THOSE kind of founders
Originally posted on Tumblr
Nonprofit founders in 2006: I, a boomer or genX aged affluent, middle aged white woman will save the world! I have identified an issue and need and only I can solve it! Because I am affluent (from a “first act” working in a lucrative field and/or having family money and/or having a high power money making partner) I am prepared and excited to be a martyr now! Running a nonprofit is probably easy, right? It’s not like it’s a REAL business. And anyway, this issue is so big that only I, in my infinite wisdom, power, and saviorism can possible fix it. I will do so SELFLESSLY by not taking a salary or being paid in order to do this work, that only I, the middle aged white lady hero can possibly provide. Praise be for me! BE THE CHANGE!
Same nonprofit founders in 2016: Teehee! Bitches get shit done! Sure, I’ve long ago burned myself and everyone around me out so fully with my mentalities and very important martyrdom complex that I’ve grown into an even more ragingly toxic presence and no one can stand to work for me! Pay no attention to my staff’s average length of tenure…Millennials are just sOoOOoO job hoppy and unreliable, ya know?? They think they deserve a “”“living wage”“” because they checks notes studied this field in school?! HEY! It’s not like I made them take out student loans, haha! I just require a bachelors and masters degree for entry level work a 15 year old could do! Have I mentioned how I don’t even take a salary because I am the most selfless and running an agency based on cult of personality (with the other affluent white ladies I know sycophant-style bankrolling me) is SO sustainable! What do you mean they should be funding orgs led by staff with “lived experience??” My girl bossing IS lived experience!
Same nonprofit founders in 2026: Wow, I don’t know where all that funding went, but it’s surly not a ME THING. Whoopsie it’s time for me to retire now I guess! Why can’t I find any qualified candidates who want to work in the steaming pile I’m leaving for $50k a year!? Don’t they know that I worked FOR FREE FOR TWENTY YEARS!!!!? Sure, my org may be in financial crisis because I failed to adapt or evolve to a changing world. But the real problem is that Gen Z doesn’t want to work at all and everyone these days are just SO WOKE they’d not be happy under any circumstances! So why bother??? QUICK let me abandon ship at the 11th hour and when the org fails, it’ll be very convenient to finger point to whatever schmuck is my successor. Maybe they would have made it if they were selfless like me…