Non-Profit Humour for Need a Laugh Wednesday

Non-Profit Humour

After a long career spent mostly in hard-nosed daily journalism (no, I did not keep bourbon in my desk drawer, but at both the AP and Washington Post I knew people who really, truly did), I entered the nonprofit sector in 2008.

(Insert joke here about newspapers having become nonprofit organizations too.)

Nonprofits, I soon learned, have their own lingua franca. "Donor engagement." "Impactful." (I refuse to acknowledge that one.)"Aspirational peers." "Planned giving."

If you have also ever worked for a nonprofit, you will appreciate the humor of the excellent blog Non-Profit Humour. (It's Canadian, hence the "u" in "humour.")

Here are some recent headlines that I found amusing:

Hospitals fight over last remaining volunteer under 60

Street fundraising gets results with leghold traps

Charity's YouTube video just makes them look even more lame

Some other observations about the difference between nonprofit work and journalism:

1. Once, after I'd stayed way late and knocked myself out to meet a deadline but discovered that no one else had met theirs, a colleague said, "We view deadlines as, well, aspirational goals."

2. People who work for nonprofits generally do not swear like sailors.