This is to commend the Rutland Herald for prominently featuring the superior reporting of Sophia Buckley-Clement in boosting appreciation for the Rutland region’s essential nonprofits and educational institutions. Buckley-Clement is prolific, yet she writes with meticulous attention to detail, genuine empathy for the constituents Rutland’s high-performing nonprofits serve, and palpable appreciation for the staff and leaders alike who are enhancing the lives of countless Vermonters.
For those who are not aware, Buckley-Clement began writing for the Herald while she was still a full-time student at then-Castleton University. While some students claim to be influencers just because they post smarmy selfies and cheeky-chatter about their latest whacko-taco platter, Buckley-Clement’s articles help Vermonters learn more about organizations creating lasting societal value, and why they need and deserve our support.
As most people are aware, nonprofit organizations are not required by law to provide details about their operations or how they use donors’ funds. In fact, since the pandemic, a contentious battle has ensued between donors who want more transparency about outcomes and impact, and nonprofit leaders who deride such requests as unreasonable.
The latter attitude is irresponsible, bordering on reckless. In fact, donors expect and deserve more transparency than ever, especially in a small state like Vermont where there are nearly 7,000 nonprofits and counterproductive redundancies.
In that regard, the Herald, and other independent Vermont media outlets that have increased their coverage of nonprofits, are providing a vital public service, for the community at large and for donors deciding which regional organizations to fund. Conglomerate-owned media enterprises, on the other hand, have neither the interest nor the talent to devote to boosting appreciation for such local assets.
To be clear, many effective leaders of high-performing nonprofits are also effective storytellers in their own right. Those dedicated to alleviating food insecurity, homelessness and domestic violence, as well as those whose work secures and protects diversity, equity, inclusion, and access to quality healthcare and education are the very organizations that most need recognition. Such recognition is crucial for securing what is known as unrestricted funding – the money necessary to actually operate their enterprises.
Still, in many meetings I attend in Vermont, there are nonprofit leaders who have difficulty articulating their mission and vision, let alone substantiating the critical societal threat they are uniquely qualified to address, or the quantitative benefits they generate. These are the leaders who repeat the same complaints in every encounter – about how it’s “impossible” to gain validation for their work or to generate money to pay their staff.
Moreover, the websites of these leaders’ organizations contain mission and vision statements that are vague, convoluted, or focused on unsubstantiated claims and tenuous outputs. No wonder questions proliferate – from the public, the media, and donors alike, regarding why such nonprofits even exist. They are the very opposite of high-performing nonprofits.
As we are in the final months of the year, many nonprofits will be amping up their emails, postcards, letters, phone calls and promotional events – all to meet annual revenue goals. Unfortunately, some promotional events are so dubious and self-referential, they make even this wizened ex-corporate marketer turned nonprofit consultant cringe. Then there are those that never acknowledge the donations they receive, let alone communicate with donors about the impact of those donations.
For those reasons and others I’ve stated above, I’m urging all who are considering donations to our region’s charities and educational institutions – including volunteering – to read Sophia Buckley-Clement’s features about nonprofits that demonstrate what they do actually improves Vermonters’ lives. And, of course, peruse their websites to learn more.
Finally, here’s hoping those same readers also forward Buckley-Clement’s articles to those who aspire to become influencers, as a stellar example of what a bona fide influencer does with her precious time, enormous talent, and authentic zeal for work that is meaningful, altruistic and, as Buckley-Clement often demonstrates, fun. After all, no one, regardless of age or career path, should persist in believing that posting selfies of yesterday’s greasy-cheesy Frito-Lays changes anything other than one’s waistline, and not for the better.
