Vu Le is the brains and comedic voice behind the Nonprofit with Balls blog. As an executive director of a nonprofit, Le often writes from the perspective of a grantee, producing no-nonsense articles such as “9 annoying nonprofit trends that need to die.” His Seattle-based organization, Rainier Valley Corps, trains people of color for nonprofit leadership positions, so he has lots to say about improving diversity.
You write about how the grant process disadvantages small and minority-led nonprofits and how to improve the system. What message would you like people to take away?
People feel that if they talk about equity, if they put equity on their website, that’s enough. Equity is reflected in the budget. If the budget does not move, then you’re not being equitable. Many foundations won’t fund more than 10 percent of an organization’s budget. What if the organization is small? If your grant practices rely on relationships, on who writes the best grants, on budget size—things that advantage larger nonprofits over smaller ones with limited staff—that is not equity.
When it comes to hiring, retaining, and developing diverse talent and leaders, what are nonprofits doing wrong?
We overly rely on formal education to gauge someone’s qualifications, even for positions that don’t require specialized skills. If you have a typo in your cover letter or on your resume, you’re automatically in the “No” pile. What about candidates for whom English is not their first language, like me? Speaking several languages may be more beneficial than displaying perfect grammatical skills on their resume. We use salary history to determine what people are getting paid, so people who have been underpaid continue to be underpaid. It’s unethical. Those hiring practices need to be re-examined if we want to address diversity.
You have a problem with donor-centered fundraising. Why is that?
Development professionals have been trained to make sure that donors feel appreciated, like their funding is helping other people. I’m trying to move people toward the community-centric model, which is that everyone benefits from the work that we do, including donors, because they live in the same community as everyone else. We often treat donors as if they’re people standing at the shores of a lake, and we tell them, “Thanks to you and your money, we fed 50 ducks today.” But all of us are ducks, and we’re sharing the same pond. We have to help each other, because we live in the same community.
How can college and university advancement improve outreach to alumni and donors of color?
The way that we’ve been doing fundraising has, historically, been for white fundraisers to cultivate white donors. If you’re applying these same systems to a community of color, it’s going to be challenging. It’s not that people of color are less generous—it’s that we give differently. If fundraisers don’t understand that, you’re going to continue to hit a wall.
What do you consider to be your boldest idea?
There is no such thing as sustainability. Foun-dations often ask, “How are you going to sustain this program when this $5,000 grant we gave you runs out?” I find that question to be patronizing, like when we give charity to poor people and say, “I’m not going to support you forever, so what’s your plan to get off welfare?” Half of for-profits fail; 90 percent of startups fail. Expecting a nonprofit that needs to address complicated issues like homelessness and child abuse to also run a for-profit wing is ridiculous and distracting. If society cares about the work that we do, it needs to pay for it.