The New Nonprofit Lexicon

As a young boy I always had a deep fascination with language. I wanted to use all the words I could, but I also had a weird desire to create them too.

I'd make up words with abandon, only to have friends and family alike slightly argue with me that "they're not real words", which to me was always funny because at some point, all words were made-up words!

Now, as successful writer, published author, and someone with 25+ years in the nonprofit industry, I've come to realize that the sector I love is often specifically lacking some of it's own unique language or terminology to help explain situations and experiences that we all know, but maybe still struggle to express or explain.

So, over the past several years, I've been playfully creating and sharing these little nuggets to delight and amuse folks, but it was time to bring them all together.

Some of them are fun, some are funny, some awkward. But most have purpose, and all have a place in our lives. Enjoy.

Ben

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VOLANTHROPIST?

noun | An organizational volunteer who also donates to the same organization.

"After a significant audit of our full time volunteers, we realized that over 52% of them are actually volanthropists, also donating 8% of the annual budget over all. It's clear we need to create a stronger strategy to not only engage them more deeply but recognize them overall more powerfully."

DOLUNTEER

noun | an organizational donor who may occasionally volunteer with the same organization.

“I know everyone things our board members are the only donor who volunteer their time, but we have several high-level donors who are active members of our volunteer corps who are often forgotten about either as donors by our volunteer management staff or by our development staff as important volunteers. We need to fix this.”

BREAKAWAYCATION?

noun | To take a brief break from the norm to indulge in something special, away from your desk or computer.?

"I had been working 7 hours straight on finalizing this spreadsheet and I realized I just needed a small breakawaycation - I took a 20min walk around the block, listened to a little 90's hip-hop and enjoyed my favorite candy bar."

TEXTROVERT

noun | A person around the office that is only highly expressive in emails, texts or interoffice messaging, but in meetings or one-one-one are far more reserved or quiet in nature.?

"Jim will go entire meetings and say nothing, but the minute you ask him a question over Messenger he becomes a total textrovert and will give you a dozen ideas and thoughts on the subject."

COMPLY-CHAIN

noun | The sequence of processes involved in the distribution of a new policy or tool by someone at the headquartered or executive level of a nonprofit for the whole organization to use in accordance of a wish or command.?

"Do we think one email to everyone will work as the best comply-chain announcement for the new HR policy updates? The last comply-chain took 10 emails and flyers to finally get people to stop using the broken side door..."

TRENCHMARK

noun | A standard or point of reference that's past its prime or no longer effective but it's been happening for so long or it's so well known, that an organization can't seem to stop doing it.?

"We haven't made good money off this event in over seven years, I'm worried it's become a trenchmark for our fundraising."

BATCH-SLAPPED

noun | when someone sends you massive amounts of data in the form of spreadsheets or lists and needs them processed, reviewed, synthesized, de-duped, or merged with little or no notice and expect a quick turnaround.?

"I've been asking the events team if they were ready for the mail merge for weeks now. Of course the day before they have to send invites to several thousand people I get batch-slapped to help confirm the massive VIP list."

YAWNFERENCE

noun | a large formal meeting or multi-day professional event for networking or learning with peers, industry leaders and subject matters experts where the schedule looked and sounded exciting, but it was just another generic, thread-bare and best-practices-on-repeat event that made you wish you'd stayed at home.?

"I worked so hard to get my nonprofit to give me the budget for this event, but it was such a yawnference that it almost doesn't feel worth it to ask to attend again next year."

DOWNSOURCING

verb | using a free, cheaper, or donated item or service from an outside source that's knowingly inferior but financially and logistically necessary.?

"We got to a point where we needed a solid CRM to track our donors, but the board told us it was too expensive so we downsourced a donor tracker in Excel that one of our volunteers built for another organization she works at."

CSI - CORPORATE SOCIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY

term | An intentional misrepresentation of a company's corporate social responsibility platform that helps a company look like it's socially accountable — to itself, its stakeholders, and the public — but is not, inaccurate or a falsehood. To engage in CSI means that, in the normal course of business, a company is operating in ways that attempts to showcase it's enhancing society and/or the environment but is often instead contributing negatively to them.

"We were recently asked if the local Paper Mill's employees could volunteer to help clean up the park for a press release, but just a mile down the road they're pumping toxins and chemicals into the local water system. We have no time for helping support a company's lousy CSI campaign."

THANCHOR

noun | when a donor asks to have a special or significant thank you uniquely created for them as a condition of their donation, creating a sort of signature or anchor to their gift.?

"Mrs. Jones was open to a $10k gift, but as a thanchor she's expecting our next special event 5k be named after her late husband."

JEDI

noun | While normally standing for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, this sometimes also disappointingly means Just Erecting Defensive Initiatives aimed at fully ignoring or vaguely explaining why a nonprofit chooses not to invest in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion within their organization.

"We just got out of an intense JEDI meeting to figure out how to avoid any press or talking points around why we're not really supporting people of color with our mission model."

CAPACITY BREAKING

noun | The process of increasing the inability of an individual or organization to do something. While "capacity building" is often used in the context of nonprofit organizations developing the funds, human capital, and resources effectively achieve their mission, Capacity Breaking is quite the opposite, often knowingly taking on new projects, expectations, programming, and management needs that they are absolutely not ready to tackle with success.

"We got the grant funding, but it required us to develop an entirely new set of programs that are not only outside of our mission's scope and outreach, but we also don't have any staff expertise or materials to support this project. Sure, it's $100,000 new dollars, but it's also a pretty big capacity breaking project."

VANILLA MARKETING

noun | the opposite of Guerrilla Marketing, where a nonprofit spends too much on an advertising strategy that's overly generic or conventional, often stripping out their core message to appeal to a larger audience.?

"We were worried that our mission to support three-legged, one-eyed dogs was alienating, but we might have gone a little too vanilla marketing with our visuals of just dog bowls in the grass and the tagline 'Help us make them feel whole again...'."

501cME

noun | An organization of one where the sole founder calls themselves the "owner" and won't accept any sustainable help, advice, or support from volunteers or stakeholders. Often 501cMEs brag about how hard they work for no pay and how "no one gets the importance of their work anyway" to anyone within earshot.

"I had to turn down a client this week, a woman called asking me to help her create a fundraising strategy to raise $2M in one year, but when I learned she's a 501cME, I knew we didn't have a chance in hell to make that happen.

PROPRIETARY ALTRUISM?

noun | the principle or practice of unselfish concern for, devotion to, or donation supporting the welfare of others, but with the demand that the donor gets exclusive brand, acknowledgement or ownership of the opportunity.?

"Oh, Company X was extremely excited about our mission to feed the hungry, but they want a proprietary altruism clause in their partnership agreement, getting full branding rights to the program for their gift. So we need to decide if that's ideal."

WISHESSABLE

noun | The degree to which a nonprofit wants their services, products, mission , or environment is fully assessable and available to as many people as possible -- but remember, they're "broke" as a nonprofit, so they wish they could do so, but they can't without a full year of strategic planning and a lot of donor dollars.

"We know not everyone can get to our community pantry on the 3rd floor since we don't have an elevator. We have a ton of wishessable needs around here, but alas, just no time or money to make it happen."

SUBJECT ANTI-MATTER EXPERT

noun | A person who is an expert or authority in a particular area or topic - and are often hired or contracted for this very skill or knowledge, but then instructed to do the opposite or treated as if their expertise doesn't really matter.?

"They said they wanted someone with 20 years of hands-on experience, a masters and management expertise--which I have--but every time I try and get them to even just meet industry standards it's clear they really think of me as a subject anti-matter expert. They either ignore my every word or argue with me about how it's always been done before."?

[NOTE: this term was inspired by an idea from?Tricia Maddrey Baker! Thank you, Tricia!]

SHUNNEDRAISER?

noun | The person in the office who runs the internal fundraising campaign for a 3rd party or partner (United Way, etc.) and has to plan a week worth of fun, creative, overly-happy emails, events, and announcements to fundraise from everyone around the office. Usually these people are met with co-workers hiding behind plants, dashing around corners and upturned lips hiding grinding teeth.?

"Poor Martha volunteered to be this year's UW Shunnedraiser, god bless her. She'll be chirping about '100 percent participation' while the rest of us fashion voodoo dolls of her from her empty yogurt containers and spoons."

IN-TOLERANCE GIFT?

noun | the functional opposite of an in-kind gift or donation where instead of giving money to buy needed goods and services, someone donates unhelpful, outdated, or unneeded goods and services and demand an unrealistic, bloated receipt be written-up.?

"As part of the capital campaign, we're raising money to build all new state-of-the-art cages for our animals and someone just dropped off several boxes of broken animal carriers and chewed-up dog toys and wanted us to acknowledge it was $500 worth of a donation..."

UNICORN TARTARE

noun | When you feel special and unique and magical, but you also feel raw and ground-up and the world seems to think it's acceptable. Like any tartare, you are a raw meal that's intentionally prepared as a delicacy, but as a unicorn you're no longer feeling like a majestic beast anymore.?

"This week, I had to deal with raising $100k while also balancing a board trustee problem, while dealing with the hiring of two new staff and letting go one, while balancing the books and managing 50 volunteers for a done-in-a-day project... I got it all done, but I feel like unicorn tartare."

VOLUNTEERPHOBIA?

noun | An extreme or irrational fear of or aversion of volunteers or volunteerism. Often it can exhibit itself as not wanting to work or leverage volunteers, feeling they are not an effective part of a human capital workforce or are not worth the time to manage. Or it an be exhibited as not wanting to call someone who volunteers a "volunteer" because there is no belief in their value and see the term as offensive or sophomoric - often related to key types of volunteerism such as board membership, fundraising, and executive leadership roles.?

"We don't call our board members 'volunteers' that would be so rude. Yes, they give their time for free and willingly, but... you know... like... they're not 'volunteers' they're, something else. Something less offensive or important. NOT that volunteers are not important! But you know. Like. It's just different."

TRAPDOOR POLICY?

noun | a communication policy in which a leader or supervisor says they have an "open door policy" but in reality discourages one-on-one conversations or meetings. These leaders or supervisors also often end every conversation suggesting you just talk to someone else, "adapt" or understand "this is how we've always done things".?

"I tried to take our ED up on their open door policy, but after they rescheduled 3 times with me, it turned out to be a trapdoor policy, as I was told my thoughts on improving our systems operations was interesting but there is a closed committee looking into it and not to worry so much about it."

DONOR-ECCENTRIC?

adjective | A term that describes when a fundraiser, executive leader or board member has gone far overboard with trying to connect with or appease a donor.?

"We have a sustaining donor who gives over $10,000 every year and our ED is so donor-eccentric, she literally makes us all sing and dance to happy birthday on camera every year so she can an email the message to this donor who's expressed even HE thinks its weird and unnecessary."

BOARD OF DEFLECTORS

noun | The kind of governing body of a nonprofit organization that seems unclear about their responsible for setting strategic direction, assisting with influence and fundraising, approving the annual budget, and ensuring that the organization complies with applicable laws and regulations -- and instead, always insists the staff should handle this stuff instead.

"Yeah, turn out for this event should have been far better, but even thought it was the brainchild of our Board of Deflectors, none of them spread the word in their own circles, purchased tickets, or even volunteered to run any of the programming, I'm afraid."

OVERCHOICE

noun | A term coined in “In Future Shock" by, Alvin Toffler expressing and essentially predicting that consumers, donors, volunteers, and stakeholders would someday face an increasing range of choices as businesses and organizations continually try to differentiate themselves.

"We want to stand out in the crowd, but we also don't want to contribute to donor overchoice, so maybe we spend more time expressing how we're the 'best' verses how we're 'different' or 'unique'."

FRUSTRIGHT

noun or adjective | When your boss is angry at you for doing your job right or correctly. It often presents itself in two classic ways: 1) they become mad or frustrated when you’re busy with your true work but they want to give you additional or adjacent tasks you don’t have time for, or 2) they become mad or frustrated when you did or are doing your job correctly and they had hoped you’d do something different – often something that resembles an unethical, editorial or unrealistic result.?

“I got called into my boss’ office today to be yelled at because apparently, I wasn’t supposed to deliver a report showcasing the correct special event revenue results? – he was frustrighted as hell and had hoped I would have known to make the numbers 'look better’ for the board.”

NO

noun/adverb/verb/adjective | A word used to express dissent, denial, or refusal, as in response to a question or request.?

"I say 'yes' to everything because so much is expected of me and there are so many things to get done and accomplish, but I am learning how to know both my limits and how to better prioritize what's possible. So I'm learning how to say 'no'."

[NOTE: Someone said I didn't create this word? But I swear I never hear nonprofit professionals saying it, so I felt strongly it should make the list...]

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Ben Bisbee