Introducing the Nonprofit Character Oracle
A highly unscientific guide to the people, patterns, and personalities of nonprofit life
I’ve always enjoyed making a good bingo card: conference bingo, strategic planning bingo, accessibility bingo, ableism bingo, board retreat bingo. “How many times will someone say ‘stakeholder engagement’ at this government meeting?” bingo. You get my hobbies now.
Only second to my soft spot for bingo is (over)analyzing people, dynamics, and situations. After more than twenty years working in nonprofits, government, law, policy, advocacy, and systems change, I’ve noticed that the same characters keep showing up. Sure, they sometimes have different organizations, names, missions, communities, fedoras, special interests, or sweaters for their chickens, but they trigger my pattern recognition.
Here are a few of the main characters of nonprofit life:
There’s The Founder who built something remarkable and now can’t quite imagine stepping away. They had vision. They didn’t necessarily have funds. They hoped by bringing the thing into the world, they’d have the backing of others and then be able to reduce their role. Now, they mutter about the nonprofit industrial complex or soothe themselves through floral arranging before Board meetings.
Then appears The Lawyer Board Member who may or may not know what they’re talking about, but is definitely talking. (I get it. I talk.) They’ve tried to convince the other board members they specialize in divorces and that doesn’t mean they read commercial leases or investigate employee concerns, but the other board members trigger their deepest fears about, “What do lawyers actually do?”
I see you– The Program Director quietly holding together an entire organization with institutional knowledge, determination, and a Google Drive folder structure that nobody else understands. You just want someone to create specific file names and include dates. You wake up saying, “Did you put that on the shared drive?”
And then there’s Doug. No offense to the Dougs of the world, but every sector has a Doug. Hey, maybe you have been Doug. Sometimes, I feel possessed by the spirit of Doug. Doug is love and light, unrealistic expectations and a timeline. Doug is a golden retriever in the puppy training class of Board service.
I’ve decided to start building the Nonprofit Character Oracle to be part governance education and observation and mostly a coping mechanism. Expect more character development soon. For now, we’re keeping it to textual healing.
How the Oracle Works
Each card can appear Upright or Reversed. In traditional Tarot, a reversed card appears upside down.
In the Nonprofit Character Oracle, a reversed card represents what happens when a strength becomes a liability, when a role drifts out of balance, or when good intentions collide with organizational reality.
Most of us have appeared upright and reversed at different points in our careers. Some of us call this a Monday, or in my house, we know I’ve hit a scary period of low blood sugar when I start singing, “Islands in the Stream,” mostly because I don’t know the words and I’m neither Dolly nor Kenny.
Today, I’m sharing the first six cards:
Doug occupies a unique place in the Oracle.
Like The Fool in traditional Tarot, Doug represents beginnings, possibility, optimism, and the absolute certainty that things will work out despite having only a partial understanding of the situation.
Partial understanding has never stopped Doug; it emboldens him. Doug travels freely through the deck. Doug can appear anywhere. The truth is he often does. Oh, Doug.
CARD 0
Doug
Confidence • Enthusiasm • LinkedIn
Upright
- Brings energy
- Volunteers readily
- Asks practical questions
- Helps move ideas into action
- Isn’t afraid to try something new
Reversed
- Has read half an article (Ok, more like he saw a headline and read half of it)
- Is now an expert
- Suggests starting a nonprofit
- Thinks every problem can be solved with an app
- Recently attended a webinar and has become unstoppable
Not every thought needs a microphone.
CARD I
The Founder
Vision • Legacy • Attachment
Upright
- Inspires others to action
- Protects the mission
- Carries important institutional knowledge
- Creates possibility where none existed before
- Weaves community
Reversed
- Refers to the organization as “my baby”
- Has opinions about everyone’s job
- Cannot imagine succession
- Mistakes stewardship for ownership
- Should have called the organization [Their Name] + [‘For All’]
The thing you built, may be ready to outgrow you.
CARD II
The Lawyer Board Member
Risk • Confidence • Unsolicited Legal Advice
Upright
- Spots governance issues before they become crises
- Knows the difference between governance and management
- Understands the limits of their expertise
- Encourages the organization to seek appropriate legal counsel
- Asks for forms, policies, and training
Reversed
- Has not read the bylaws
- Practices law in an entirely different field
- Begins sentences with “Well, technically…”
- Creates risk while attempting to manage risk
- Didn’t get enough of devil’s advocate play at law school thirty years ago
Being a lawyer and being your lawyer are not the same thing.
CARD III
The Program Director
Competence • Hidden Labor • Miracles
Upright
- Understands the work deeply
- Builds trust with community
- Solves problems before anyone notices them
- Keeps programs moving forward
- Has a trunk filled with outreach items
Reversed
- Has become a single point of failure
- Holds six unofficial job titles
- Knows where everything is
- Is carrying the organization on vibes and caffeine
- Side hugs while whispering, “I resent this, Doug.”
If only one person knows how something works, it isn’t a system.
CARD IV
The Executive Director
Leadership • Responsibility • Impossible Expectations
Upright
- Creates clarity
- Makes hard decisions
- Builds trust
- Balances mission and operations
- Embraces planning and spreadsheets
Reversed
- Has become the organizational HVAC system
- Solves every crisis personally
- Knows everyone’s passwords
- Has not taken a vacation that wasn’t interrupted
- Deals with conflict by triangulating everything
An organization isn’t sustainable if one person is carrying the weight of the mission.
CARD V
The Grantmaker
Resources • Influence • Reporting Requirements
Upright
- Invests in long-term capacity
- Builds genuine partnerships
- Understands organizational realities
- Funds what organizations actually need
- Loves the word “unrestricted”
Reversed
- Has never held a leadership role in a community organization
- Recently attended a conference and returned with a new strategic priority
- Uses the phrase “thought partnership”
- Thinks their job is to make an idea better by replacing it with theirs
- Wants transformative results by next quarter
Money is never just money.
Why I Created the Oracles
My goal isn’t to mock people or a sector. I’m offering that most organizaitonal challenges, in their highly reduced-for-humor form, are shared dynamics and patterns. We can blow up the funniest parts of a recurring character in our work life or in ourselves to reveal the tensions that drive or sink organizations.
Over the coming months, I’ll be adding more cards to the deck, including (or potentially):
- The Board Chair
- The Consultant
- The Fundraiser
- The Community Advisory Group
- The Volunteer Who Has Been Here Since 1987
- The Strategic Planner
- The Equity Statement
- The Interim Executive Director
Like messages from beyond, not all characters have revealed themselves, yet. Of course, oracles and tarot are not a substitute for legal advice. Ask the universe to add a row to your annual budget for legal review and planning. If you have ideas for what cards should appear next or how I might illustrate the deck, reach out: Carrie@WeAreAligna.com
