We start today with some stories….
A Story to Ponder
A staffer lost a very close friend with whom she had grown up to a sudden, unexpected death. She was not related to him by DNA, but, especially since she had not had any siblings growing up, he had genuinely been like a brother to her, in all the ways that can be true.
At this news, she was attempting to manage her experience of stunning shock and overwhelming grief.
And yet, rather than being able to prioritize her own wellness, and that of her other loved ones, she was forced to negotiate a nit-picky, rigid Grief Leave policy with her employer’s HR department, which ultimately gave her something like a day or two off — nowhere near what she needed to process this great loss — because the loss was not “immediate family,” as defined by the policy.
Meanwhile, the work churned on, and the demands on her time and energy continued, all while she attempted to fight off breaking down in tears while at the work that she had been forced to stay present for.
Another One
A nonprofit focused on serving women was hiring. Multiple people were involved in the hiring process and, at one point, an email that had been sent between two leaders became more widely known.
One of the people who had been interviewed for the open position was quite visibly pregnant, and thus one of the leaders had asked the other something like this: “Haven’t we decided not to hire any more young women, so we don’t keep having this problem [the implication being the problem of how to handle an extended leave when someone has to give birth and make a postpartum transition with their family]?”
To the nonprofit’s credit, that leader was soon gone, after the revelation of the email. But the sentiment behind it obviously came from somewhere that can’t just be extinguished with firing one individual.
And I’m not just talking about within that one organization, either.This type of sentiment exists on a much wider scale, for sure.
Another One
An organization serving families was seeing record demand for its services, with a long waiting list.
At the end of a fiscal year, the board found itself with a significant surplus (wonder of wonders!) and was debating how to allocate it.
Staff passionately advocated to the board for increasing the org’s capacity to serve the list of families waiting for help — a living demonstration of the need for its mission, right in that very moment.
Instead, the board decided to allocate the surplus to the reserve fund, surely thinking they were being fiscally responsible.
And thus, the families continued to wait.
Another One
The culture of this organization was hard-charging. Staff reported barely having a chance to eat, to get where they needed to go, or even take a breath between meetings.
Multiple staffers had to take leaves of absence because of burn-out. Staffers kept leaving the org, too — at alarming volume.
What was especially alarming is that the org said it was prioritizing having a diverse team, and almost all of the team members who were Black, Indigenous, or other people of color had left their jobs.
Management made no adjustments, at these results. The charging-ahead just kept charging. I guess assumptions must have been made about those individuals who had needed leaves of absence or decided to leave entirely, rather than seeing those things as signs something needed to change within the whole system?
Another One
As a younger working woman, I have personally experienced, and have talked to many other women who have experienced, older female supervisors who yelled, were petty, were mean, were hyper-critical, were unfeeling and hard… and more.
Our general assumption has been that that is how they had experienced the working world, so they were just perpetuating “how things are.” Also/and, in the most benevolent interpretation, we’ve imagined that they were trying to “toughen us up” so that we’d be successful in our careers.
Even if that’s true: is that really the working world we want to be perpetuating with our own behavior? Or to be “preparing” people for?
What Are We Doing?
Even though it may seem like it, I didn’t make any of this up.
These are all things that have actually happened within the philanthropic field of work — things that either I have experienced directly, or I have been told by colleagues as we commiserate (which has really been the only way to deal with these realities that are about as toxic as I can imagine).
[And also: I’m so sorry to report that these stories are pretty typical. None of them are especially unusual. In fact, I’m pained to say that they’re more the norm than not.]
So I need to ask:
What are we doing, here?
Where are we even going?
And how?
Isn’t this the field that is supposed to be focused on a love for humanity (the literal root meaning of the word “philanthropy”), on making this world a better place, on achieving noble missions?
How can any of these very worthy goals be possible if this is the way we’re going about the work — stomping all over the humans, and their very human needs, in the process?
What’s it All About, Anyway?
Have you seen the books/articles/conversations out there about the top regrets of the dying?
There are many, and they often reveal very similar conclusions.
One that has been oft-cited and covered is by palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware, a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
I will let you read the book, if you’re interested, to find out what Nurse Bronnie learned from the many dying people she accompanied on the final journey of their lives — but know that, if you do, you will find the things she says repeated by many others who have done similar work.
The human experience is fairly predictable, it turns out.
The things that truly matter to us — even if many of us take until we’re at the end of our lives to realize them — are fairly consistent.
Listen, I’ve been a person who cares about, and regularly considers, what ultimately matters most in our lives for a long time now.
But my own brush with my mortality in the past couple years, while I’m relatively young and had been living under the assumption that I had decades to spare still, was enough to make me even more dedicated to living in a way that matters most.
Pointing out and questioning — and challenging you, yes you, the one reading these words, to join me in changing — these realities within the “industry” of philanthropy is one of the key ways I’m doing that.
Because I don’t want any of us to get to the end of our lives and wonder what the heck we were doing — or exactly how much harm we were creating — all the while we tried to tell ourselves we were helping.
Begin With the End in Mind
Oh, I know.
I know that it’s considered gauche in our dominant culture to talk openly about death. I know!
But here’s the thing.
Thinking and talking about death should be far more common for us humans, from my viewpoint. For many reasons, but especially because doing so tends to help us live in ways that are much more conscious of who we actually are — and of what we actually care most about.
Hey, the celebrated business management advice we know as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People even recommends this. Habit #2, according to Dr. Stephen R. Covey: “Begin With the End in Mind.”
So what about the end here?
We know the end of this life is coming, eventually — as surely as we know we will owe taxes, as the old trope goes… right?
So.
What do we want to know, in the end? What do we want to know for sure, as Oprah would say? What do we want to feel?
What do we want to see, as we review the life we’ve lived?
A strong dose of pettiness? How about some sharp, mean jabs at someone we “hate”? Oh, I know: how about all of the hot takes we made? Or clinging to grudges and refusing forgiveness? How about prioritizing money over the humans around us? Or maybe rigidly clinging to your preferences or opinions or “the way we’ve always done it”? Or how about stepping on someone else to get ahead? Or… how about unconsciously perpetuating racism and white supremacy and sexism… and ableism and classism…. and and and… because we refused to transform a status quo steeped in those things… so they ended up just continuing unabated?
I mean, that’s where we’re headed, with things as they are.
I’m looking around.
I pay attention.
How about the alternative?
How about dedication to loving and caring about every human being we encounter? Seeing and affirming their dignity, and beauty, and worth? No matter who they are… and especially if they’re not who we typically think of as “important”? How about kindness? And honesty? And clarity? [Because as Brené Brown has taught us, clear is kind.] How about genuine flexibility and openness to others’ preferences and suggestions and needs? How about opening up our hearts to share with others, offering our truest selves to them? How about generously giving as much as possible of what we have to make sure others in our communities are OK? How about truly prioritizing community… and connection with others? How about an abiding sense of solidarity with every single one of our fellow humans on this planet?
I choose the latter.
What about you?