WEBVTT 00:00:01.314 --> 00:00:10.469 - Hello everybody, we're gonna go ahead and get started with our next session if you wanna make your way 00:00:10.469 --> 00:00:19.980 - to your seat. If you can hear me, can you snap? Keep snapping. I feel like it brings good vibes. Alrighty, 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:28.958 - so as you're headed back to your seat, I have the pleasure of introducing our keynote speaker today. 00:00:30.018 --> 00:00:37.381 - Out of curiosity, how are you guys feeling about the summit so far? Shout it out. Woo! I'm excited. 00:00:37.381 --> 00:00:44.965 - I was just telling our panelists who were just up here that I feel greatly encouraged by their remarks 00:00:44.965 --> 00:00:52.623 - and insights and experiences, but also equally convicted to not allow what we heard there in that panel 00:00:52.623 --> 00:00:58.366 - to stay here in this room with us, but to carry that with us past the summit. 00:00:58.690 --> 00:01:07.676 - into our work, into our homes, into our everyday lives. And so can we just give it a round of applause 00:01:07.676 --> 00:01:17.534 - one more time for our panelists. So for our keynote speaker today, it will be Vu Li. Vu Li is an internationally 00:01:17.730 --> 00:01:24.093 - internationally known keynote speaker, writer, and nonprofit leader. For those who've had an opportunity 00:01:24.093 --> 00:01:30.396 - to see Morgan Stern's books, they are selling his new books, so check it out. Vu is known for his sharp 00:01:30.396 --> 00:01:36.638 - insights, humor, unapologetically honest perspective. Vu speaks on topics including collective impact, 00:01:36.802 --> 00:01:43.798 - equity, inclusion, burnout prevention, and the myths that often hold us back. I actually had an opportunity 00:01:43.798 --> 00:01:50.276 - to hear Vu speak at a conference a few years ago. And again, I was equally encouraged as I was also 00:01:50.276 --> 00:01:57.013 - convicted about next steps. And his remarks really shaped my perspective. And honestly, it was a breath 00:01:57.013 --> 00:02:03.880 - of fresh air in a season where I felt incredibly heavy about the work ahead. And so I think you're really 00:02:03.880 --> 00:02:05.694 - going to enjoy his remarks. 00:02:06.306 --> 00:02:12.506 - He's a great man. Mary and I have had a great opportunity getting to know him in preparation of his 00:02:12.506 --> 00:02:18.829 - summit keynote. A little bit more though about Vu is that he is a former executive director of RVC in 00:02:18.829 --> 00:02:25.277 - Seattle. Vu has spent his career advancing social justice by developing leaders of color, strengthening 00:02:25.277 --> 00:02:31.600 - organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration across diverse communities. He 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:34.142 - challenges us to take our work seriously 00:02:34.242 --> 00:02:40.342 - while also not taking ourselves too seriously. Any snaps for that? I'm thankful for the people in my 00:02:40.342 --> 00:02:46.442 - life who do that for me. And lastly, Vu brings a blend of candid insight and humor to every keynote, 00:02:46.442 --> 00:02:52.662 - drawing on real world experiences. And so I hope right now you have a notebook ready, a computer ready 00:02:52.662 --> 00:02:58.823 - to take notes of the great remarks that he's gonna bring to us. Can you help me introduce and welcome 00:02:58.823 --> 00:03:00.574 - Vu Lee to the stage, please? 00:03:06.722 --> 00:03:14.215 - Thank you so much Tatiana. Hi everyone. Thank you heading home for inviting me here to speak. I got 00:03:14.215 --> 00:03:22.082 - in here from Seattle this morning at like 1 a.m. and then I woke up at like 7 a.m. and I've been lurking 00:03:22.082 --> 00:03:30.099 - here in the shadows like a hawk, like a sexy Asian hawk, just listening to y'all and reading your post-its 00:03:30.099 --> 00:03:33.246 - and stuff. And I'm finally waking up now. 00:03:33.826 --> 00:03:39.920 - which is great because y'all are full of tacos and you're probably sleepy. So we're going to do something 00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:45.554 - to start off with, which I know some of you just love. It's called an icebreaker. I know. I know. 00:03:45.554 --> 00:03:51.304 - I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sir. It's OK. It will only be slightly painful, but it will be short, 00:03:51.304 --> 00:03:57.340 - OK? And it's probably something you've probably never done before. I used to run an after-school program 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:03.262 - for low-income kids, and so we had to get them active all the time. So what we're going to do today is 00:04:03.554 --> 00:04:11.727 - a rock, paper, scissors tournament. Here's how it's going to work. You've got to listen. You're going 00:04:11.727 --> 00:04:20.220 - to start off as an egg. Everyone put your hands on your head. You're an egg. And then if you win battling 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:28.072 - another egg, you become a chicken. You're a chicken. If you win that battle, you become an eagle. 00:04:28.072 --> 00:04:31.838 - Do that. Do that. You're an eagle. Great. Egg. 00:04:33.282 --> 00:04:41.202 - chicken, eagle, then you're going to be Superman. My kids made this up, so I don't know what's in my 00:04:41.202 --> 00:04:49.201 - program. And then if you win that round, you can become an angel, a non-denominational angel. So this 00:04:49.201 --> 00:04:57.200 - is what you're going to do. Now, you've got to find the people on your same level to battle. And it's 00:04:57.200 --> 00:05:02.846 - going to be one, two, three, shoot. One, two, three, shoot. If you win, 00:05:03.362 --> 00:05:09.353 - You go up one level. If you lose, you go down one level. You've got to find the same people in your 00:05:09.353 --> 00:05:15.345 - level to battle. The first five people to reach angel status gets a prize. And it's going to be one 00:05:15.345 --> 00:05:21.396 - of these cool rocks that I stole from my children. I told them if you keep leaving your rocks around 00:05:21.396 --> 00:05:27.747 - the house where I can step on them, I will take them to Bloomington, Indiana and give them away to random 00:05:27.747 --> 00:05:31.102 - strangers. So there you go. All right, everyone get up. 00:05:33.250 --> 00:05:41.054 - All right, you are all an egg now. Go find another egg. One, two, three, shoot. Go ahead. 00:06:04.834 --> 00:06:28.510 - We have an eagle over here. Go find an eagle. Here's another eagle. We have an egg over here. 00:06:34.466 --> 00:06:46.134 - All right. We're looking for one more angel. We got another one. We got another one. Yay. All right. 00:06:46.134 --> 00:06:56.878 - Wait. Thank you so much, everyone. All right. Go ahead and pick out a cool rock that my kid. 00:06:56.878 --> 00:07:02.654 - Here's this one, too. Yeah. Oh, you got that one. 00:07:03.426 --> 00:07:14.705 - All right, here you go. You love rocks, they're the best. All right, everyone, you can please sit down 00:07:14.705 --> 00:07:26.750 - now that you've woken up. Oh, oh, I'm sorry, we got all of our angels and all the rocks have been given away. 00:07:31.810 --> 00:07:40.362 - All right, everyone, please sit down. If you are still standing up, you have lost the tournament, so 00:07:40.362 --> 00:07:49.167 - please sit down. Just accept your fate. Sit down. All right, that got intense. There's some people over 00:07:49.167 --> 00:07:58.142 - there going to some fist fights, and there was some hair pulling. I apologize for pulling someone's hair. 00:07:59.298 --> 00:08:06.614 - All right, thank you so much, everyone. I am Vu. I use he and pronouns. And I am just so glad to be 00:08:06.614 --> 00:08:14.222 - here among you all. Yeah, it's been rough. And I miss being in front of people. And even though it took 00:08:14.222 --> 00:08:21.610 - 19 years to get here, it's just so lovely here. Everything is blooming. Everyone's been so friendly. 00:08:21.610 --> 00:08:28.926 - The food has been really good. So I'm just very appreciative. Today, we're going to talk about just 00:08:29.026 --> 00:08:35.308 - How awesome we are as a sector, right? Because I don't think people understand how amazing you all are. 00:08:35.308 --> 00:08:41.710 - And then two, we're going to talk about all the challenges that we're dealing with and how do we overcome 00:08:41.710 --> 00:08:48.354 - them. And then we're going to end with how awesome we are. That's the entire thing, right? A few disclaimers. 00:08:48.354 --> 00:08:54.454 - One is that I have children, small children. And some of you may know this. If you have a baby, it's 00:08:54.454 --> 00:08:58.622 - like getting a multi-year federal grant. At first, you're like, yay. 00:09:00.130 --> 00:09:06.863 - And you're like, oh my god, this is so much work. And the requirements change every year. So I've been 00:09:06.863 --> 00:09:13.466 - very loopy. Hopefully we'll have a little bit of time where we can just answer any questions you may 00:09:13.466 --> 00:09:20.199 - have. This claim number two is that I don't claim to be an expert. I write a blog called Nonprofit AF, 00:09:20.199 --> 00:09:26.933 - which stands for Nonprofit and Fearless. That doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing, really. So this 00:09:26.933 --> 00:09:28.894 - is just one person's opinion. 00:09:29.250 --> 00:09:36.028 - Also, it's easy to say, oh, Vu, he's up on stage. He must represent all people of color, all attractive 00:09:36.028 --> 00:09:42.611 - vegans everywhere, or whatever. This is just one person's perspective. So you can just disagree with 00:09:42.611 --> 00:09:49.128 - anything that I'm saying. I might cuss a little bit. OK, is that OK? Do people cuss in Bloomington? 00:09:49.128 --> 00:09:56.036 - Some people get very offended. So just in case, apologies in advance. First, let's talk about how awesome 00:09:56.036 --> 00:09:57.470 - we are as the sector. 00:09:58.146 --> 00:10:04.618 - I liken this sector, the work that you're all doing, to air, whereas other sectors are like food, right? 00:10:04.618 --> 00:10:10.906 - And the work that you're all doing is like air, and no one appreciates air until they need it, right? 00:10:10.906 --> 00:10:17.193 - Until they have maybe one medical crisis, and then they're out, you know, and they lose their home or 00:10:17.193 --> 00:10:23.481 - something. But until that happens, they may never appreciate the work that you're doing all the time. 00:10:23.481 --> 00:10:26.686 - So society does not really appreciate the work that 00:10:26.850 --> 00:10:33.263 - you all do every single day, right? That's why we barely have any shows about non-profit work, or like 00:10:33.263 --> 00:10:39.738 - the work that we all do, you know? I was watching like, there's like 19 shows about cake, about baking. 00:10:39.738 --> 00:10:46.088 - I was watching a show called, Is It Cake? Yeah, do you like Is It Cake? Such a good show. People bake 00:10:46.088 --> 00:10:52.314 - these cakes, and they're realistic looking, and some people have to guess, is this a cake, or is it 00:10:52.314 --> 00:10:55.614 - like a shoe? That's the entire premise of this show. 00:10:56.578 --> 00:11:03.053 - Right? But the work we do is just as suspenseful. You know, like, are we going to file that 990 tax 00:11:03.053 --> 00:11:09.658 - form on time? You know? Are we going to, can we fill out these tables at our gala? Do we need to pack 00:11:09.658 --> 00:11:16.263 - it with volunteers to make it look full? Stuff like that. I was thinking of cool shows we could pitch 00:11:16.263 --> 00:11:22.998 - to Netflix, for example. The Amazing Free Supplies Race. This is when, like, a bank moves or something, 00:11:22.998 --> 00:11:26.430 - and they're like, hey, you nonprofits, we're moving. 00:11:27.106 --> 00:11:33.934 - And we have all these free supplies and furniture and all these nonprofits assembled into this team 00:11:33.934 --> 00:11:40.898 - to be the first to get that sweet metal filing cabinet. There's also dancing with major donors. Well, 00:11:40.898 --> 00:11:47.794 - we partner up a nonprofit leader with a major donor, and the nonprofit leader is like, should I call 00:11:47.794 --> 00:11:54.827 - this person? It's been three weeks since we've emailed them. We don't want to seem too aggressive, but 00:11:54.827 --> 00:11:56.670 - we need this gift renewed. 00:11:57.858 --> 00:12:05.473 - Or my favorite, Nonprofit and Afraid. Anyone has seen Naked and Afraid? Naked and Afraid, no one here. 00:12:05.473 --> 00:12:12.941 - Amber has seen Naked and Afraid. Naked and Afraid is on the Discovery Channel, y'all, so you know it 00:12:12.941 --> 00:12:20.334 - is educational. It takes these two people and they are strangers and places them in the wilderness. 00:12:20.334 --> 00:12:27.358 - And they have to survive for three weeks and they get a survival item that's usually a machete 00:12:27.810 --> 00:12:35.445 - and a fire starter, and they are naked and afraid, and they get bitten by mosquitoes a lot. I'm thinking 00:12:35.445 --> 00:12:42.862 - we take someone who's never worked in housing and homelessness before, and we place them at a shelter 00:12:42.862 --> 00:12:50.134 - or something, and they get a survival item that's like a 1993 Honda Accord to survive. Anyways, the 00:12:50.134 --> 00:12:56.606 - point is we've been invisible for a really long time, and we really need to stop, right? 00:12:57.090 --> 00:13:04.340 - Things have been really dire the past several years, and it's gotten really, really bad. I've 00:13:04.340 --> 00:13:12.438 - aged significantly. I'm only 24. This has been really rough. I'm just thinking that we're in this moment 00:13:12.438 --> 00:13:20.305 - where we have this existential crisis now, where we just cannot put up with the same stuff that we've 00:13:20.305 --> 00:13:26.398 - been dealing with before the pandemic, before everything that's been going on, 00:13:27.298 --> 00:13:33.064 - Now we have an opportunity to do something completely different. We were looking at that vase with the 00:13:33.064 --> 00:13:38.717 - faces and stuff. Now we can see something completely different. And let's do that. So I just want to 00:13:38.717 --> 00:13:43.867 - just run through some of the things that we need to start thinking about doing differently. 00:13:43.867 --> 00:13:49.801 - First of all, we've got to stop putting up with bullshit, y'all. There is so much bullshit in our sector. 00:13:49.801 --> 00:13:55.454 - I was talking to a donor who was like, well, we want to give you money, but we don't want this money 00:13:55.454 --> 00:13:56.574 - to be spent on your 00:13:56.706 --> 00:14:04.303 - garbage expenses like staff salaries because that's overhead and we don't like overhead. So annoying. 00:14:04.303 --> 00:14:11.974 - We put up with this from donors and funders and politicians and it's just been very irritating. I kind 00:14:11.974 --> 00:14:19.496 - of liken the work that you all do to firefighters putting out the fires of injustice, right? Can you 00:14:19.496 --> 00:14:23.294 - imagine a firefighter rushing to put out the fires 00:14:23.714 --> 00:14:30.298 - And then someone stops them and says, I want to make sure that the money I'm giving you to put out these 00:14:30.298 --> 00:14:36.881 - fires is being spent on the water and not the hose. Because the hose is overhead. And I don't, we don't, 00:14:36.881 --> 00:14:43.276 - what is your hose to water ratio? And because we're nice people, we're like, oh, no, no, don't worry. 00:14:43.276 --> 00:14:48.606 - We found another funder who's paying for the hose. You're only paying for the water. 00:14:49.730 --> 00:14:56.488 - We're spending less than 15% of our money on the hose this year. That is so much bullshit. And because 00:14:56.488 --> 00:15:03.181 - we're nice people, we just answer that without thinking how ridiculous this is. How do we address the 00:15:03.181 --> 00:15:09.742 - fires? And we're stopping all the time to answer questions like this. The answer when someone asks, 00:15:09.742 --> 00:15:16.369 - what's your hose to water issue should be, get the hell out of my way. There are fires. OK, we don't 00:15:16.369 --> 00:15:18.206 - have time for that anymore. 00:15:18.626 --> 00:15:25.861 - We also don't have time for questions like the sustainability myth. When funders or donors are like, 00:15:25.861 --> 00:15:33.239 - how are you going to sustain this program when this grant that we give you runs out? How are you going 00:15:33.239 --> 00:15:40.546 - to sustain it? I don't know, Kevin. Why don't you sustain it? You're a funder. You have money. I have 00:15:40.546 --> 00:15:44.414 - shit to do. You sustain it. I mean, it's so annoying. 00:15:44.930 --> 00:15:51.385 - How are we going to leverage this grant that we give you to get additional grant funding? You leverage. 00:15:51.385 --> 00:15:57.591 - You know everyone. Give us money, and then go tell your friends, give us money, too, so that we can 00:15:57.591 --> 00:16:03.984 - run our programs. We're very busy. I don't understand. Right? That's so silly. We need to stop putting 00:16:03.984 --> 00:16:10.190 - up with this. On my blog, Nonprofit AF, you can find a blog post called Standardized Answers to the 00:16:10.190 --> 00:16:11.742 - Sustainability Question. 00:16:12.898 --> 00:16:20.257 - where there's nine different versions and you just copy and paste them into grant proposals. And this 00:16:20.257 --> 00:16:27.473 - executive director called me up and said, Vu, I copied and pasted your medium length version into a 00:16:27.473 --> 00:16:34.976 - grant and got $25,000. So because it's a silly, silly answer, in many ways what you're doing is filling 00:16:34.976 --> 00:16:41.470 - out the gaps left behind by the rest of society. If the market forces were doing its job, 00:16:41.954 --> 00:16:48.929 - If government were representative of its people, and people were paying their fair share of taxes, and 00:16:48.929 --> 00:16:55.701 - corporations were treating their workers, well, maybe people wouldn't be so homeless, right? So the 00:16:55.701 --> 00:17:02.541 - fact that these systems have been broken, and then you're out there trying to fix it, and people are 00:17:02.541 --> 00:17:09.313 - like, how are you going to pay for all the tools you're using to fix all this stuff that we've been 00:17:09.313 --> 00:17:11.006 - causing? It's insulting. 00:17:11.938 --> 00:17:19.057 - So we gotta stop dealing with all this and putting up with it. We've also been dealing with BS from 00:17:19.057 --> 00:17:26.602 - our corporate friends. My friend calls it besplaining. Besplaining is like mansplaining when a for-profit 00:17:26.602 --> 00:17:33.792 - does it to a non-profit. By the way, thank you to any corporate sponsors for bringing me here today. 00:17:33.792 --> 00:17:40.911 - Really appreciate you all. But I fly around and I talk to corporate people and they're like, Vu, do 00:17:40.911 --> 00:17:41.694 - you all do 00:17:42.562 --> 00:17:49.159 - Over there, non-profit, what we do over here, it's called accounting. Do you know what numbers are? 00:17:49.159 --> 00:17:56.019 - Of course we do. When you are forced to play funding Sudoku on a daily basis, because no one funds 100% 00:17:56.019 --> 00:18:03.143 - of anything, and people want to fund certain specific parts, and you got to start to piecemeal Frankenstein 00:18:03.143 --> 00:18:09.278 - bits of stuff together, then you become the best accountants ever, right? So it's insulting. 00:18:09.794 --> 00:18:15.932 - And there's some major differences between for-profits and non-profits that we don't acknowledge. 00:18:15.932 --> 00:18:22.571 - For example, in for-profit, if a company does really well, if Apple sells a million iPhones this quarter, 00:18:22.571 --> 00:18:28.960 - and next quarter it sells two million iPhones, it doubles its revenues. In this sector, the work that 00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:34.910 - you're doing, if you're serving 100 families and now suddenly 200 families need your services, 00:18:35.170 --> 00:18:41.124 - Now you're scrambling for resources because the reimbursement rates are not going to be 100%. You're 00:18:41.124 --> 00:18:47.136 - subsidizing every single person, every single service that you're doing. So it's not sustainable. The 00:18:47.136 --> 00:18:53.502 - more successful you are at your work, the less sustainable you become oftentimes. And also, you're expected 00:18:53.502 --> 00:18:59.397 - to perform miracles on these highly restricted, limited orders. Like we gave you $10,000 last year. 00:18:59.397 --> 00:19:01.342 - Why didn't you end homelessness? 00:19:04.802 --> 00:19:13.275 - Like, this is what you're expected to do all the time. You know? People are like, oh, you house 20 people? 00:19:13.275 --> 00:19:21.273 - That's great. That's like an output, not an outcome. Can you imagine if four products had to do with 00:19:21.273 --> 00:19:29.350 - this? Can you imagine going to Apple and saying, hey, Apple, you sold a million iPhones last quarter? 00:19:29.350 --> 00:19:31.646 - But that's an output, right? 00:19:32.546 --> 00:19:38.053 - I want to know the outcomes, Apple. Of the million iPhones you sold, how many people used their iPhones 00:19:38.053 --> 00:19:43.349 - to update their resumes, and then used their job, and then used their iPhones to get jobs? How many 00:19:43.349 --> 00:19:48.803 - people did you have to find jobs for? Well, how many seniors fell and broke their ankle, and then they 00:19:48.803 --> 00:19:54.204 - used their iPhones to go onto WebMD and learn how to foster attorney care for their broken ankle, and 00:19:54.204 --> 00:19:59.553 - so they did not go to the emergency room, and so they saved taxpayers' money? How much in taxpayers' 00:19:59.553 --> 00:20:01.406 - money did you have to save, Apple? 00:20:03.554 --> 00:20:09.699 - That's what you're expected to do all the time, right? And it's very, it's really irritating. So we 00:20:09.699 --> 00:20:15.844 - need to stop putting up all this bullshit. Yeah, we can absolutely learn from our corporate friends 00:20:15.844 --> 00:20:22.173 - for sure. At the same time, there are certain challenges that are very unique and we need to do things 00:20:22.173 --> 00:20:28.317 - a bit differently. One is we've got to restore our sense of imagination. I think in many ways we've 00:20:28.317 --> 00:20:32.926 - lost that because we've been forced into this learned helplessness sphere. 00:20:33.154 --> 00:20:40.795 - because of limited funding all the time. And we've lost the ability to imagine a better world. 00:20:40.795 --> 00:20:49.079 - In my book, there was a colleague who was talking about how there was a homelessness organization that 00:20:49.079 --> 00:20:57.202 - was celebrating their 50th year anniversary. And at the gala, their board chair went up on stage and 00:20:57.202 --> 00:21:02.430 - said, and raised a toast to 50 more years. And everyone clapped. 00:21:03.842 --> 00:21:11.875 - Right? Now, that's not something to toast to. We don't want a world where many of these organizations 00:21:11.875 --> 00:21:19.750 - are still in business. We want a world where people are at our house and safe. And maybe many of us 00:21:19.750 --> 00:21:28.097 - can go out of business and we can quit our jobs and become like a wedding singer or whatever we've always 00:21:28.097 --> 00:21:30.302 - dreamed about doing. Right? 00:21:30.914 --> 00:21:38.164 - That's what we should be thinking about doing. But I think we've lost our sense of imagination, and 00:21:38.164 --> 00:21:45.705 - we need to get it back. I think we've also lost our sense of ambition. We don't know what it looks like 00:21:45.705 --> 00:21:52.955 - anymore. What does that look like? Who has heard of Juicero? Juicero? OK. You'll love this. Juicero 00:21:52.955 --> 00:22:00.350 - was a Wi-Fi connected juicing machine that came out of Silicon Valley several years ago. It was $700. 00:22:00.866 --> 00:22:08.546 - You buy these proprietary, you subscribe to these proprietary packets of cut of fruit and vegetables 00:22:08.546 --> 00:22:16.379 - for $7 each. And you place one packet into this machine and it squeezes out one glass of juice. It was 00:22:16.379 --> 00:22:24.059 - supposed to disrupt the juicing industry. Bloomberg did an investigation where they took the packets 00:22:24.059 --> 00:22:29.534 - and squeezed them by hand and got the same amount of juice, but faster. 00:22:31.842 --> 00:22:40.101 - So they wrote about this and Juicero went bankrupt. But before they did, they were boasting that they 00:22:40.101 --> 00:22:48.280 - had $125 million in venture capital. They were boasting that they had 50 full-time engineers working 00:22:48.280 --> 00:22:56.539 - to design this Wi-Fi connected juicing machine. Can you imagine what any of us could do that's better 00:22:56.539 --> 00:22:59.454 - for society if we had $125 million? 00:23:02.690 --> 00:23:09.827 - But no, oftentimes we've been trained to think very small. We start to think that if we ask for $50,000 00:23:09.827 --> 00:23:16.759 - or $5 million or whatever, it's too much, when the reality is not enough. I want you all to have the 00:23:16.759 --> 00:23:23.896 - audacity of a Wi-Fi connected juicing machine. I want you to start thinking about that level, like what 00:23:23.896 --> 00:23:31.102 - does it take for us to solve homelessness, for people everywhere in all of our communities to have safe, 00:23:31.586 --> 00:23:37.344 - and affordable housing. What does that look like? How much is it gonna take? It's probably gonna take 00:23:37.344 --> 00:23:43.046 - like at least two or three more zeros. So add a zero to your budget. When you are asked, if you're a 00:23:43.046 --> 00:23:48.861 - funder, add a zero. If you're a policymaker, start thinking big too. I think that's the only way we're 00:23:48.861 --> 00:23:54.732 - gonna have to solve many of these problems here. So we need to start thinking and imagining much bigger 00:23:54.732 --> 00:23:58.910 - than we have been because we have not in many ways. I think in many ways, 00:23:59.138 --> 00:24:05.272 - We've kind of started believing that the world is always going to be crappy, and our job is to make 00:24:05.272 --> 00:24:11.957 - it just 10% less crappy. And we're not going to be able to solve problems if we start thinking incrementally 00:24:11.957 --> 00:24:18.336 - like that. There's other things we need to change, like philanthropy and our relationship with funders. 00:24:18.336 --> 00:24:24.838 - It's been really exhausting. I'm so sick of writing all these grant proposals, because funders oftentimes 00:24:24.838 --> 00:24:28.702 - think that they deserve a special snowflake grant application. 00:24:29.890 --> 00:24:35.542 - and a special snowflake grant report when it's all the same information. Except some funders want this 00:24:35.542 --> 00:24:40.646 - answered in 500 characters, another one wants it in like a thousand characters. It's all the 00:24:40.646 --> 00:24:46.243 - same information. It doesn't have to be that way. I remember a funder calling me up once and he said, 00:24:46.243 --> 00:24:51.730 - I was in my car, you know, eating my lunch between meetings. And he called me up and said, he said, 00:24:51.730 --> 00:24:57.547 - Vu, I really like what your organization is doing. Can you find a grant that you wrote for another funder 00:24:57.547 --> 00:24:59.742 - and just forward the whole thing to me? 00:25:00.738 --> 00:25:07.546 - Don't even worry about changing the name of the other foundation or anything, just forward the whole 00:25:07.546 --> 00:25:14.691 - thing to me. And I hung up the phone, and a single teardrop rolled down my face, poetically. And I looked 00:25:14.691 --> 00:25:21.633 - through my phone, and I found a grant that I had spent like 40 hours working on. It had like a 10 page 00:25:21.633 --> 00:25:27.902 - narrative and 13 attachments, including a logic model, a theory of change, a budget in Word, 00:25:28.034 --> 00:25:34.172 - the blood types of every staff member for some reason, I don't know, forward the whole thing to this 00:25:34.172 --> 00:25:40.372 - funder. It literally took like two minutes and we got $200,000 or so, right? They got everything that 00:25:40.372 --> 00:25:46.571 - they needed. There was no need for them to have their own special snowflake grant application. So why 00:25:46.571 --> 00:25:52.649 - do we keep doing this? We just put up with this. I think every non-profit should just have like one 00:25:52.649 --> 00:25:55.262 - grant proposal and just be done with that. 00:25:56.674 --> 00:26:03.301 - The other thing is like, we got to change the way that we've been doing fundraising. We've been trained 00:26:03.301 --> 00:26:09.800 - to constantly be grateful all the time. We've been trained to have this attitude of gratitude, right? 00:26:09.800 --> 00:26:16.236 - And I hate it. I don't care that it rhymes, okay? Attitude, gratitude. And it manifests in like this 00:26:16.236 --> 00:26:22.799 - thing where, you know, we have this donor-centric model fundraising, where you are supposed to elevate 00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:26.558 - donors, put them on pedestals, make them feel like heroes, 00:26:27.266 --> 00:26:34.970 - And it's exhausting. We are trained to do things like, make sure you use the word you all the time when 00:26:34.970 --> 00:26:42.525 - you write handwritten thank you notes. Like, you did this. Because of you, our community is stronger. 00:26:42.525 --> 00:26:50.081 - Because of you, several families were housed or whatever. We couldn't have done this without you. And 00:26:50.081 --> 00:26:57.118 - I am very tired of it. I kind of liken it to, I don't know, husband-centered marriages. Right? 00:26:57.666 --> 00:27:05.358 - Now, I've been a husband before, and I would love it every single time I did the dishes or something, 00:27:05.358 --> 00:27:12.974 - my partner writes me a handwritten thank you note. Like, Devo, you did it. Because you loaded up the 00:27:12.974 --> 00:27:20.591 - dishwasher today, our family is stronger. Our community is better because of you. The children and I 00:27:20.591 --> 00:27:24.286 - are so thankful for your presence in our family. 00:27:25.314 --> 00:27:32.426 - please come to this exclusive wine and cheese event for amazing husbands like you. I would love that. 00:27:32.426 --> 00:27:39.468 - And I'd be more likely to do the dishes if that were to happen. But is that an effective marriage? I 00:27:39.468 --> 00:27:46.441 - don't think it is. How do we solve these problems if one party is supposed to chase after the other 00:27:46.441 --> 00:27:53.623 - one, constantly thanking them, making them feel special all the time? It's turned our sector into this 00:27:53.623 --> 00:27:54.878 - Sky Mall catalog. 00:27:56.578 --> 00:28:02.805 - You know? We're focused on customer service. We're not focused on addressing these issues and going 00:28:02.805 --> 00:28:09.468 - out of business. We're focused on making sure that donors feel really good, that they have a good customer 00:28:09.468 --> 00:28:15.757 - service, so that they come back and keep buying our services forever. Like a Sky Mall catalog, which 00:28:15.757 --> 00:28:22.047 - I don't know why they disappeared. I really like that catalog. We shouldn't do that anymore. We need 00:28:22.047 --> 00:28:23.230 - to have some deep, 00:28:23.618 --> 00:28:29.686 - conversations with our donors. It prevents us from having conversations with our donors. Like, why do 00:28:29.686 --> 00:28:35.813 - we have these systems of inequity in the first place? Probably because some of you are not paying your 00:28:35.813 --> 00:28:41.880 - fair share of taxes. Right? So how do we have these conversations with donors if we are told to treat 00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:47.710 - them like heroes? How do we actually tell them, hey, look, we need you to pay your share of taxes 00:28:48.546 --> 00:28:54.497 - It needs to be equitable so we can start thinking about building better housing for people and raising 00:28:54.497 --> 00:29:00.680 - minimum wage. How do we have conversations with businesses and say, look, you've got to pay people better? 00:29:00.680 --> 00:29:06.516 - But instead, we don't do that. They keep hoarding. They keep exploiting workers oftentimes. And then 00:29:06.516 --> 00:29:12.352 - people need services. Then they donate some money to us to then provide some of these services. Then 00:29:12.352 --> 00:29:18.014 - we're told to thank them. And that continues this cycle. We have to get out of this cycle, y'all. 00:29:19.842 --> 00:29:28.334 - Yeah, we have to do a much better job with advocacy and lobbying and organizing. We have not done enough 00:29:28.334 --> 00:29:36.584 - of that. In college, I became a vegan. And that was really rough because this was before veganism was 00:29:36.584 --> 00:29:44.267 - cool. And all we had were salads every day. And it was really awful. It was tough. So I formed 00:29:44.267 --> 00:29:48.958 - the Vegetarians Union. And I recruited like 200 students. 00:29:49.762 --> 00:29:57.221 - And we marched on the administration to demand better foods for vegans and plant eaters everywhere. 00:29:57.221 --> 00:30:05.054 - It was really difficult because many of us fainted from lack of protein and iron. And our pleather shoes 00:30:05.054 --> 00:30:12.960 - kept breaking down. It was the most difficult 300 yards we had ever walked. But you know what? It worked. 00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:15.422 - And within a month or so, we got 00:30:16.130 --> 00:30:23.375 - tofu nuggets and stuff that we were wanting. The point was we need to start organizing and do things 00:30:23.375 --> 00:30:30.549 - a lot more. We can't just address the symptoms of inequities anymore. We've got to start working to 00:30:30.549 --> 00:30:37.865 - change the systems that we have. So that's that. And then a few other things. We've got to get out of 00:30:37.865 --> 00:30:43.102 - this scarcity and martyrdom complex, y'all. S&M, scarcity and martyrdom. 00:30:46.338 --> 00:30:52.406 - It has not been good. All right, some of y'all are sitting on crappy chairs that you got on Craigslist 00:30:52.406 --> 00:30:58.415 - 12 years ago. Probably, right? Who has a chair that you duct taped together from somewhere? You know, 00:30:58.415 --> 00:31:04.543 - we gotta start paying our team members better. We gotta start thinking about how do we create the space 00:31:04.543 --> 00:31:10.846 - where people are not burning out because that's been happening. And it's getting worse because now demands 00:31:10.846 --> 00:31:14.558 - are getting higher and people are burning out at greater rates 00:31:15.714 --> 00:31:22.145 - And it's often because this scarcity mindset that we've been forced into. And I wanted to get out of 00:31:22.145 --> 00:31:28.577 - that. You deserve a nice chair to sit on while you change the world. You deserve vacation time and a 00:31:28.577 --> 00:31:34.944 - sabbatical policy for every single person here. If you work like five or seven years, you deserve a 00:31:34.944 --> 00:31:41.694 - couple of months at least of time off to recharge here. So everyone should have that in your policy here. 00:31:42.370 --> 00:31:50.077 - People are starting to move into four-day work weeks and things now. So we've got to start thinking, 00:31:50.077 --> 00:31:58.166 - how do we do things differently and not just doing the same things? Many of our best practices are really 00:31:58.166 --> 00:32:06.102 - terrible. I don't know. A lot of our boards are so ineffective. We're still using Robert's rules. Who's 00:32:06.102 --> 00:32:11.902 - Robert? Why are we still using his rules? With the motions and the tabling, 00:32:13.058 --> 00:32:21.310 - Robert was Henry Martin Robert, who in 1876 took the U.S. Congress parliamentary procedure and put them 00:32:21.310 --> 00:32:29.483 - into a book, and now 150 years later, literally, we are still using the set of rules that was designed 00:32:29.483 --> 00:32:37.418 - for 400 people, not 12 people eating hummus and some tiny oranges. Thank you, sir. Yeah, thank you, 00:32:37.418 --> 00:32:40.830 - Jeff. We can start using Jeff's rules now. 00:32:43.202 --> 00:32:50.276 - It's like Taco Tuesday. Many of the things in our sector, like Robert's was like Taco Tuesday. You don't 00:32:50.276 --> 00:32:57.081 - have to eat tacos on Tuesdays. Is it Tuesday? And we had tacos. We don't have to. Next year, if it's 00:32:57.081 --> 00:33:03.819 - on a Tuesday, I don't want to see tacos here, OK? Many of the things, they're just suggestions made 00:33:03.819 --> 00:33:10.556 - up by people. We don't have to use them. And people are starting to do things differently. Like, do 00:33:10.556 --> 00:33:12.510 - we need to have one CEO? No. 00:33:12.674 --> 00:33:18.964 - People are starting to move to flatter structures with their shared leadership, because so many CEOs 00:33:18.964 --> 00:33:25.440 - and EDs are burning out. So now people are starting to do shared leadership, co-directorship. Even some 00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:31.730 - organizations, they don't have any leadership at all. They're just very flat, and they have a lot of 00:33:31.730 --> 00:33:38.082 - meetings. But it works sometimes. We can start doing things like that. So we've got to be bolder, and 00:33:38.082 --> 00:33:41.694 - we've got to protect DEI. We've got to continue doing it. 00:33:44.578 --> 00:33:51.180 - Thank you. And we're going to move towards DEI Equity 2.0. I know we've been under attack. DEI has been 00:33:51.180 --> 00:33:57.846 - under attack. But it's only been under attack because it's been working. Why would they attack something 00:33:57.846 --> 00:34:04.384 - that doesn't work? It's been working to restore equity and justice. That's why it's been under attack. 00:34:04.384 --> 00:34:10.923 - And we need to start really focusing on doing a better job with DEI. Even the 101 stuff, we still need 00:34:10.923 --> 00:34:12.510 - to do a better job with. 00:34:13.090 --> 00:34:21.273 - Some of y'all, for example, still don't list salaries in your job postings. If I see that, I'm taking 00:34:21.273 --> 00:34:29.697 - you down. Put your salary postings on your salaries and your job postings, OK? Also, like, I don't know, 00:34:29.697 --> 00:34:38.041 - there's still a lot of job postings that's like, must have a BA or a master's preferred. Why? I've been 00:34:38.041 --> 00:34:39.806 - an executive director 00:34:40.450 --> 00:34:46.968 - of two organizations over 13 years. And I can tell you, you don't need a formal degree to be an ED. 00:34:46.968 --> 00:34:53.616 - You just need a high threshold for pain and chaos. So no, stop leaving people behind. There's tons of 00:34:53.616 --> 00:35:00.264 - people. We know the education system is inequitable. So stop using it to discriminate against people. 00:35:00.264 --> 00:35:06.978 - There are some brilliant people who, for whatever reasons, they may not have a formal degree. But they 00:35:06.978 --> 00:35:10.302 - may have lived experience that we definitely need. 00:35:10.434 --> 00:35:19.928 - in this work. But we need to value that more than like a BA or whatever. I saw a job posting that said, 00:35:19.928 --> 00:35:29.331 - must be able to lift 50 pounds. Like, why? I mean, I'm a vegan. I can barely lift up my arms. So we've 00:35:29.331 --> 00:35:38.460 - got to start being a lot more thoughtful about how we go about doing this. But I also think DEI 2.0 00:35:38.460 --> 00:35:40.286 - is really exciting. 00:35:40.706 --> 00:35:46.982 - Like with the fundraising we've been doing, for example, talking to donors about like where their family's 00:35:46.982 --> 00:35:52.966 - wealth came from and thinking about how we can do maybe reparation. I was talking to this major donor 00:35:52.966 --> 00:35:59.066 - who attended a workshop where she discovered that her family's wealth came from stolen indigenous land, 00:35:59.066 --> 00:36:05.049 - like literally pushing a native family off the land and taking it. And she decided that when she gets 00:36:05.049 --> 00:36:10.622 - her inheritance, she's gonna get 100% of it back to the native community. Like that is DI 2.0. 00:36:11.650 --> 00:36:17.745 - And it's amazing, and it's hopeful. I'm going to wrap up, because I would love to hear your thoughts 00:36:17.745 --> 00:36:24.021 - on things and any heckling you might be wanting to do. I know it's easy for me to come up here and just 00:36:24.021 --> 00:36:30.237 - yell at you all a lot and talk about all the things wrong with our sector. But the reality is that our 00:36:30.237 --> 00:36:36.574 - sector is amazing. I love our sector. And I know the last few years have been really, really depressing. 00:36:36.930 --> 00:36:43.451 - And but at the same time, there's some really hopeful things that are happening out there. And I don't 00:36:43.451 --> 00:36:50.288 - want us to lose hope. There's some brilliant things every single day all over the world that are happening. 00:36:50.288 --> 00:36:56.872 - Like Mexico, I think, just forgave like 5 million predatory mortgage loans instantly for like 5 million 00:36:56.872 --> 00:37:03.582 - people. Finland just eliminated homelessness. They made housing a human right and provided housing first. 00:37:08.802 --> 00:37:16.176 - The hole in the ozone layer is closing, y'all. In like 10 years, we won't have a hole in the ozone layer. 00:37:16.176 --> 00:37:23.481 - The giant-ass patch of garbage in the Pacific Ocean, it's shrinking. People are actually making progress 00:37:23.481 --> 00:37:30.508 - and shrinking this giant patch of garbage that's the size of Texas. And it's working. Namibia is now 00:37:30.508 --> 00:37:35.934 - all women run. Their president, vice president, speaker, assembly, all women. 00:37:36.994 --> 00:37:44.879 - And 60% of their legislators are women. Burkina Faso planted this giant wall of trees to push back the 00:37:44.879 --> 00:37:52.994 - desert, and it's working. The desert is shrinking because of it. And all over the United States, everyone 00:37:52.994 --> 00:38:01.032 - has been out there fighting against all sorts of stuff, against inequity. I think in Texas, the governor 00:38:01.032 --> 00:38:04.094 - banned rainbow crosswalks or something. 00:38:04.290 --> 00:38:11.149 - And all these artists painted rainbows everywhere, all over every city. One group took some laser lights 00:38:11.149 --> 00:38:18.204 - and projected a giant laser rainbow across the sky. So it's been backfiring. We've been seeing in Minnesota 00:38:18.204 --> 00:38:24.737 - how the communities work together to protect one another and to push back ice. And it's been really 00:38:24.737 --> 00:38:31.334 - inspiring. So I don't want you all to lose hope, because I think it has been challenging in the last 00:38:31.334 --> 00:38:34.078 - few years. But I really do believe in us. 00:38:34.338 --> 00:38:40.721 - Um, last thing I'll say is, um, I think it's, I think it's, it's, you know, doing this work can be really 00:38:40.721 --> 00:38:46.924 - challenging because sometimes you don't hear, you know, just people, just, just how much your work has 00:38:46.924 --> 00:38:52.885 - affected the lives of people. I think today we heard from our panelists, which was very inspiring. 00:38:52.885 --> 00:38:58.967 - And I, I appreciated that so much, but oftentimes we don't hear because we're, we're like air. We're 00:38:58.967 --> 00:39:01.918 - invisible. We don't hear the impact of our work. 00:39:02.978 --> 00:39:09.565 - And we don't hear thank you enough. So I just want to end by saying, by letting you know that your work 00:39:09.565 --> 00:39:16.151 - makes a huge difference. And all these ripples that you create that you may never see, I'm one of these 00:39:16.151 --> 00:39:22.674 - ripples. My family came over to the United States when I was eight years old. My father fought against 00:39:22.674 --> 00:39:29.261 - North Vietnam and was put into reeducation camp. And then we left Vietnam and came over here and didn't 00:39:29.261 --> 00:39:30.654 - have housing or food. 00:39:31.618 --> 00:39:38.919 - And it was all these nonprofits that helped us find Section 8 housing, all these political leaders and 00:39:38.919 --> 00:39:46.574 - corporate sponsors and funders. And they helped us to find housing and food. And I think the most important 00:39:46.574 --> 00:39:53.804 - thing that they did was they restored this sense of hope and community that we never thought we would 00:39:53.804 --> 00:40:01.246 - ever feel again in our new home. And I can't go back to those people who helped my family and tell them, 00:40:01.378 --> 00:40:09.510 - because of your work, I was inspired to go and get my master's in social work so I can pay it forward. 00:40:09.510 --> 00:40:17.405 - Dropping out of pre-med, making my parents very proud. You know, I can't tell them that. But that's 00:40:17.405 --> 00:40:25.458 - what your work does. You probably help just so many people that you will never hear from because they 00:40:25.458 --> 00:40:30.590 - may not have the emotional capacity or maybe the language skills 00:40:30.722 --> 00:40:38.134 - at that moment to let you know how much of a difference it made to them. I got my master's in social 00:40:38.134 --> 00:40:45.912 - work, and then I went and I worked at a non-profit helping low-income youth. And I remember just a couple 00:40:45.912 --> 00:40:53.470 - years ago, I was flying somewhere, and I heard someone call my name. It was like, Mr. Vu. And I turned 00:40:53.470 --> 00:40:58.974 - around, and there was this young man who said, Mr. Vu, do you remember me? 00:40:59.202 --> 00:41:05.665 - I used to be in your after school program, like 10 years ago. And I remember this kid because he was 00:41:05.665 --> 00:41:12.448 - so frustrated at this homework that he was not able to do. It was a math homework. But his English skills 00:41:12.448 --> 00:41:18.911 - were not good enough to understand the story problem. So I sat down and tried to help him as best as 00:41:18.911 --> 00:41:25.374 - I could. But I have a master's in social work. I don't know math. So I got another staff to come and 00:41:25.374 --> 00:41:28.062 - help him. And this kid will come to this. 00:41:28.226 --> 00:41:36.227 - program every single day. And then I became an executive director. And then I spent a lot of time just 00:41:36.227 --> 00:41:44.072 - raising money, yelling at staff, weeping in the supply closet slash conference room. And I never saw 00:41:44.072 --> 00:41:51.840 - this kid again for 10 years, until that day. And he said, Mr. Vu, because of what you did, what you 00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:56.734 - and your program did, I was able to graduate from high school. 00:41:57.410 --> 00:42:04.143 - And then I went to college and I graduated. And now I got this really cool job at this airline. And 00:42:04.143 --> 00:42:10.943 - he was just beaming. And I just thought about all the kids that we helped that we just lost track of 00:42:10.943 --> 00:42:17.945 - and we just never saw from again. Right? And I think about all the ripples that you create every single 00:42:17.945 --> 00:42:24.745 - day that you may never, ever see ever. But it makes a huge amount of difference. Because that day, I 00:42:24.745 --> 00:42:27.102 - got a free upgrade to first class. 00:42:34.466 --> 00:42:43.219 - Thank you. So that is it. I would love to hear from you all. Actually, do we have any time, Mary, 00:42:43.219 --> 00:42:52.151 - for this? One minute. Take five minutes. All right. Any questions or comments or anything here? Oh, 00:42:52.151 --> 00:42:58.046 - we can just end and eat more tacos. Wait, they cleared the tacos. 00:43:03.586 --> 00:43:11.138 - Oh, well, thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. You are my new favorite person in this room. Oh, yes, 00:43:11.138 --> 00:43:18.922 - Amber too. Yes, you're my second favorite person. Thank you so much, everyone. I know, again, things 00:43:18.922 --> 00:43:26.936 - have been really rough, but I want you to keep notice. But I think in some ways, we're seeing all these 00:43:26.936 --> 00:43:30.558 - challenges because, in many ways, it's because 00:43:30.914 --> 00:43:37.464 - The new order, the status quo is dying off. And people are starting to reckon with the fact that many 00:43:37.464 --> 00:43:44.078 - of these systems are not working for us. And so I think that we're kind of like last year was the year 00:43:44.078 --> 00:43:50.563 - of the snake. And this year is the year of the horse. But last year, the year of the snake was like, 00:43:50.563 --> 00:43:56.985 - the snake, no one likes the snake. They're like evil, and they get people to eat fruit or whatever. 00:43:56.985 --> 00:43:58.526 - And they're like gross. 00:43:58.946 --> 00:44:05.756 - But I think the snake is also a symbol of shedding of old skins so you can have a better snake. And 00:44:05.756 --> 00:44:12.703 - that's kind of where we are right now as a society. We're shedding the skin of inequity and injustice 00:44:12.703 --> 00:44:19.854 - and all the things that no longer function and work for many people in our communities anymore. So we're 00:44:19.854 --> 00:44:26.868 - going to have a better, more equitable snake when this is all done. So you are like the doulas for the 00:44:26.868 --> 00:44:28.094 - snakes of equity. 00:44:29.794 --> 00:44:30.494 - Thank you.