First Person Nonprofit • By Anonymous • July 10, 2011 • Email Print

Blue Avocado's recent article, "The Board Just Fired Me, and I'm the Founder!" generated a huge reader response. For this issue we interviewed a board member from a different organization:

My wife became friendly with someone she knew from PTA, and one day they invited us and our kids over for dinner. We hit it off. Ben [names have been changed] ran this nonprofit for low-income kids that did after school tutoring, had a big summer camp, and did some programs in the public schools in a low-income, mostly African American neighborhood. Something like 1,500 kids a year. Anyway, we got to be friends and he ended up asking me to join the board.

At first everything seemed fine although I wasn't sure what the board was adding to anything. I'm in banking so it was inevitable that I became the treasurer. It wasn't much work because most of the money -- maybe 80% -- came from the school district or city government. Ben really loved the kids and you could see he really bonded with them.

Financial troubles

Then we started to lose some of the school district money. They were cutting back, things got pretty tough. We laid off a few people, but we were still bleeding . . .

First Person Nonprofit • By Anonymous • May 28, 2011 • Email Print

We usually don't publish First Person Nonprofit articles anonymously. But in this case we know the individual and corroborated the key points of her story, and we understand why she has asked that her name not be published.

Four weeks and five days ago from this moment -- at 4 pm on a May afternoon -- I was fired. That morning the board chair told me our afternoon meeting would not be a finance committee meeting after all, but, rather, "about your future with the organization." The meeting lasted, at the most, 6 minutes.

"We would like you to resign," the board chair said.

"I have already submitted my resignation," I replied. Three weeks ago I had told the board I would be leaving in November. We were about to embark on a strategic planning process, and our big conference -- the one I created 11 years ago -- would be in the fall. That seemed like a fitting exit point.

"It's not acceptable to wait until November," he said. "We are terminating you effective immediately. Please turn in your keys and key card right now."

First Person Nonprofit • By Cristina Chan • November 15, 2010 • Email Print

We asked readers about their experiences with romance in the nonprofit workplace. While we didn't catch any juicy stories of workplace crushes or of locking eyes over the cheese plate at the board meeting, we did hear loud and clear the common thread of passion -- for their work and each other.

What brought them together keeps them together

Sharing common values and interests are key for any successful relationship, and it's no different for those who meet in the nonprofit sector. Says Cathy Cooney, who met her husband Ned in 1997 when she worked at the Riverside Community Foundation and he was the head of the local Volunteer Center: "It's wonderful to speak the same language, be concerned about the same issues, and be committed to the same goals."

Nelson Layag, Project Director at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, met his wife Maureen in 1991, right out of college when they both worked as case managers for The Choice Program in Baltimore. He says, "We have very fond and detailed memories of our work there and how it impacted our view of the world – something we continue to share."

For some, love for their work infuses their life as a couple. Celie O'Donnell and her husband of seven years met in late 1999 at a convening of young leaders in the arts . . .

First Person Nonprofit • By Cristina Chan • October 23, 2010 • Email Print

So many people hate telemarketing calls that there are whole websites devoted to ways to torment and infuriate the people making those calls. Are telemarketers evil fiends who should be despised and tortured whenever possible? We asked Blue Avocado readers for their experiences as the wretched creatures:

"I was a music teacher," said Gayle Holtman of Indianapolis, "and I needed something to do for the summer. I got this job in the basement [this is when the audience starts shouting: 'Don't go into the basement!'] and was given a stack of cards and told, 'Just call these people.' Says another former telemarketer: "One call changed my life: I called this guy and he talked to me a little bit and then got off the phone. I called a week later and he ordered two subscriptions and said, 'Anyone who can sell me over the phone I want to meet.' That's a pretty corny line, but I did go meet him, and he hired me to work at the Chamber of Commerce."

Worst situation for one reader: "I was telemarketing for . . .

First Person Nonprofit • September 20, 2010 • Email Print

Much of what we hear about diversity is about mostly white organizations. And most of what we hear about people-of-color nonprofits is that they're small. Koreatown Youth and Community Center (KYCC) confounds both assumptions. Sam Joo is the Program Director:

KYCC got started in 1975 when a big wave of Koreans moved to the United States, including my dad. The U.S. was recruiting health care workers, so immigration regulations were loosened; my dad was a pharmacist.

Now we have 55 staff in four locations. But KYCC started as just a two-story house for the Korean kids in the neighborhood. Their parents couldn't help them with their homework, some of them were experimenting with drugs. We started by offering counseling, employment counseling, then added mental health work for youth and parents.

At the time of the Civil Unrest [also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Riots], we were Korean Youth Center. Then we became Korean Youth and Community Center. Now we're Koreatown Youth and Community Center.

So you changed "Korean" to "Koreatown"? Doesn't sound like a big change.

It is a big change once you understand it. We looked around and realized that not only Koreans . . .

First Person Nonprofit • By Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer • April 1, 2010 • Email Print

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer is Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts in Jamaica, New York, a children's book author, a pianist, and a fanatic knitter. In this First Person Nonprofit story, she tells what she's learned from knitting:

I had been a classical pianist. But as an executive director, being able to play 32 Beethoven sonatas was not going to provide the knowledge I needed. So I asked someone for advice who had left one world successfully for another world: my mother.

What I got was a ball of yarn and two knitting needles.

My mother taught me to love creating . . .

First Person Nonprofit • By Jan Masaoka • February 24, 2010 • Email Print

There are true stories that wealthy people tell about housekeepers that have stolen from them, lied to them, and so on. And there are stories that housekeepers tell about employers who have cheated them, blamed them unfairly, and so on. Both kinds of stories are true but each carries a different sensibility. This article has a few stories from the domestic help, as it were. Unlike urban myths that 'happened to a friend of a friend,' every one of these happened directly to me.

There are three levels of exchange in the grantor-grantee relationship. First is the one-to-one interaction between two individuals, and that's the level this article addresses. More importantly, at another level are grantmaking practices, such as restrictions on proposals or the processes for applications. And the third is the relationship between the funding market as a whole, and the fund-seeking market as a whole.  This article looks at the least important of these: the one-to-one interactions. We don't mean to suggest that these are less important than the other two levels. In fact, if these were the worst of grantseeking, it wouldn't be the subject of sore complaints. In any case, stories like the ones here are of the sort that are constantly swapped over drinks after nonprofit events; this article takes one person's experience and shares them more broadly:

1. The head of corporate grantmaking at a bank phoned me to let me know she had received our application for funding and to tell me the timeline for their response. She went on to tell me about a local chamber music group where she is on the board, and asked me to . . .

First Person Nonprofit • By Brenda J. Crawford • February 16, 2010 • Email Print

Brenda Crawford is known as a fierce activist and relentless advocate for African Americans, for poor communities, for women, for lesbians and gays, and against all forms of oppression everywhere. As she turned 63 she came to some reflections and conclusions that surprised her; we think her comments will start a conversation for you:

I'm 63 now and how am I going to spend the rest of my life?

I'm retiring from the activist movement. I'm finished with in-your-face lobbying and sign-carrying activism. I don't want to go to Sacramento again unless it's to see a basketball game. I'm done talking to our elected officials. I'm done with confrontational politics.

I'm going to take up senior line dancing and dominoes. I have to re-learn how to play bid whist. My new activism is about building community, talking more with people I don't agree with . . .

First Person Nonprofit • By Steven Young Lee • October 21, 2009 • Email Print

Few young people answer "Nonprofit Executive Director" when asked what they want to be when they grow up. And most executive directors will admit to not having thought much about such a career, until just the right job happened to land in their path.  Here's how the story unfolded for a young artist from Chicago who one day found himself unexpectedly working as an ED in Montana:

As an artist, the thought of becoming a nonprofit executive director just never occurred to me. My aspirations were always clear: to make my artwork in a stimulating, creative environment. After college I spent a summer as an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (The Bray) in Helena, Montana, doing sculpture alongside other ceramic artists. After that 1998 summer residency I moved to Chicago and worked as a studio potter for three and a half years while also managing a local ceramic supply company. As much as . . .