I love the movie Zoolander. I think that Will Ferrell’s arch-villain Mugatu is right up their with Iranian Mullah’s, the Alien, Dick Cheney and the Grinch on the bad-guys-o-meter. But I particularly loved the scene in which he yells “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills” out of his frustration over the fact that nobody seems to realize (or care) that Eric Zoolander’s patented “looks” (La Tigre, Blue Steel) are, in actuality, the same thing.Anyway….I feel that way today.
On Wednesday, 47 states posted budgets for 2010, which, as of today, total close to $160 BILLION.
To hightlight this, I wrote an op-ed for the Chronicle of Philanthropy to offer nonprofits a new way to position themselves, to avoid what can only be described as a wave of pain that you can see coming from 160 billion miles away. On the same day, Bob Ottenhoff (the very cool CEO of Guidestar) wrote a blog post that amplifies what’s coming. In it, he points out that close to 30% of nonprofit funds come from local, state or federal government.
Today, as I type, CA is preparing to begin writing $3 Billion in IOU’s. Other states have postponed, extended or all but crossed deadlines without coming to any formal conclusions about how to bridge the gap.
L-O-N-G story short. Nonprofit groups everywhere have got to come together and develop a unified front….NOW.
The V3 Campaign is about that. No talk…action. We’re developing a plan that you can be part of–in YOUR town, YOUR state, THIS country.
Join us. Be part of history. Follow the discussion on the V3 blog, or on twitter at @v3campaign
Anything short of that would be….er, crazy.
Crazy pills are a good high, I recommend them…