1) Your friends wonder if your organization’s mission, vision and goals are tattooed behind your eyes because that elevator pitch is silky smooth.
But you give out your business cards sparingly, because you’re not sure if you can approve the budget for another print.
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2) Your organization’s office is up six flights of stairs, down the winding hallway, and tucked in the back corner of a room shared by three other organizations and a cat rescue.
“Here’s my phone number. Text me if you get lost on the way.”
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3) The only time you’re on Facebook is when you’re trying to get donations from your friends.
“Hey guys, me again with another fundraiser…”
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4) Your budget is so tight you’ve become the office plumber, electrician, janitor and photocopier-fixer by necessity.
Maybe you could have a second career in a trade?
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5) Every meeting could have been an email.
Seriously. Every. Single. One.
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6) You’re on a committee that manages committees.
Note to self: We’re going to need a committee to identify who manages the committee management committee.
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7) The plan of action reached at the end of the committee meeting was exactly what you proposed at the very beginning of the committee meeting.
Well there’s an hour nobody’s getting back…
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8) Your youngest sibling is already making $20k more than you in their entry level position, even though you’ve been working for 6 years.
Mom and dad sure don’t let you forget it at Thanksgiving either.
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9) Every one of your board members thinks they’ve got the next best fundraising idea.
“Gee thanks, Susan. Social media engagement! Twitter! How have we never thought of that before?! We will be sure to try it!”
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10) You’ve got a deep dive scheduled to move the needle on a soft ask which will disrupt the paradigm of sustainable stakeholder innovation programs.
Are we still speaking English?
Related humour article: Decoding development jargon
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11) You’ve mastered how to not look like you’re slowly dying inside when you’ve spent the last two weeks working on a project non-stop and the board decides to move in a “different direction.”
It’s all in the eyes.
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12) You read through this whole list just for the comfort of knowing other people are right here on the struggle bus with you!
The nonprofit life ain’t easy, but the work is so worth it.
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This is an excerpt of a longer article that was originally published on Wild Apricot. You can view the article here.
