naked nonprofit – do gooder life stripped down

The Prostitute in the Living Room

2009-09-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

If a pimp walks into a nonprofit tax clinic and asks for advice about his prostitutes and 13 underaged & undocumented El Salvadorean girls, what should you say?A) Sure we can help you set up a tax-sheltering brothel! (Said with more enthusaism than a Walmart greeter.)B) That would be illegal, unethical, and immoral! (Said with self-righteous outrage.)C) Would you happen to be actors? (Said with

Straitjacket

2009-09-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

For a change of pace, I’m blaming everything on Harry Houdini today. He was the king of escape acts, disentangling himself from (among other things) straitjackets, a Siberian prison van, packing crates, an underground burial, and a glass tank filled with water. What a smart ass. His act, and the shows of other magicians who’ve followed, have always

Kool Aid Talk

2009-08-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

I’ve been slowly sipping the off-brand all-natural Kool Aid offered by the book “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex.” It’s made up of leftist scholarly essays that remind me of two things: that I hate the pretention of academia and that to some people I look like a friggin’ neo-con. Point in case? I don’t think the Ford Foundation is

Post Mortem

2009-08-13T16:01:00.001-07:00

First off: I am not a quitter.Second: it's time to quit. No worries -- this is not angsty wrist-slashing I'm contemplating. Instead, it's time to break up with the soup kitchen volunteer work I've done faithfully and joyously each week for the last three years. But how?Uh... it's not you, it's me? It was a great relationship at first. I felt appreciated; I made friends; I came home feeling

The Existential Life

2009-08-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Apparently, it doesn’t matter who we are. For weeks now, I’ve been scouring the internet – and even making calls! – looking for demographic information about all us 9 million or so folks who call nonprofits hell home. My sense is that the majority of us are college-educated white women, but my sense also landed me dating three clinically depressed musicians in a row -- so

Batting For A New Team

2009-07-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

If things look bad for nonprofits right now, they're looking a helluva lot funkier for newspapers. 501c3s will bounce back when the economy recovers, as will construction and real estate and dinners out.But what kind of bounce-back will the New York Times get when unemployment falls back to 6 percent?The answer is none. Newspapers have been losing money for years as ad dollars have shifted over

Duseful? (Stat of the Day)

2009-06-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

It's time for a new word to describe that which is both dull and useful. Where's Colbert when he's needed? Today's case in point from from Guidestar:Quick! What are the largest sources of revenue for nonprofit organizations? The public usually thinks the right answer is charitable giving, and this is certainly where most of the attention goes. But according to the Urban Institute’s Nonprofit

Annals of the Obvious

2009-06-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

News flash! The recession is still kicking nonprofits' asses. The percentage of nonprofits that have resorted to layoffs, broad-based programmatic reductions, and reserve draw-downs has increased measurably.Really, this is what counts as news? Where ya been, buddy? For months, analysts have been saying that the crappy economy would have a slow ripple effect on nonprofits. Even though for-profits

Feel Good

2009-06-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

From the Washington Post:President Obama does his part to promote the summer serviceinitiative his administration announced Monday, United We Serve, joiningfirst lady Michelle Obama, congressional family members and nonprofit groupsat 10 a.m. at Fort McNair to stuff 15,000 backpacks with books, snacks andother goodies to give to the children of service members.Nothing says summer like reminders

Rate My Nonprofit

2009-06-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

Would it be fantastic or a disaster if there were a rating system for nonprofits informed by the people who actually work for them? Admittedly, I’m too old to have ever used ratemyprofessor.com or ratemyteacher.com. There’s some controversy (mostly by teachers, duh) about how well ratings like those work – whether they delve into the substance or stay on the surface,

Equation

2009-06-20T16:13:00.000-07:00

I’m not the kind of girl that thinks of math as elegant. It’s just not in me. Truth is, I sweat the small stuff, like the Pythagorean theorum.So I was surprised to realize that my yoga mat and I made an equation! Just like that! (You may need to squint such a bit... the equation's not entirely cooperative.) For non-mathletes, here how this equation translates: if 2 out of 3

Pointed Questions

2009-06-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

I heard this story about giving circles on NPR a few weeks ago and then forgot totally about it. (Insert your own snide comment about public radio here.) But the story's worth a listen because it's all about donors who want a way to learn for themselves what an organization is doing well, or the ways its slowly leeching the spirits of everyone around. I'm converted after hearing the story. When

Liberty for all... except the Dems

2009-06-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

I have to hand it to Liberty University, the school founded by Jerry Falwell that’s dedicated to teaching the 3Hs: heterosexuality, homogeny, and holier-than-your-ass. If you haven’t see the course description for holier-than-your-ass, you’ll still recognize it - it’s visible at not just evangelical schools, but synagogues, mosques, and those vegan potlucks where someone always tarnishes the

The Blah-Colored House That Habitat Built

2009-05-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

Habitat for Humanity has been pledged $100 million for its international and American programs. Largest gift ever! Expected to help 60,000 families! Cha-ching!I once took a tour of a local Habitat for Humanity office. On one long wall, they showed us all the paint colors the new home owners could choose from -- neutral tans and grays and beiges. "And below the paint colors," our tour guide

No Soup for You?

2009-05-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

$50 million for nonprofits! That's what I like to hear. Well, until we get to the details. The Washington Post had this to say, from the First Lady we Love to Love, Michelle Obama: "The idea is simple: Find the most effective programs out there and then provide the capital needed to replicate their success in communities around the country," she said.Mrs. Obama added, "By focusing on high-impact

Catch Phrase

2009-04-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

Every time a corporate-leaning non-profit type uses the phrase "leveraging technology" I want to shoot myself so I'll feel something besides boredom. When I ask what the phrase actually means, I'm invariably told something even more boring that everyone's already doing: internet databases or something else completely unsexy. I'd rather imagine leveraging technology as slinging a computer over a

With this kinda help...

2009-04-13T05:33:00.000-07:00

With everything going so crappily for, well, everyone, it's time to give another look to ... volunteers?Apparently so. The New York Times ran this article recently. Here's a quick summary: with so many upper-management sorts out of work (and out of sorts), why not get them helping out with nonprofits, those organizations sometimes known for their lack of organization. Out-of-work execs get to