Back in the late 1980s, when I got my first full-time nonprofit job, it was at a nonprofit professional theater. Within a year, Republicans began to attack the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, extending that fight to criticize a variety of live performances and art exhibits across the USA. The theater where I worked immediately joined coalitions to fight back and prepared blurbs for our donor newsletter. Management and other members of the coalition were vocal and didn’t shy away from what was happening. If it meant losing some patrons, so be it: this was too important to be silent about. It was then I learned that working at a nonprofit doesn’t mean immunity from politics. It was also then that I learned that, while it is inappropriate for a nonprofit, including any church, to tell people what person or party to vote for, they have EVERY right to say, “Please vote. And here are the statements by the candidates/parties regarding issues related to the cause we promote…”
In 2011, I wrote on my blog about Republicans plans to do what they are doing now. Yes, in 2011. And I was the lone voice among consultants and nonprofit bloggers going on record, in a big way, to talk about it. Maybe it cost me some consulting jobs. So be it.
At the start of the first Donald Trump presidency, I wrote a plea to USA nonprofits for the next four years (& beyond). I wrote about How that first term might affect humanitarian aid & development. Then I wrote, in 2017, about volunteers scramble to preserve online data before government deleted it. I wrote about Donald Trump trying to eliminate AmeriCorps and all national service programs in 2018 and again in 2019.
Again, I was mostly alone. YOU were silent. The Points of Light was silent. The Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE) was silent. Other consultants regarding volunteer engagement and nonprofit management and Tech4Good were silent. You were not allies. And I haven’t forgotten that. Perhaps you all thought everything would be resolved and undone in four years with a new election, and in some ways, you were right – there was a pause in the madness. But it was a pause. I warned you it would be just temporary unless you spoke out. You stayed silent.
On election day last year, I told you that folks needed post-election reassurances from your nonprofit and gave you advice on what to say. I then gave you a strategy for looking at local election results and preparing to reach out to newly elected officials.
On inauguration day this year, I told you that your nonprofit WILL be targeted with misinformation and you needed to prepare. Then I told you why your social media should focus on volunteering as much as possible. And I told you that your Nonprofit CAN Resist. Here’s how.
Some nonprofits not only ignored the advice, they wrote that it was never more important to avoid controversy. I remain stunned and outraged by such advice.
Silence will not preserve your nonprofit nor protect those it serves. It will just delay actions that will harm both.
Stop being silent. Start your redemption by following the National Council of Nonprofits on LinkedIn. Follow their President and CEO on BlueSky. They are one of the strongest voices in our sector against what is happening now.
If your nonprofit is part of a national coalition, find out what advocacy they are doing, what legislation they may be talking about in that section of “updates from headquarters” that you have always skipped over in favor of the section on upcoming grant guidelines. You have every right to tell your donors and volunteers and clients about legislation that might affect them, and how that legislation might affect them, and the phone numbers of their elected officials.
Every US conference for nonprofits, whether for wildlife centers or theaters, domestic violence shelters or hospices, museums or food banks, needs to have sessions on how to address the current political landscape. And I don’t mean just about disappearing government funding.
I don’t know what else I can say, except that I am angry about doing so much of this by myself for YEARS. I paid a price for it, and maybe I will pay an even bigger one later, with being so public in my opposition. But let me be clear: your cowardice is going to cost us all. And your silence probably goes against core beliefs your nonprofit proudly states on its web site. No more silence. Otherwise, your silence will be interpreted as approval.
A colleague ran across this post and shared it with me. First off, thank you for your work and for your years of shouting from the rooftops. Secondly , as a Black woman, I find this post incredibly un-nuanced. It should have been explicitly stated that you are talking to WHITE men and women , because you CAN’T be speaking to the tons of Black and brown activists, nonprofit professionals and volunteer engagers who live their entire personal and professional lives screaming from rooftops of burning buildings, and met with silence and violence. To not acknowledge that here is in itself silencing those who have gone before you and are here now. There are people , as we speak, who are saying all of this and are not being heard because they don’t have the positional power or privilege for their voice to be recognized as legitimate….let alone the considerations of what could be done that them, and the harm and retaliation that could be experienced in extremely detrimental ways, that does not include losing clients. I am even choosing to stay anonymous, due to the positional power you’ve stated (it seems like you’ve been in the sector a long time, with plenty of connections, and touted as a leader in the space based on your inference in this article, and I don’t know what repercussions await someone like me by someone like you. Admittedly I am assuming but in my position I must be cautious.)
I looked back at other blogs and see that you speak of inclusion and fighting anti-DEI ideologies, but I must say, this post feels that there is a misaligned tone to me , especially when you are not clearly stating that moderate feel good white folks, who fill the nonprofit space to the brim, are the ones who need to take your heed, because we’ve (my community) have been doing this.
This clarity prevents the erasure of ongoing efforts by communities of color and ensures that the call to action reaches those who need it most….
This is not a critique of your work, (because I do not know it holistically) but more so a point to provide nuance, even in an article like this where you are calling folks to good action.
Of course I’m not the only person that’s been sounding the alarm. But among the volunteer engagement world, which is dominated by white North Americans, Australians and Europeans – the primary readers of my blog – yes, I have been a lone voice. I thought it was blithering obvious I was calling out that group specifically.
Not only have a lot of black and brown activists sounded the alarm, but so have a lot of different sectors. But not the sector I represent. And I would never dare to speak for a sector nor a community I’m not a part of.
If you have links to volunteer engagement professionals of any color who have sounded the alarm, by all means, link to the here. Would love to read them.
Thanks for your response. I want to be real with you because the way you replied, using the phrase “blithering obvious” was dismissive in impact. That language doesn’t just brush off the nuance I was offering but it also it reinforces the exact dynamic I was trying to bring to light. When Black folks raise concerns about exclusion or erasure, that kind of reaction feels like you’re more frustrated about being questioned than it does reflective about the impact your words may have had.
When you said we are there “but not the sector I represent” it is once again dismissive….just because you haven’t seen or heard the voices of Black and brown leaders in volunteer engagement (12% of them based on the volunteer managers progress report, which doesn’t even capture all of them) about these topics doesn’t mean they’re not there. They just do not show up in the same places or platforms you’re used to frequenting, and they don’t have links.
They are in community meetings, in neighborhood associations, on porches and in church basements,and in WhatsApp groups. Also saying “not the sector I represent” as if that’s the end of the story actually proves the point. There’s a world of leaders you’re not hearing from. I invite you to be curious about this, about your own sector.
When asked to engage in a nuanced acknowledgment, the invitation was instead met with a request for “links,” which feels less like a call to learn and more like a challenge to prove our existence. It’s a “got you” moment instead of an exploratory one. We don’t show up in your preferred or chosen method of communication, and that’s okay.
I am realizing that this particular post was not meant for folks like me to be a part of the collective voices, but it was a call to share with your readers all you’ve done as a lone voice, and to offer them your collective posts, while telling them to not be silent. I get it.I shouldn’t have expected to be seen here as that was not your goal. I also hope you take into consideration my other points for the next time someone shares something like this with you.
I think no matter what I say you are going to read into it what you want, so I’m going to stop and just say thanks for replying.