We hosted a workshop atMadison Nonprofit Daythis year titled, ‘Sustainable Business Plans for Nonprofits.’ While there are some amazing ideas on how to make nonprofits less reliant on grants, taking action to accomplish this is going to take some time. We must change our frame of mind from, “We need support and assistance” to “We offer greatness to everyone and our business is better than just measuring success.”
The workshop focused on using the expertise in the room. We all know that no one really knows the scene better than the people working in it. They just sometimes need some love, support, and space to think about what else is possible. Here is a list of resources we wanted to offer to them and figured it should be shared with everyone.
Let’s remember that sustainability does not only mean fiscal sustainability. How do we better become sustainable with volunteers, mental health, and capacity building?
Remind yourselves what your doing takes a lot and remember how amazing you are!
It is a tragic shame that Vu Le and his website, Nonprofits With Balls have just been introduced to our staff. We know that it is extremely difficult to keep reading this when you want to click the link to his website, but please refrain. We probably shouldn’t even be adding these sentences because you have already clicked it. If you haven’t, go ahead, click it. We’ll even put it here to make it easier for you to click…. Nonprofits With Balls.
Vu Le is extraordinary. He is a hot sexy unicorn to us for his candidness, ability to point out where real positive social change is and isn’t happening, and his humor about it all. Life is funny!
His website says this about him:
Vu Le is a writer, speaker, vegan, Pisces, and the Executive Director of Rainier Valley Corps, a start-up nonprofit with the mission of developing and supporting leaders of color to strengthen the capacity of communities-of-color-led nonprofits and foster collaboration between diverse communities to effect systemic change.
Vu’s passion to make the world better, combined with a low score on the Law School Admission Test, drove him into the field of nonprofit work, where he learned that we should take the work seriously, but not ourselves. There are tons of humor in the nonprofit world, and someone needs to document it. He is going to do that, with the hope that one day, a TV producer will see how cool and interesting our field is and make a show about nonprofit work, featuring attractive actors attending strategic planning meetings and filing 990 tax forms.
Known for his no-BS approach, irreverent sense of humor, and love of unicorns, Vu has been featured in dozens, if not hundreds, of his own blog posts at nonprofitwithballs.com. He is also the humor columnist for the awesome nonprofit online magazine, Blue Avocado. Vuenjoys talking about himself in the third person.
What’s with the name “Balls”?!
You may be thinking, “Why ‘Nonprofit with Balls’? Isn’t that sexist?! Why not ‘Nonprofit with Balls and Ovaries,’ you sexy sexist pig?!” The title comes from an experience he had, described here. Please read that entire post before writing him an angry email. Also, it refers to all the balls that we nonprofit professionals have to juggle: clients, board, staff, volunteers, funders, auditors, payrolls, budgets, cashflows, trainings, annual events, etc. We are all knee-deep in balls. We have balls coming at us from every direction. Sometimes we “drop the ball,” but no worries, since there is never a shortage of balls in this line of work.
Take a look at this video from Many Network. It is a great display of Le’s speaking ability and candor about what nonprofits really need to be successful.
