Non-Profit Life

I don’t like Mondays. You might think I don’t like Mondays for many of the same reasons everyone else doesn’t like them. You’re right. But, and there is a big but, here is my dilemma:

Since The Marin Foundation doesn’t have a huge staff (and by huge I mean anything above 3 people), I get stuck spending all of my time on Mondays doing the thing I can't stand doing more then anything else—administrative work. Monday is my designated “Administrative Day”.

From the time I get to work Monday morning until the time I leave Monday evening I:

-do my expense reports
-collect the previous week’s donations
-make receipts for those donations
-prepare thank you notes for those donations (and stamp and stuff the envelopes)
-deposit the donations
-balance the budgets
-run any office errands that might need to be run
-coordinate times and schedules for the volunteers and interns for their next week of participation
-And my absolute favorite—like what happened this Monday—try to somehow fix any technology problems; in which I have absolutely no clue how to do.

I know, I’m 28 and my generation is thought of as the technology generation. I guess I missed that one. Instead, I call my I.T. guy (also known as my Dad—who for some odd reason is one of the only people in his generation who knows everything about technology).

Then as I promptly wasted a good and annoying 7 hours ramming my head against my concrete wall trying to figure out how to fix my broken computer, my Dad (who unfortunately is not local and can’t physically be there to always help me), finally laid it to me straight:

“You’ve had that computer for about 7 years now, which in computer life is like 126 years old. It’s time to get a new one.”

So that’s what I did today picking it out with the help of my I.T. guy!

As I was going through this ridiculous mess I started to think to myself, “Man, how much more productive could I be if for eight hours every single Monday I didn’t have to be The Marin Foundation’s accountant, assistant, janitor and national project coordinator?”

Ah, but such is the life and growing pains of owning and running your own 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to build bridges between two culture-clashed communities—you can’t always find (or have the luxury to pay a great salary to) the full amount of help you might need or want.

Sooooooo…..anyone want to raise some support and come to Chicago?! Hit me up!

Much love.
www.themarinfoundation.org