My house has been chaos for the last two weeks. Not total meltdown chaos, but the kind of chaos that you look back on and think: “Woof, what a week!”
I had to travel for work last week, leaving my partner to figure out how to juggle a one-year-old with the croup (which is apparently going around my community), get his hours in at work, and make sure the house didn’t blow up. Luckily, his parents live close by, so he had backup. But it left me thinking about how many people do not have backup care, and how stressful the work/life balancing act is for households across the country.
The topic of childcare (be it affordable, universal, or anything in between) is discussed all over the internet, and I’m certainly not going to wade into it without proper research or full understanding. I’m privileged to make enough money that paying for childcare makes sense. I was lucky to have a six-month parental leave that created enough slack in my family’s care plan to climb a long waitlist at our #1 daycare option. Most people in the U.S. face multiple hardships in accessing proper care and good-paying jobs that finance that care, but surely you already knew that. And if you didn’t, welcome to reality.
I wish you and your family (whatever it looks like) health as we navigate cold and flu season! There is still time to nab a flu and COVID shot before things get really bad.
Navigating U.S. Philanthropy: Power & Pivots
Back in November, I attended a Zoom webinar hosted by Vanessa Stevens on the state of philanthropy in the U.S. In addition to creating great discussion and introducing me to a few new terms and concepts, Vanessa’s webinar was highly innovative and featured multiple learning modalities. I was very impressed (and inspired!) by the entire format. I highly recommend giving Vanessa a follow to stay aware of any other webinars she hosts in the future.
Everyone reading this is probably not only familiar with what Giving Tuesday is, but has also contributed to its success as a donor, or maybe even as a fundraising/marketing campaign manager. In 2025 I started following way more people in the social impact space than I had previously and the conversations on social media about Giving Tuesday have been really interesting to read.
On LinkedIn I came across a post by Community-Centric Fundraising co-founder, Andrea Arenas, that I really thought hit the nail on the head (at least from my outsider perspective). As I grow older I find myself getting so impatient with the constant need to manage or dampen symptoms of unhealthy systems (which is why I am kind of obsessed with exposing bad leadership development programs). Managing symptoms is exhausting. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from people doing the important work of reimagining the sector and how all people (insiders and outsiders) can build something better.
Rethinking how volunteers can contribute to nonprofit storytelling
A few weeks ago, I attended a Funders Forum organized by the Austin-Central Texas Chapter of the Grants Professionals Association. As someone who is neither a funder (in the traditional sense, though I am a member of a collective giving circle) nor a professional grant writer, I was there mostly out of curiosity. Grant writing is something I have been curious about before, and I figured learning more couldn’t hurt (plus, I had the time available so why not).
The most valuable session was a short workshop led by Monique Parker of A Little Bit of Good.
Monique addressed the challenges that many nonprofits face in collecting rich data to bolster storytelling. As Monique shared, often nonprofits go all-or-nothing with quantitative data and forget the value that qualitative data can bring to supporting the mission.
Sharing first-person testimony about program effectiveness, observations, and relaying client/constituent feedback to staff are all in the volunteers’ toolbox!
If you, as a volunteer, have a few moments to write up feedback for your nonprofit leaders, you could potentially kick off a new avenue for the organization to share with their wider community about the great things they are doing. Something to consider!
Another cool thing featured at the GPA-Austin Funders Forum was a workshop by Black Girl Think Tank about custom GPT tools and their applications in nonprofit fundraising.
Tamisha Brewer and April Richard, the founders of Black Girl Think Tank, walked us through the process from start to finish. And it was SO easy!
Below are a couple of articles I found through a simple Google search that have some rich information as well.
Custom GPTs for Fundraising: A Nonprofit Guide
Building a Custom GPT for Your Nonprofit: The AI Assistant That Works for You
I’ll be honest, I haven't been feeling very optimistic over the last few weeks. I've probably been spending too much time online.
But just now, I came across a note by Susan Schaefer that gave me a little boost. It was a little reminder that, while things are rough, they are not universally bad, and that there are good people out there working to establish a new paradigm.
Her article about Akilah Watkins, the President and CEO of Independent Sector, was the antidote to my malaise. Highly recommend.
Mind the (Perceived) Gap: It’s here, McKinsey’s annual Women in the Workplace report.
As a big nerd who researched women’s leadership development in graduate school, I look forward to reading this report every year (for both good insight and vicious roasting purposes). The big hubbub about this year’s report is the so-called “ambition gap.” Spoiler alert: the data is misleading and word-choice matters.
Kaleana Quibell here on Substack had one of my favorite responses.
Individualizing a systemic issue by blaming the very people that the system was built to gatekeep?!
I’d be surprised if it weren’t so predictable.
Oh, Hell’s Bells: Did you know that the beloved holiday classic, Jingle Bells,” has racist origins? Click the link and read Kahlil Greene’s essay to shatter your whole childhood.
Now I just hope that there aren’t any racist (or other ‘ist/phobe’) undertones to my personal favorite Christmas song: N*Sync’s venerable classic, “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.” (Please do yourself a favor and watch the video - pure 90s music video magic.)
Afraid to comment but can’t help myself: I fall pretty squarely into the “billionaires shouldn’t exist” camp. But here they are so the least they could do is write some checks.
Anyway - yadda yadda yadda - I don’t know what exactly to think about the news of Michael and Susan Dell pledging $6.25 billion USD for investment accounts for U.S. children. The so-called “Trump Accounts” seem a bit like a capitalistic fever dream to me, and even experts are unclear about who will truly benefit in the short and long term.
$6.25 billion is a lot to hedge on an unproven strategy, especially when that same money could be used in other ways to support children and families immediately by strengthening access to food, stable housing, and quality education.
But hey…I’m a geophysicist, not an economist, and people both smarter and dumber than me have more to say on the subject. A quick Substack search of “Michael and Susan Dell” yields many results on all sides of the matter.
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” ― William James
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