Scheduling Nervous Breakdowns

I'm so busy lately, and I will continue to be busy until sometime in the year 3000, so I apologize if my posts become more sporadic. I really need to get an internet connection outside of work (besides hijacking Jon's computer, that is).

But anyway, with the name change, the logo, and all the stuff that goes with it (new webpage, newsletter, letter head, email blasts, postcards, annual reports, appeals, meetings) plus my on-going research for Institutional Advancement. Of course all of this new stuff comes during a year when our financials aren't looking so hot. See, IA kind of decided to set out on a new fundraising path without any infrastructure set up. So we lost a stream of revenue without adequately establishing the new streams.

Genius.

I appreciate the enthusiasm of everyone (read: board members) but they don't think things through. It's all spur-of-the-moment in the meetings without proper knowledge and long-range strategy. They're trying, they really are, but did anyone consult us, development, before picking the date of the name change? (No, why would you ask the people who will be doing the work? In fact let's just choose a date when all the board members will be in France, Italy, etc right beforehand so that the board members don't have to do anything.)

Nonprofit employees are miracle workers. That should be on my business card; Jen, Miracle Worker. We are asked to do the impossible, and we do it. In my short career in the nonprofit world (with Habitat for Humanity included) I've seen it happen again and again. The public does not appreciate this at all. Oh, if you tell someone that you work at a nonprofit, he/she responds very positively, but when you ask donors about how they want their dollars spent, they want those dollars going directly for services (i.e. not to actually pay anyone to perform those services).

I didn't enter this field looking to make money. But I didn't enter this field to work myself into a nervous breakdown. If it weren't for all the nonprofit employees, there wouldn't be any nonprofits to pick up the slack from the government. And then what?

Face it, people. Nonprofit or not it takes money to accomplish anything, be it housing or an after-school program. More than money, it takes people. You can't have one without the other, and without both, there's no housing or after-school program.

That's the way it is. So please don't complain about high overhead or high administrative costs at nonprofits. We run as efficiently as we can. But even miracles have a price!