Tag: nonprofit
The Work Needs You, But It Can’t Consume You
Self-care isn’t limited to vacations, massages, fishing trips, or quiet weekends. Sometimes self-care means scheduling the examination, confronting the diagnosis, taking the medication, changing what you eat, speaking with a therapist, addressing grief, protecting your sleep, or admitting that your body has been asking for help.
And for seasoned leaders, self-care must also include succession. We must learn how to care for the person carrying the vision and prepare the vision to outlive them.
Leaders can’t rest if they leave every decision, relationship, and idea inside their heads. We can’t step away if no one else understands the vision well enough to carry it forward.
Passion Isn’t a Business Plan: What 36 Years in Nonprofits Taught Me About Serving
Over the years, Fathers Incorporated has operated through economic downturns, COVID-19, changing administrations, shifting federal priorities, fleeting philanthropic interests, the loss of key personnel, new technology, and evolving public conversations about fathers, families, race, gender, marriage, parenting, and social policy.
Our survival has never meant that we predicted every disruption. It meant that we built enough organizational muscle to adapt when disruption came.
That’s business. And business, in this context, isn’t a dirty word.
The Hard Truth About Federal Funding and Philanthropic Giving
Nonprofit leaders must build organizations strong enough, deep enough, and clear enough in purpose to ensure that no funding source — federal, philanthropic, or private — ever becomes the author of their mission.
Silence Is Complicity: A Call to Action for Philanthropic Foundations
If foundations claim to support communities, then they must demonstrate that commitment through action. Nonprofits are the backbone of social progress, and their survival should not be left to chance. Now is the time for philanthropy to step up, speak out, and ensure that the organizations dedicated to improving lives can continue their work.