Sunday, September 13, 2020

Don't Be This Small Non-Profit 2

 Probably you won't remember the unbelievable hassles I had trying to renew my membership in a small nonprofit organization a couple of years back. I'm here to say, you still don't want to be this organization.

Back in late June, I received email from this org about Black Lives Matter that was similar to what I'd received from other organizations. SNP, as I called them then and will call them now, pledged to increase diversity, etc., etc. 

I sent a 1200 word letter analyzing the current membership on certain axes and asking a bunch of questions about just how they planned to go about doing this. Ten days later, I got a thank-you-for-writing email that promised a longer response "soon."

It's now been nine weeks and no longer response has been forthcoming. I don't particularly need my membership in this organization, so....perhaps I won't renew.

But there's yet another reason for you, dear reader, to figure out how not to be this small nonprofit organization. They have a web page of Black Lives Matter resources on which there are lists of books, organizations, films, podcasts, and other web resources....and mostly the lists don't include LINKS to those resources.

Folks, it is 2020 and no organization should have to get feedback about providing links on the web. No competent organization, anyway. I'm sending them one very concrete suggestion about diversifying membership, but it includes stuff like dedicated URLs. I hope their webmaster knows what they're doing, although that page with no links, which is as useful as a printed page on the web, isn't encouraging.

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