Musings from a Nerd

The week before, however, is hard for me to do any high-level, integrated thought, as I make lists of what I must do before I leave, what I will need to do upon my return, what I will do while I’m away, what I need to take to read (while sitting on the dock), etc.  So my mind gets segmented as I try to apportion things to the correct list and sort all the snippets of papers on my desk into logical piles of related “stuff.”  Thus, I fear, there is no way to write this blog other than in snippets.

Snippet 1:  What is wrong with America?  Deeb Amin Salem and others like him.  A former employee of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Salem has a very, very high opinion of himself, which some, but not all, may share.    In 2010, he got what he called a disappointing bonus of just $8.25 million, but he claims the bonus promised was $13 million.  (I get why he might have been disappointed; in 2009, his bonus was $15 million.  The tears are streaming down my face as I type!)  What to do?  FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) denied his claim, so he is now suing his former employer for $16.5 million in cash and stock.

His missing $5 million is larger than at least 85% of nonprofit budgets.  What could that money do for society?  On Feed the Children’s website, a $19 donation will feed a child for one month; that $5 million would feed almost 22,000 children for an entire year.  It costs $35 to adopt an orca through the Whale Museum and help to support research and education or a minimum of $25 to care for a horse through the Assateague (Island) Foster Horse Program.  Taking those fees as an average, that means for $5 million, somewhere between 142,800 and 200,000 animals could be cared for, animal research could take place and the public educated about animals in the wild.   According to a 2012 study by the National Association of Music Merchants, it costs $187/student for music education in K-12 so $5 million could provide music education to almost 27,000 students for one year.  I could go one, but I won’t.  There is nothing in anything I’ve read about Mr. Salem that suggests he wanted this money to do any of the things noted above—or any other charitable giving, for that matter.  He just wanted it because he believed he deserved it.  And that is what is wrong with America:  all about me and not enough about us.

Snippet 2:  We need to pick our battles.  This is actually two snippets in one.  First is the question that was asked on some website I tripped upon earlier this week:  how can a nonprofit charge a fee?  And an on-going discussion that I unfortunately fell upon on another website (and which I have addressed previously in this blog):  why doesn’t the nonprofit sector get itself a better name.  The suggestions here were either the charitable[i] sector or the humanitarian sector.  Why don’t we just go with the holier-than-thou-sector and call it a wrap, as no one in government or the for-profit sector is engaged in humanitarian or charitable work?  While I admit our current name is a problem to outsiders, there is a far bigger problem that a simple name change is never going to solve:  the vast majority of people don’t who we are, what we do, why do it, or how we do it.  We need to educate the public (including far too many who actually work in the nonprofit sector, as they are among the most ignorant) and raise the profile of all that the sector does for individuals, communities and the world at large.  That’s where the brain power, energy and activity that is currently being wasted on worrying about a name should be going.  Who cares about the name of something that no one knows or understands?

Snippet 3:  And speaking of what the sector is and isn’t, I was quite dismayed by my recent visit to Independent Sector’s website.  For those of you who might not know IS, its mission is “to advance the common good by leading, strengthening, and mobilizing the nonprofit and philanthropic community.”  (There’s a name for you:  common good sector? How’s that sit with all you must-change-the-name-of-the-sector folk?)  On the page entitled “Scope of the Sector,” where, as you would expect, IS provides its stats on various aspects of the sector, it has the following:

• Two social enterprise models, B Corporations and L3Cs, while still comparatively few, continue to grow in numbers and L3C legislation is pending in 15 additional states.^[9]
• B Lab reports that there are over 520 certified B Corporations in 7 states, up from 125 in 2008 (up 317%) with legislation pending in 7 more states.^[10]
• Last time I checked, neither B Corps or L3Cs were considered nonprofits, although some of them do offer services to the nonprofit sector but are not of the nonprofit sector.  Their very designations are those of for-profit companies, and every one of them seeks to make a profit that, contrary to any profit a nonprofit makes, can be distributed outside of the immediate needs of the organization.  So, I don’t know on what grounds IS is including them here; but, then again, I’ve never quite understood what independent means in the IS name.  Independent of what or whom, as let’s face it, the nonprofit sector is anything but independent!

Snippet #4:  This headline, I admit, caught my eye:  “Nonprofit nerd—what brings it out in you?”  When I was growing up, nerd was always used in disparagement, generally—ironies of all ironies—for those really smart people who just cared about the (brainy) subject on which they were experts and knew nothing about the rest of life (nor appeared to care to know).  I get that The Big Bang Theory is TV’s most popular show and, as such, has done much to diminish the negativity associated with nerd, but nothing to reduce the “different” quotient associated with it.  But even used in a (backhanded) compliment, “You are my favorite nerd” or “You are really funny for a nerd,” nerds are still being set apart from everyone else as “other”.  So, to be truthful, I didn’t like the use of the word nerd juxtaposed to nonprofit.  The sector doesn’t need any help being viewed as odd, unintelligible, socially awkward, one-dimensional, valuing things that mainstream society does not.  But, perhaps yet again, I appear to be out of the mainstream myself (and, yes, I have been called a nerd on numerous occasions for numerous reasons):  a quick google search to re-find the article that first caught my attention and I was floored by how many others use nerd and nonprofit together, from thenonprofitnerd.com to nonprofitnerd.org to fundraising nerd to nonprofit nerd reads.

As I said earlier, we have many bigger problems that what to be called.  With that, I’m outta here.

[i]  Has anyone bothered to look up the definition of charitable?  If so, does anyone care that in suggesting such a name, it obliterates the great and vital work that the portions of the sector that don’t serve (just) the “needy” do, such as environmental, medical research, animal welfare, arts and culture, just to mention some?