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New Sitcom: Nonprofit Life
Vu Le, by day the executive director of Vietnamese Friendship Association in Seattle, exercises his funny muscles at night as our humor columnist in Point of Vu. Here he proposes a new tv show called "ED" . . . no, not the same ED featured in …
Dress for Nonprofit Success?
Our humor columnist Vu Le gives some fashion advice to us nonprofit folk: Like other nonprofit leaders, every morning I wake up and immediately have to make an important decision: Should I play a round of Scramble with Friends on my phone, or sleep in …
A Gay Activist is Conflicted about the Marriage Equality Campaign
What if you got a chance to chat over coffee with a deeply experienced, witty, and smart gay leader about the movement for marriage equality? He might say something you haven’t seen elsewhere about the campaign. Listen in on a conversation with M …
Collective Impact: Resistance is Futile
We're pleased to announce that Vu Le — who wrote last issue's hilarious and popular article about foundation site visits — has joined Blue Avocado as a regular humor columnist. By day: executive director of the Vietnamese Friendship Associati …
Citizens United Unfair to One Million Corporations
Jack Shakely, former president of the California Community Foundation, takes a different tack (with a little wisecracking) on what to do about the Citizens United decision allowing for-profit corporations to spend unlimited funds on electoral cam …
Stuck Between a Financial Crisis Wrought by the Founder and a Hard Place
A deputy director describes the crisis that befell her organization as the founding executive director left, how that organization almost closed down, and what she’s learned from it for her new job as an executive director in another state and an …
How To Use Text Messaging for Nonprofit Outreach
There are more people with cell phones than people who use Twitter . . . so then, why is there so much more nonprofit talk about Twitter than about reaching constituents and donors through their cell phones?We talked with a non-neutral Doug Plank of Mo …
Vanguard Foundation Update: With Leader Pleading Guilty, “Truth and Reconciliation”?
The Vanguard Public Foundation was a high-profile, influential, progressive institution in San Francisco: the original “rich kids” foundation making grants to radical grassroots organizations and involving community members in grantmaking. As we …
The Automatic Nonprofit Salary Calculator
Jon Pratt of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits uses a tongue-in-cheek version of the familiar Salary Calculator model to comment trenchantly on the indiscriminate — and not so indiscriminate –differences in how nonprofit staff get paid:How muc …
Vanguard Foundation Update
An update on Vanguard CEO Hari Dillon and major donors involved with businessman Mouli Cohen and a series of get-rich-quick schemes.
