Fuzzy Notions and Foolish Opinions

Punching your phone number into the self-checkout at the grocery store is standard nowadays. You receive a discount on certain goods, the system knows to restock the items you like to buy, and you don't have to make conversation with a cashier, or with the bagger who packs your groceries in a way you might not have chosen. It is efficient, but something human is lost. In our scientific culture we tend to equate technological advancement with progress.

This is not a new phenomenon. Oscar Wilde and other 19th-century idealists imagined machines freeing human beings from repetitive, task-based roles, to pursue creative lives. We are not far from that vision, yet many of us approach it with fear and trepidation.

This blog is not anti-technology or anti-science. But it is pro-human. The more we defer to technology for immediate answers, the more we remove ourselves from the equation, especially on social problems.

Writing in The End of Solitude, William Deresiewicz cautions against “the attitude that social problems are susceptible to technological procedures and solutions, that society is nothing more than a big machine, a set of systems that are capable of being optimized if only ordinary people, with their fuzzy notions and foolish opinions, would get out of the way.”

Nonprofit organizations provide a vital counterbalance. Democratic in nature, they create forums where people build relationships, reflect on questions of public value, and recognize that their own understanding is only ever partial.

Where Messiness Matters Most

So where can nonprofit leaders preserve human interaction, however imperfect?

➢   Fundraising: Software promises to get fundraising ‘down to a science,’ but a donor is not a data point. A thank-you call with no ask attached reveals more than any dashboard could, and builds relationships that outlast any single campaign. Action step: Ask each board member to make three thank-you calls each quarter, with no script and no ask, and to share what they hear at the next board meeting.

➢   Board Meetings: A board’s most important work happens when members wrestle with hard questions together. This grappling is not dysfunction; it is the duty of care in action, and an inclusive, diverse board makes it far richer. Action step: Reserve thirty minutes of every board meeting for a single open-ended question, with no slides and no predetermined outcome.

➢   Volunteerism: The volunteer who has stocked food bank shelves every Tuesday for years, and knows which families prefer which foods, offers what no automated system can: the experience of being seen by a neighbor. Action step: Ask your longest-serving volunteers what they notice that staff may not, and invite them to help shape programs, not just carry them out.

➢   Partnerships and Planning: Collaboration depends on trust, not shared databases, and a plan built through community dialogue will be owned by those who shaped it. Action step: Before your next planning process, hold community listening sessions, and meet in person with one partner organization simply to strengthen the relationship.

Messiness Within a Framework

This is not a free-for-all. Core organizational values set the rules of engagement (see Friendship and Core Organizational Values), and board members remain bound by the duties of care, loyalty, and obedience. Within that framework, an organization is best viewed not as a machine, but as a living organism. The phrase ‘we’ve got it down to a science’ belongs to one, not the other.

The meta-purpose of nonprofit work is the function of democracy itself: bringing human beings together for meaning and purpose. If The Nonprofit Strategy Group can help, please reach out for a chat, or, just ask Claude! But et’s not defer to technology the very human work of building community.