Policies

Our stance on remote work

While other organizations have been fighting tooth and nail to bring their employees back into the office with Return to Office Mandates, we have gone the complete opposite direction and fully embraced remote work.  Brick and mortar is expensive and we would much rather maintain software architecture than literal architecture.

By embracing remote work our talent pool is worldwide as compared to only those that live within commuting distance to an office, where they'll probably just sit in zoom meetings most for most of the day from a cube form, or worse an "Open Office".  Open Offices are bad for employee productivity and can be particularly difficult for neurodiverse employees to endure.  "Open Offices are only necessary if you're trying to cram a bunch of people into a small space like sardines, do not trust your employees and feel the need to monitor and micromanage them in order to feel important, or the actual product isn't work; it's workplace theater.  It takes more mental energy to appear busy all the time than to openly slack off some of the time.  Leave your employees alone to do their work unless they indicate that they want your help or feedback."

The Cade Moore Foundation will continue to invest in our remote work capabilities.  E.g. we are exploring a comprehensive remote work stipend that will ensure that our staff and volunteers will be able to work even more effectively from home.

Our thoughts on unnecessary meetings

Ever find yourself thinking "This entire meeting could have been an email"?  

We don't.  

Our leadership decided to strike out on their own after over a decade in corporate America because they got "sick and tired of the workplace politics, showboating, and throwing around meaningless corporate jargon for the just for the sake of using buzzwords.  

Largely unnecessary meetings are just corporate theater.  I find that those who did the least or most ineffective work but were very charismatic in meetings and bragging about mediocre work or taking credit for that of others were the ones to get promoted.

I flat out don't like meetings.  If you're going to schedule a meeting, I expect that there is an agenda.  Even if the purpose of the meeting is just to catch up on life that is fine.  I just don't want to sit through any more pointless meetings that could have been an email unless I have to.

I value results, not theatrics."

"If I never hear the word synergy again it will still be too soon.  Even ChatGPT knows exactly what I'm talking about.

>List some of the most annoying corporate b******t phrases and buzzwords that have no real meaning

Ah, corporate lingo! Here are some of the most annoying buzzwords and phrases that don't seem to mean much but get thrown around in boardrooms and meetings all the time:

1. Synergy – “We need to create synergy.” Translation: "Let’s pretend we’re doing something collaborative."

2. Circle back – “Let’s circle back to this later.” Translation: "I don’t want to deal with this right now."

3. Pivot – “We need to pivot our strategy.” Translation: "We messed up, but we’re going to pretend we have a new direction."

4. Deep dive – “Let’s do a deep dive into the numbers.” Translation: "I’m about to drown you in unnecessary details."

5. Leverage – “We should leverage our strengths.” Translation: "Let’s use what we have to make a profit or gain."

6. Bandwidth – “Do you have the bandwidth for this?” Translation: "Can you do more work, even though you're already overloaded?"

7. Move the needle – “We need to move the needle here.” Translation: "Let’s take action, but I’m not sure what kind of action yet."

8. Low-hanging fruit – “Let’s go after the low-hanging fruit.” Translation: "Let’s do the easy stuff that looks good but doesn’t really matter."

9. Think outside the box – “We need to think outside the box.” Translation: "We’re stuck, but we want to pretend we’re being creative."

10. At the end of the day – “At the end of the day, it all comes down to…” Translation: "I’m going to wrap up this confusing point with something that sounds conclusive."

11. Take it to the next level – “Let’s take this project to the next level.” Translation: "I don’t know how, but we should make it more impressive."

12. Get buy-in – “We need to get buy-in from the team.” Translation: "We need people to agree with us, even if it doesn’t make sense."

13. Disrupt – “We want to disrupt the market.” Translation: "We want to shake things up, but we have no clear plan."

14. Best practices – “Let’s implement best practices.” Translation: "Let’s do what everyone else is doing without thinking too much."

15. Paradigm shift – “This will require a paradigm shift.” Translation: "We need to change something major, but I’m not exactly sure what."

16. Touch base – “Let’s touch base on this tomorrow.” Translation: "Let’s talk later so we can pretend we’re doing something."

17. Win-win – “This is a win-win situation.” Translation: "Everyone’s happy, or at least we’re pretending they are."

18. Core competencies – “We need to focus on our core competencies.” Translation: "Let’s focus on what we’re already mediocre at."

19. Robust – “We need a robust solution.” Translation: "Let’s make this complicated and hard to execute."

20. On the radar – “This is on my radar.” Translation: "I’m aware of it, but I’m not really going to do anything about it."

These terms can be more about sounding impressive than actually communicating anything useful. Do any of these sound particularly familiar to you?

Although I do like bandwidth and radar but that's probably because I studied it in the literal sense.  I also love win-wins or its more ominous sounding synonym mutually assured success."

Flexibility

"Work whenever you want unless your work requires that you be online at a certain point in time.  We have partners in many different time zones and I'm practically nocturnal anyways.  I don't really care when you do the work as long as it gets done in a reasonable timeframe and any unanticipated delays are communicated as soon as is practical"

Disdain for artificial hierarchies

"We are all colleagues here.

If you think I'm wrong, please tell me but be prepared to explain why and what information I might be missing that led me to what you believe is a false conclusion.  In fact, I find it refreshing to be told that I'm wrong from time to time.  For one thing it validates that I have not yet managed to unintentionally surround myself with "yes-men" that seem to congregate around leaders of certain organizations.  And even if I'm right or wrong it is always a learning opportunity.

At least for now our organization is relatively flat.  But as our organization grows, we will explore implementing an anonymous tip system so people can speak up without worrying about retaliation or "circumventing" the chain of authority and possibly alienating their "boss" by going over their head.

In a country where healthcare is tied to employment it worsens the power dynamic between a manager and employee.  If an employee loses their job they could risk losing the roof over their head and reliable access to food that meets both their caloric and nutritional needs.

However, for disabled employees, suddenly losing their health insurance can be a matter of life or death.

We are in the process of decoupling certain benefits from eligible employers and offloading them to a 501(c)(8) Fraternal Beneficiary Society.  Losing your job shouldn't mean losing your health insurance."

Perhaps almost if not important than who we are; is who we are not.  More specifically:

What We Aspire Not To Be

As a nonprofit that supports other nonprofits, we have heard some horror stories about working with other grant awarding organizations and private foundations.  We believe that we can learn a lot from organizations engaging in #CrappyFundingPractices as a shining example of what not to do.

We also believe that we can maximize our potential for positive impact by identifying gaps in funding and seeking to fill those.

To gain a better understanding of what we try to focus on funding, please watch this satirical video that addresses the question of:

What If Pizza Shops Were Funded Like Human Services Nonprofits? 

Pizza Shop Owner:  "That won't cover my costs."

Large Foundation Representative:  "Oh I'm sure you can just find someone who will be willing to make up the difference."

Pizza Shop Owner:  "Who?"

Us, we believe we can maximize our potential to make a positive different by finding gaps in funding and making up the difference.

Large Foundation Representative:  "Of course but just imagine how much more efficient you would be with 20% less than what you should be given."

As a comparatively small private memorial foundation, we do not have the same resources that larger corporate foundations do.

But if there is another organization willing cover most but not all of a program, we can try to cover the rest.

Large Foundation Representative:  "100% of what we give to you must be spent on ingredients.

Okay, we do not pay for overhead.  Okay?

See none of this money can be used for:  Utilities, rent, marketing, pizza boxes, or your salary.

Especially not your salary ... no no."

We have zero issue paying for overhead, salaries, and benefits for the people doing good work and making a positive difference in the world.  In fact we want to pay for overhead costs if it means the organization as a whole can operate more efficiently. 

Pizza Shop Owner: "No Pizza boxes?  And how am I supposed to deliver them?"

...

Large Foundation Representative: "Okay.  You can spend 5% on pizza boxes, 10% on dough, 5% on tomatoes, 10% on cheese, and the rest on spices.

See it's all spelled out here in this pizza making plan."

Pizza Shop Owner: "I'm the one who knows how to make the pizzas."

Our motto is "Help us help you help them."  If you are a nonprofit that truly listens to the voices of those that you are trying to help, then we will listen to you.  Our favorite TedTalk is called "If you want to help someone, shut up and listen."  If we can be assured that you listen to them, then we will listen to you about what you need to best be able to help them.