Useless

While I cooked in my home for guests, I also helped plan parties for a pack of fellow plebes.  On my few off-hours, of course.  When one works for a public entity and high-speed internet is at play, years later I get to see that there are a lot of “big” and “little” people doing nothing and going no-where.  I hate to think that six years of really hard and long work on my behalf were for naught.

As I reflect upon a life in government and non-profits, I would hope this title would not fit.  In government, once I got out of it no-one wanted to get me back into it even though I was “liaison.”  And no matter what I did, most of the non-profits I counseled could not be saved because they would not change their boards or senior staff.

I served on several boards. Glad to get rid of them.  Spinning wheels.  One must get the moss off of that stone.  Never mind, I tried to dust them off to no avail.

Several priceless lessons have been already learned: use your instincts and verify the leadership; always appreciate a volunteer; and when you give money, make sure it really goes to a good cause.

I love non-profit organizations and know that when they smell money they’ll come around.  That’s when I’ll ask my questions from the other side.  Luckily that’s a ways from now but any charity we choose to fund will be a worthy one, one that puts every donor’s funds to the purpose for which the gift was intended.  See articles this week about billionaire Joan Krok’s fortune being mis-spent by Salvation Army and know that no-one cares about the $10,000 donor or one million donor when the billion dollar donor has already been snubbed and her legacy trashed by the very people she trusted to carry out her wishes.

Still an optimist, Dee