progressive leaning funders who are fearful of advocacy because conservative [00:14:00] leaning funders are full in on advocacy.
[00:14:02] Vu: They love systems change work. They are effective at it. They want to fund it because they know that is the way to like permanent change, long lasting change. So they're all in for it and progressive leaning funders. I think there has to be some sort of reckoning because I think that progressive leaning funders
[00:14:21] Vu: unconsciously understand that if we are able to affect all of these systems change, they would face an existential threat if we can advance the advocacy that we want in terms of taxes, wealth hoarding and all this stuff, many foundations would cease to exist and because of that, they are terrified of advocacy and they don't want to acknowledge that
[00:14:46] Maria: I think that's a problem with nonprofits as well.
[00:14:48] Maria: Like we're so busy building up the organization that we should be focusing on ceasing to exist, right? But it's like an act of self perseveration, [00:15:00] at the cost of our communities and our missions.
[00:15:03] Vu: Yeah, I call it a shadow mission. I think that a lot of organizations have shadow missions, which is like your mission has suddenly become like growing yourself like the board, we have some organizations over here in Seattle that just keep getting money and keep growing and then their staff keep leaving because there's this sort of dissonance in the terms of their values and programs, but they're just so good at raising money.
[00:15:28] Vu: The traditional fundraising principle of get as much money as you can for your own organization, screw everyone else. I think a lot of these organizations because of that developed these shadow missions, which is just survive at all costs.
[00:15:41] Vu: Someone, a colleague was talking about how there was this like homelessness organization and they were celebrating their 50th year, at their gala. And then one of their board members or something came up on stage and was like I'm looking forward to the next 50 years. Oh,[00:16:00]
[00:16:02] Maria: That's horrible.
[00:16:04] Vu: Yeah. Toast to another 50 years of us being around.
[00:16:09] Maria: Yeah. Oh, it's just so frustrating that it is very like individualistic because we're trying to operate as a grassroots group but also as a corporate group with different intentions. And like a way that I've seen that happen recently is a lot of food banks in my city grew exponentially because of the pandemic.
[00:16:32] Maria: So a lot of people were, trying to help others with as much money as possible. A lot of our millionaires, billionaires and government levels, gave funding to a few different organizations. And now, because those organizations did not share that funding with others, not share those opportunities with others, they've gone from 60 million to 237 million.
[00:16:55] Maria: And the worst part is some food banks are now able to give, 14 days worth of [00:17:00] food. And some are still only able to give three. And it's based on your catchment area. If you live in the wrong neighborhood that didn't have the food bank that raises more money. Then your SOL and it just, it's so heartbreaking.
[00:17:14] Vu: Yeah, that is terrible. And this is an effect of our traditional fundraising practices. Like we should be working as a sector as and supporting one another, but we don't really, we don't really do that. So that's really challenging. There are some stories of hope, like in Seattle, for example, in the beginning of the pandemic, a funder gave out like 50, 000 unrestricted grants without any applications, without any reporting requirements, they were just like, hey there's a pandemic, we know that you could use some help so here's just 50, 000 of general operating funds and some nonprofits turned down this money, they were like other organizations really need this money more, which you mind giving to them instead, like [00:18:00] we should be doing that for one another because if our partners are strong, then our communities are just better because we're more effective at helping people.
[00:18:08] Vu: So I think this is what's really exciting to me about community-centric fundraising is really getting nonprofits out of this hunger games that we've been playing with one another cause at the end, it is our communities that are most affected by the hunger games.
[00:18:24] Maria: I liked one of the pieces that you wrote, I think it was right near the beginning of the pandemic or maybe a month or two in, but what you said was, we're saving for a rainy day and it's pouring.
[00:18:35] Maria: And I think that hasn't gone away. We're still like looking at self preservation. We're still looking at, coddling donors who do not want to be coddled. They've already been thinking about this for the past three years. When our communities are suffering actively.
[00:18:49] Vu: Yeah, I think we've been underestimating our donors.
[00:18:53] Vu: I write about this, and there's probably another blog post that is coming up, but we tend to infantilize our donors, even while we put them on [00:19:00] pedestals, right?
[00:19:00] Maria: I know.
[00:19:02] Vu: So I think in some ways, the donor-centered model is less donor centered than the community-centric model
[00:19:08] Vu: because with CCF, we actually treat donors like adults and equal partners, which means sometimes we push back, which means we tell the truth, which means we can tell them, hey that was racist because we respect them enough to actually have these conversations and give them this feedback. So that's the irony.
[00:19:25] Maria: It's about building true partnerships. And a lot of people, I don't know, I feel like there's so many like strawman attacks on CCF that they're not even really worth addressing but it's yes, relationships, just read the blog, just read the principles.
[00:19:39] Maria: But yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of fear in our sector. And I don't know. Are there other ways that kind of comes up for you?
[00:19:47] Vu: I feel like we've lost our imagination a bit in the sector, right? I think we, we've been so focused on our missions that we don't think about what is the vision?
[00:19:56] Vu: What, why are we doing all this? And [00:20:00] fundraising in particular fundraising is always about like, how do we raise money for the mission, but they don't think about oh what is, what are we raising money for is to create a kind of world where we're actually not even need it right where our community, where our organizations may not even be around because people are being taken care of that's where our, we should be focusing more on, on our vision.
[00:20:23] Vu: And I feel like we've lost that a bit. We've lost our imagination a bit. We, like you said earlier, like we become very incremental in our approach, like I want us to burn some stuff down. I want us to be like, yeah, we want to end poverty. We want to end homelessness, not celebrate the next 50 years of serving homeless people.
[00:20:42] Vu: We've lost that. And I think it's like years and decades of scrappiness and survivalism of funders giving 5, 000 one year grants. And requiring like 80 pages of proposals and reporting that's causes to go into this sort of learn helplessness [00:21:00] survival mode. And I would like us to reclaim our imagination and this audacity of ambition.
[00:21:06] Vu: Like for all the stuff I criticized the for profit sector, and there's a lot of arrogance in for profit and how they "bisplain" down to us. What my friend Allison Carney calls Bisplaining, it's like mansplaining when a for profit person like talks down to us as if we had no idea what we're doing.
[00:21:22] Vu: But for all of the criticism, there are some stuff we can learn. One is like the audacity of just having just ambition and accepting failure. I always bring up Juicero, for example, remember, I don't know you remember Juicero. It was a Silicon Valley Wi Fi connected juicing machine. It was 700 to buy this.
[00:21:43] Vu: machine that juices these proprietary packets of cut up fruit vegetables that you have to subscribe to for seven dollars each and you place one of these packets into this machine and it slowly presses on the packet and then you get one glass of juice. [00:22:00] Bloomberg did an investigation where they just squeezed the packages by hand and got about the same amount of juice, but faster.
[00:22:09] Vu: So they wrote about this and Juicero went bankrupt. But before, before it did, it was boasting that it had 125 million invested in venture capital and 30 full time engineers working to design this wifi-connected juicing machine. Okay. And then meanwhile, in our sector, we're trying to like address homelessness and poverty and child abuse and environmental degradation and everything.
[00:22:34] Vu: And we're like, can we please get 5, 000? And the funders are like maybe we'll give you 5 or whatever.
[00:22:41] Maria: Yeah, there's not a shared sense of urgency.
[00:22:44] Vu: No, or a sense of failure or the sense of adventure or the sense of let's try some shit out and see if it works,
[00:22:51] Maria: Investment
[00:22:52] Vu: Yeah can you imagine what any of us could do with 125 million?
[00:22:56] Vu: That would be so much better for society than a WiFi-connected juicing [00:23:00] machine. But instead, we need to be so apologetic. We think we're asking for way too much. We're asking for 500, 000. 500, 000 to end homelessness versus 125 million for a WiFi-connected juicing machine. Like where are our priorities?
[00:23:14] Vu: Where's our imagination? Where's our anger?
[00:23:18] Maria: A little back in the conversation, you mentioned a conversation around taxes and there's just this book that I've been thinking about our whole conversation that I had to see if you've read. Have you heard of The Slavery of Our Times? You would love it. It's by Leo Tolstoy.
[00:23:35] Maria: So it's a pretty old book. But It's based on the idea that order is maintained through a threat of violence. So if you want to change policy and you're going to protest, they can use police against you. Or if you withhold your taxes, for example, then they're going to jail you. Use police against you. So how there's so much order that's maintained by [00:24:00] you're going to get in trouble.
[00:24:01] Maria: We're going to do something against you. And I think that also like chills advocacy in our sector and creates more fear because if you feel like there's going to be reprimand, there's that self preservation kicking in again.
[00:24:17] Vu: Yeah, absolutely. That's really fascinating. I'll have to check it out.
[00:24:20] Vu: I think that the police is another area where we have lost our imagination. We were, for a while, we were talking about defunding the police and reinvesting in community solutions. And there was so much pushback from people in our own sector. They're like, no, you can't do that. You can't say defund the police.
[00:24:38] Vu: We can't defund the police. And if you look at any city budget in the United States, at least, I'm not sure about Canada, but in the United States, like the police has probably the biggest budget. Yeah, same here. I think it's just dystopian if you think about it.
[00:24:52] Vu: And we're okay with that. We're okay with spending like 20 times more on the police than on our education system, like in every [00:25:00] city. Like how is that okay? People in our own sector are like that's just how it is. That's what I mean when I want to say like we've lost our imagination.
[00:25:09] Maria: I think also like the hunger for it, because once you're founding a nonprofit, there's hunger to make change, right? But if you're just, oh, I'm just like the 3rd ED. I don't really, it's fine. I don't really have a connection to the cause. Not personal experience or anything like that. There's just not a lot of drive
[00:25:25] Vu: Yeah I feel like that's a serious thing that happens that sometimes people have the drive and then they get the drive beaten out of them, just grind it out of them by the system here
[00:25:40] Vu: and it's very pernicious and it's terrible because we're turning people into less effective versions, but also we're like sapping their life forces. Like literally like years of their lifespan.
[00:25:57] Maria: I think that worries me too. It's like we have such great [00:26:00] people. But we grind them down to a point where they actually leave the sector or, like myself, become a consultant.
[00:26:07] Maria: I need a barrier between, board members who don't get it, have no lived experience, and myself.
[00:26:13] Vu: Yeah it's concerning. I was there I was an executive director for 13 years. I crossed two orgs and then eventually I was just like, I'm very tired. I have small children and I can make a better living for myself and for my family by not being an executive director.
[00:26:33] Maria: And your mental health and physical health.
[00:26:35] Vu: I know you're
[00:26:37] Maria: it does
[00:26:37] Vu: years are rough. Look at me. I'm only 24. And look at this.
[00:26:40] Maria: I'm only 24. Okay, no, honestly, it's really rough. But yeah, I love that you have been able to maintain humor. And this undying drive, I think it really inspires a lot of people's [00:27:00] and Honestly, it helps us be bolder, helps to speak out.
[00:27:03] Maria: Because it's just a reminder that it's not about you. It's about the community. It's not about you. You have to be able to put things of value on the line. And I think you do that all the time.
[00:27:18] Vu: Oh, thank you, Maria. I appreciate that. But I do get more credit than I deserve. I think, I feel like. And I do have to acknowledge that I have a lot more privilege than other people.
[00:27:29] Vu: And I would encourage people who have more privilege to be more outspoken. Because the things I'm saying are not new, right? People have been saying them. Women of color have been saying them. Other people of color, other leaders white allies. But a lot of people from marginalized communities have been saying them for a long, long time.
[00:27:48] Vu: And they get punished for it. They get fired. They get demoted. They get ostracized. I don't know. And I. Yeah, I faced some of that too. Like over the past several months, I [00:28:00] have been just dealing with Zionists and people who have just been very angry because I've been very public in my support of Palestine.
[00:28:08] Vu: And I've been outspoken in my, denouncing the genocide that we've been supporting because the U. S. sends 20 billion to Israel. Just sent, this much money to Israel just to fund these bombs. And and the people just killing like Palestinians and we have to speak up. And so those of us who have more privilege have to be more out there speaking up and taking the flak because other people with less privilege have been taking way more punishment over the past several decades.
[00:28:38] Maria: And that's something that I find also really hard in our sector. It's like it's so many racialized people who are speaking up about. Some sort of injustice, like Black Lives Matter, but also recently Palestine and everybody else is quiet. And for me, I don't know why. Is it because the children are brown?
[00:28:58] Maria: Like, how could you be okay [00:29:00] with this? And maybe you're not okay with it. Maybe you don't see LinkedIn as a space to speak out and you're protesting X, Y, and Z. And that's fine, but just It's been really hard, because if you make a statement, then it's mission drift, right? And if you don't, or if you do, there's so many risks that people are weighing out instead of just trying to do the right thing.
[00:29:22] Vu: I think we really need to discuss the idea of mission drift, and I wrote about this. It's mission drift has been weaponized in our community so much. And it's preventing us from being effective. It's forcing us to only go into our own silo and do not see how we're interconnected. And there's certain things that connect all of us, like taxes, like voting.
[00:29:47] Vu: It doesn't matter what your mission is, like voting should be a vital part of it, right? And I don't know how it can be a mission drift to speak up against genocide. [00:30:00] That should be what our sector is about. Our sector is about justice, it's about social justice, it's about equity. We're at this moral crossroad, and I feel like many of us are just failing this test that we're in when we are most needed, when our moral compass is being tested.
[00:30:17] Vu: And I feel like we're just failing because we're just silent or even like white moderates when it comes to speaking up against just the atrocities that Israel has been committing against Palestinians, not just this year, but like for the past 75 years, since the Nakba when Palestinians were just driven out by Israel.
[00:30:35] Vu: I understand why people do it because it's easier. It's less risky. You don't have people attacking you and sending you angry messages. Like I've been facing and so many other people have been facing over the past several months or over the past several years. It's just less controversial.
[00:30:51] Vu: It's just safer to not speak up against injustice. But then I wonder what is our sector for then?
[00:30:57] Maria: And I see it with like smaller topics too. [00:31:00] Like it's, I know Palestine Israel has been very contentious for a lot of people, right? But I feel it with smaller topics too like okay So that funny example that we were talking about before the recording.
[00:31:11] Maria: Philanthropy has become a hobby for the rich, right? Like I saw so many white people come at you because you said that in a conference And it's like I don't get it. Like how do you not get that? That's
[00:31:26] Vu: Yeah, so I was on this webinar and we were talking about donor advised funds and how people have been hoarding money into these vehicles and not giving them out. And there's no, no legal requirement for them to give out any money once they put it into a donor advised fund. It could just sit there, they take a tax break and that money can just sit there forever.
[00:31:44] Vu: And I was like, yeah, philanthropy has often become a hobby for very wealthy people. And we in the nonprofit sector have become like this SkyMall catalog, right? Of like different [00:32:00] causes for rich people to choose from and they're like, oh that looks really cute You know a program to help early learners or a program to help the elderly or an equestrian therapy program or whatever That sounds so interesting.
[00:32:12] Vu: Let me pick and choose these things. So yeah, it is it has become like a hobby So I don't know what's so controversial about that But one dude was like, Vu Le said that philanthropy is nothing but a hobby to rich people. And then another dude who didn't even attend that webinar was like, I can't believe Vu Le said this about this.
[00:32:30] Vu: And donors are the best people in the entire world. And they are the best. He literally said they are our better angels. They are the best people among all of us. And I'm like, what the heck is going on? And then, so I like a whole bunch of people start piling up. I got probably about 200.
[00:32:48] Vu: comments. Most of them were like Vu Le is so presumptuous and he's arrogant and he's so disappointing and his face looks like a weasel. I don't know.
[00:32:59] Vu: [00:33:00] What is so controversial about that? Because this has been what has been happening and we reinforce this among our donors. We tell them that they are heroes. We tell them. that because of them, like we've been trained to use the word you 24 times or whatever on every appeal letter because of you, you did this, we couldn't have done this without you with your support.
[00:33:22] Vu: Cause you know, we were supposed to center donors, but I really like in donor centered fundraising to I don't know, like husband centered marriages, which if you think about it, it's just ridiculous. Husband centered marriages. Can you imagine that? I would love it if every time I did the dishes or something, my partner writes me a handwritten thank you note Dear Vu, you did it because you washed the dishes today.
[00:33:45] Vu: Our community is stronger. We're so thankful for you. We could not have done this without you. Please attend this wine and cheese event for a husband like you.
[00:33:56] Vu: Can you imagine like an entire field [00:34:00] really grounded in this where we have workshops called how to be more husband centered in your marriages.
[00:34:06] Vu: And then when people are like can we actually have a movement called, like marriage centered marriages or family centered marriages? And they're like, ah, no, we need to be centered on the husbands. That's what I've been feeling like this, like the debate around community-centric fundraising has been like what is there to debate about?
[00:34:24] Vu: We're not saying go and punch a donor in the face every time you meet one, especially since all of us are donors, right? Are we not all donors? All of us are donors. So what is the issue? So I think that highlights the issue that most of these fundraising experts think of donors as only the people who give a ton of money, not like you and me, Maria, who may not be able to give 50, 000 a year or whatever.
[00:34:48] Vu: We're not seen as donors. So it's a very weird dissonance that we haven't really been talking about. Oh
[00:34:55] Maria: my God. I love that you pointed that out. Yeah. Like we're donors too. [00:35:00]
[00:35:00] Vu: And we're the biggest donors. We are probably the biggest donors. If you think about opportunity costs and stuff, I was talking to I, on a nonprofit happy hour once there was an ED who was just like, Oh, my son just got a job at one of these tech companies and everyone was like congratulations.
[00:35:17] Vu: Like what's, how are you feeling about this? And she's I'm all, I'm very proud of him. And I'm also feeling some type of way because he's making 10, 000 more at his entry level job than I am. As a 20 year veteran of a nonprofit, you know, yeah, and so yeah, many of us are here and we're losing money that we could make elsewhere.
[00:35:38] Vu: We decided to stay here, giving up our retirement benefits, sacrificing our health. We are the biggest donor to the nonprofit sector. That's on my list of things to rant about. But like it is, it's true, isn't it? We don't know. It's
[00:35:53] Maria: true.
[00:35:54] Vu: And if we're donor-centered, then why aren't we donor-centered that way?
[00:35:57] Vu: Why don't we focus, and we're going to be focused on major [00:36:00] donors. Why don't we focus on the biggest donors of all, which is nonprofit staff.
[00:36:05] Maria: Like their lives, their time. Yes. You can't get that back. Okay. So before we go, what is the funniest nonprofit happy hour post that you've moderated?
[00:36:18] Vu: I haven't been moderating nonprofit happy hour. It's on its own. It's had some great moderators. And I'm really happy to see, this community building. And there's some really great people there.
[00:36:28] Vu: I lurk once a while. But one time I was looking at this post and, Someone was like, they were talking about I think they were mentioning me. It was like, oh there's this is something that Vu would like and then after a while someone was like, what is Vu? You keep talking about Vu.
[00:36:45] Vu: What is it? so I think that is I think that's a great sign that the community has been so great. Like I'm just not needed to be there at all and I think it's really wonderful [00:37:00] So I think it's I think it's a great sign
[00:37:03] Maria: No, that's really funny.
[00:37:04] Maria: That's great Okay, Vu, if people want to continue the conversation with you Where can they find you? How do they get in touch? Should they read your blog? Tell us.
[00:37:13] Vu: Yeah, the blog is called NonprofitAF. Com. So just go there. And I'm also on Instagram. I've been amplifying the voices by sharing posts and stories regarding Palestine. But please find me there at nonprofit AF on Instagram and then also on Facebook as well. And I guess the last thing is thanks Maria. And I just want to reiterate I know I yelled at the nonprofit sector a lot, but I really do appreciate us.
[00:37:39] Vu: And I think we have brilliant people in the sector and we're doing amazing things regarding this despite all of the challenges that we face every single day. And I really like our sector and I appreciate it.
[00:37:52] Maria: We're yelling cause we care because we're passionate, right?
[00:37:54] Maria: It's time to wake people up. Thank you so much Vu for being on the Small Nonprofit [00:38:00] Podcast. And thank you everyone for tuning in for this episode. I'm sure a lot of you already follow Vu's work, but if you don't already, I'm a really big fan of his blog. So I'll link that below , but for now, thank you for joining us and as always if you'd like to see our lovely faces, it'll be on our Youtube channel I think my cat came into the video and Vu was very excited at that so you can see the joy on his face And join the conversation there.
[00:38:26] Maria: Okay that's it for today. Bye for now
