Seattle to Winthrop

I like to tell anyone who will listen that hamburgers are not the national food of the USA, but on a recent trip to Seattle, I couldn’t turn down a Dick’s burger. So, okay. They are a kind of national pride, but I contend it’s these small chain, but still fast food, burgers that are the ones you want if you are looking for the Authentic American Burger Experience TM.

After many years of living in Washington State and bearing witness to the confusion created by the state having the same name as the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., I want to emphasize for those not familiar that I was close to Canada in the north by the Pacific Ocean, not the national capital near the Atlantic Coast.

As I am accustomed, I spent some nice time in the city of Seattle, but found joy and adventure on a drive into the wilder reaches to the east of the Cascade Mountains. This time, my trusty travel buddy Madeline, her husband Adam, and giant doggie Leroy, and I all set out to travel one of the most beautiful drives in the world, Highway 20 through the North Cascades.

The first time that Madeline and I drove this road, we were actually driving to Canada for the Fourth of July. Everything was booked up on the US side of the border because we hadn’t planned ahead so we figured we would head across the border. At the border the office asked, “So, are you coming for the Fourth of July?”

Me, disappointed, “ Oh, you celebrate it too?”

Canadian officer, more disappointed, “No, we don’t.”

The night before that unfortunate exchange, we camped overnight near Falls Creek in the Methow Valley on our way to the border and that campsite was our loose destination for this trip.

If you ever do the HWY 20 drive through the North Cascades, you must stop on the HWY 20 drive overlook and parking lot. It is after you enter the national park, but before you get to Diablo Lake. There is also a small walking trail and some pit toilets for the sturdy of constitution. Appreciate what you get. You are stopping for the view, not the amenities.

I have personally never camped in the North Cascade National Park, only on the eastern side of the mountains in the summer months. I am just cold avoidant, ya know?

On the eastern side of the North Cascades, you are going to find three towns, all very cool in their own right. Mazama, Winthrop, and Twisp constitute the towns of the Methow Valley where the river runs through. Each has a flavor, but the communities are very connected too.

Winthrop probably has the most distinct flavor for tourism appeal, as in it is a campy Western-theme town. That is where we were staying at a hotel. The ultimate glamorous camping is simply day camping, right?

The river was running clear and true despite some damaging wildfires in recent years. There were warnings to take care for flash floods and erosion in the river. Lucky for us, we happened upon a perfect sunny weekend with a fast, but steady river.

More in Part 2.

Wonderings: Open windows, changing status, and a few good recs.

Living without windows

The very first book that I stayed awake until way past my bedtime to finish was the first (and by far the best) book in the Boxcar Children series. Because in the first book, the orphaned siblings take up residence in an old boxcar of a train and have to use their half-developed adulting skills to make their way in life (relatable). Until they meet rich grandpa and he just installs their boxcar as a playhouse behind the mansion (unrelatable).

The point is that I have a soft spot for romanticizing “make it work” housing. This seems to be a nostalgia shared with others in my generation as evidenced by the tiny home movement and other nontraditional living quarters. Maybe our nostalgia is just a balm to accept the material conditions of our economic reality where affording a full home is just not realistic for most of us.

Which brings me to my housing adventures across the border in Mexico where you blessedly have way less red tape to work through to get a roof over your head.

And yes, I said a roof. And we have walls. And we have doors now too although there was a time when we were depending on the guard dog to be the main barrier to entry. But windows? Working on it. There are holes where they will eventually go which is technically a window, but nothing so much as a screen barrier.

Living in a house where the windows haven’t yet been installed was not the plan at first. But progress is better than perfect and there have been blessings in the openness we have lived with the last week.

Yes, the bare windows let in rain and mosquitos, but it also let in the most refreshing air. After the heatwaves of May, the cool air of the rainy season is pure bliss. It felt a little like being in a treehouse or camping, the comfort of a cozy nook, but within arms reach of being out in nature.

I am writing down this memory because I know one day I will look back on the time when we moved into our house without windows and slept through thunderstorms and woke to 4am birdsong the same way I read about the boxcar children’s time in an abandoned boxcar in the woods. I will only remember the romantic part.

And the alternate sleeping quarters in the house is the original historic building. With some work it would be more structurally sound, but the locals of Yucatán made it clear that they would sleep in a room without windows over sleeping in a room where the roof might or might not collapse on you while you sleep. When in Rome, do as the Romans.

Probably by this time next week, we will have at least a mosquito screen up on all the windows and this little mini era will have ended. Which is good. Because living without windows is all fun and games until a hurricane is blowing trees and other debris through the gaping holes in your walls.

Changes in Status

One thing about living in Mexico with permission to reside here permanently is that they want to know every update that happens in your life. I kind of like it as all of my grandparents are dead and no one really checks in on me about that stuff anymore. This makes me sound like a great candidate for cult recruitment.

But immigration is filling the void for me right now and keeping tabs on my whereabouts and major life events. This week I had to tell them that I was divorced now so I prepared my documents and paperwork online and waited at the local Valladolid office. The guy who works there is just totally by the book and incorruptible. In fact, when I was getting my permanent residency card I worked with a woman who was filling in from Merida. The reason the regular agent wasn’t there is because they sent him to an office where they were having corruption and bribery issues. Our guy cleaned them right up. One of the great joys in my life is when this immigration officer tells me I filled out the paperwork correctly instead of the head shake of disappointment and a muttered “todo es mal” that I usually get.

One of my naive, provincial American things that has been shattered by the experience of immigrating is that I did not realize that the same agency that you go through to apply for residency in a country is the same agency that is enforcing detention and deportation for those who have not applied for entry and do not have regulated status. In fact, I think the agencies try to keep it that way. When I got for my little change of status appointments, I do not see people who have been detained. But I do see a pile of bunk mattresses stacked outside that look standard issue from whoever wholesales to prisons and detention centers. So I know that side is there too.

Same with US. Customs and Border Protection. It took me a long time to understand that the agency that checks my passport when I return from vacation and says “welcome back!” is the same agency that detains people who enter the country without authorization at the border. On a side note, people who claim that somehow the borders are open haven’t recently had their direct flight rerouted through another airport (adding like 3 hours to the flight time, btw) because CBP was closed for the night. And that is the soft side of immigration in little old Seattle Tacoma International airport. The borders are far more closed than they are open.

Since we are playing with “immigration issues” as a volleyball in the U.S. election, I just wanted to share my experience since most of us do not know what is actually happening on the ground. If you haven’t gone through a process of applying for immigration permission yourself, it is hard to know what agencies you have to work with, what it is like for different people working with these agencies depending on which country you are from, and what is motivating both the policies of our state and federal government and the actions of on-the-ground agents.

I feel lucky that I was able to qualify for permanent resident status in Mexico. It requires financial security and a knack for diligent bureaucracy which I was lucky to possess when I applied. I also want to hold the image of those detention mattresses stacked in a dusty room in juxtaposition to the air conditioned office where I am welcomed to sit while my paperwork is processed.

A few more things:

1. All five of the books reviewed in this article are now on hold in my Libby app. I forwarded this review to so many people because it articulated thoughts I have been mulling over for awhile about the thin line between “conspiracy theories” and actual conspiracies of power in our world. If you read one thing that I recommend, it is this: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/feelings-over-facts-conspiracy-theories-and-the-internet-novel

2. My pal Donald gave me this recipe awhile back and it is so so good. We don’t hang out anymore but I still make this cake sometime and reminisce about time spent daydreaming by his ridiculously long swimming pool. I will pass on his tip which was that the boiling process of the citrus is critical to the recipes success so do not skip any of those steps. Oh, and he said that the salt disappears into the glaze so not worth bothering with and I agree: https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Orange-Scented-Olive-Oil-Cake/

3. I have gotten very into the world of immersive YouTube videos for relaxation. There are so many VERY SPECIFIC categories to set almost any scene you could want. Come for the 1930´s Terrace by the ocean on a rainy night ASMR, stay for the unhinged comment section wishing that time travel was real so they can check on their grandparents.

4. Finally, one of the hills that I will die on is that American/US food is not the same as the AMERICAN EMPIRE food. Unfortunately it is AMERICAN EMPIRE food that gets exported and has giant marketing teams. Teams that seem to be relying on processed food mash-ups like the ones featured in the “American Fest” section at the Chedraui Selecto in Mérida. Feast your eyes on these monstrosities:

River Rambles in Colombia

One thing I have loved about living close to Cancún? The whole world flies to Cancún which means, Cancún flies to the whole world! (Sí, estoy disponible para tu próxima campaña de publicidad, Secretaria de Turismo de Quintana Roo.)

One such place is Colombia and while the flights to Bogotá and Medellin were comparable, we chose to fly to Medellin and take buses from there.

I asked my friend Kate from Wild World Women, who spent a month visiting Colombia with her wife Sarah, for recommendations in the area around Medellin. And I actually completely intended to follow her guidance until the story below happened. She recommended the Guatape area which did indeed look and sound beautiful. Next visit!

My agenda was purely this: I wanted to spend more time outside the city than inside the city and I wanted to drink coffee where they grow coffee.

Coffee plant after a downpour

After two days in Medellin of riding on cable cars and watching the hustle and bustle, we headed to the bus station to get ourselves to a smaller town.

On the hilly walk to take the metro to the bus terminal, my fiancé accidentally bumped a Colombiana as he managed his backpack and my suitcase. His apology turned into a conversation about where we could meet our criteria for a sleepy town in the coffee region where we could relax for a few days. She was a professor at one of the local universities and very generously recommended three towns between 2 and 4 hours away by bus.

Like anyone who does traveling like it is an adventure video game, we accepted this quest and caught a bus to Jardín, Antioquia.

And it was incredible. All the towns were so lovely. You could have coffee in the square by day and then by night sip aguardiente and watch the big shots in town riding their fancy prancing horses. The best big shots of all were these incredibly hot women in Jardín, the adult daughters of the horse owners, who would stop briefly at the front of the bar without dismounting their horses while the bartender brought them a shot. Ultimate baddies.

But the highlight was finding that my fiancé and I have the exact same idea of a perfect afternoon: playing around in a river (preferably with a town dog that has decided to adopt you for the day).

We had actually originally set off to find the Taparto waterfall, but I am glad we decided that was going to be too hard and instead enjoyed an easy day of getting rained on and then sun-dried in the Andes Mountains.

I have more pictures and stories from being in Colombia almost two weeks in May. I am going to try to organize and share here. You know how if you don’t do it soon after it almost never happens? Yeah, me too.

But the river rambling was the highlight and I loved the pictures we took that day so just putting this here.

Life Updates

No More Free Labor For Meta

Do you ever feel that creeping feeling of shame after posting something on social media? I used to think that it was a classic internal misogynist gaze judging myself for wanting to be cute. Then maybe I thought it was the dopamine addiction to scrolling that we all know it gives you. But then I finally figured it out: it is just so embarrassing to work for a pointless corporation like Meta for free.

Now some of the best work is done for free. Labors of love, you know? But I draw the line when a corporation can derive direct profit in the form of advertising dollars.

And I also did not think it was good for my processing of the world we live in to see images of war-torn communities alongside nostalgic odes to dad and what skincare brand an acquaintance just switched to. Maybe future brains will adapt to process this context switching better, but for me it is a recipe for compassion fatigue.

And now they want to continue to build products on the backs of our creative endeavors (and yes, I am counting the drunk night photo albums of the late 2000´s as a creative endeavor.) Sure, you can opt out, but they make it so hard that you have smart writers like Deborah Copaken writing “11 steps to keep Meta from stealing your data to train AI.”

As JLo says multiple times in the modern classic, Marry Me, “They say if you want something different, you have to do something different.” And spoiler alert she marries the love of her life. Solid advice.

So you can catch up on the life updates here. Maybe find an occasional short video or photo essay. Who knows?

I think it will be a good time.

New Job

Some of you may recall that I left a job in state advocacy for reproductive rights in 2019. I worked with my ex-husband under less than ideal circumstances on a project to build a small boutique hotel. With the divorce, so went that weird career pivot. (More on my grappling with tourism later).

But the job search was wild and demoralizing. I vacillated between creative ideas to attract freelance contracts and the hustle it takes to apply for jobs. I had to make this work. I wanted to stay in Mexico and explore the blossoming of a new love, but I grew increasingly willing to move anywhere and do anything. Thankfully, the right opportunity finally presented and after a lengthy process to ensure the right fit, I accepted a position with the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) Votes as their Director of Policy and Politics.

And that means: I am moving to Miami! Well, most of the time I will be in Miami. I do not know how to live in one place while your heart lives in another (along with the house you own, your dog, and your man), but I am open to exploring it.

Pro’s of Miami are, of course, good food, lots of sun, proximity to flying to the Yucatán to fill my cup back up, and the opportunity to continue to improve my ability to speak in Spanish.

I haven’t been a Florida voter since 2008, but I have to say, I am looking forward to casting my vote there in 2024.

New House

I have craved having a place of my own for so long, even when it did not feel possible. When I started looking for a little property to call home in the Yucatán, I was imagining a quiet village where I would have bananas and mangos growing in my yard. I knew the prices had gotten a bit steep in the town of Valladolid and surrounding areas. After four years of watching the buying frenzy here, I wasn’t naively thinking I would find a constructed home for cheap.

But then one day in a heat wave with rolling power outages, I looked at my fiancé and said that I couldn’t take it anymore. We needed to go to the beach that day and refresh ourselves with the sea breeze. The Caribbean coast is too costly for the underemployed so we headed north to Río Lagartos on the Gulf Coast. “There is a house for sale we should go look at up there,” my partner mentioned as he packed up our red 2011 Toyota Corolla with a cooler and our hammocks.

After spending a wonderful evening at the Hotel Río Lagartos, grateful for our temporary reprieve from the heat, we went to see the house that he had seen posted on Facebook Marketplace (ok, Meta, you can have the Yellow Pages).

Maybe it was because Río Lagartos had been our cool sanctuary during the hottest and dryest time of year. Or maybe because I grew up on the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico. Or maybe it all conspired to shape our fate in a little fishing village in a nature preserve. Or maybe I do not need to know why it happened, just that it happened.

All I know is that when they accepted the offer and we went to sign documents for the sale the next week, I felt so much peace to finally have a place in this world to land.

More to come on all fronts, but here are a few more pictures of Río Lagartos for now.

Thanks for reading, friends. I look forward to finding pathways of connection that work for all of us.

Valladolid to Isla Arena

You know how I am all like, “I am done with social media! Forever!”? Well, you could argue that YouTube is, in fact, a very time-intensive social media platform to post content on. But I will give up the long-form video essay when I give up my library card (NEVER!)

The reason Youtube has won favor with me is twofold: 1) They let me turn the option to see “Shorts” (those pesky time stealing short videos) show up in my news feed off and 2) they generally have a better pay structure for content creators than other platforms. Not that I am monetized, but it is way more fair.

Anyway, I posted this little video awhile back and since I am consolidating things here on this blog, I wanted to post a link.

Exploring Nonprofit Compensation: Insights from the King County Wage and Benefit Survey

Introduction

Industry-wide compensation problems aren’t just going to solve themselves. That’s why I’m excited about the 501 Compensation Tracker and the accompanying reports. These tools won’t solve the problem, but they give us valuable data for planning our own compensation strategies.

I'm going to give a quick summary of the report and the key constituencies that will be able to draw value from the resources being produced by this joint project between 501 Commons and King County.

Understanding the King County Wage and Benefit Survey

The King County Wage and Benefit Survey is a comprehensive research initiative that focuses on gathering data and analyzing compensation practices within the nonprofit sector in King County. It aims to provide nonprofits with reliable information to effectively evaluate and develop compensation strategies.

Key Findings from the Survey

1. Compensation Disparities: The survey reveals varying levels of compensation across different nonprofit roles. Executive positions tend to receive higher compensation packages compared to staff-level positions.

2. Benefits Offered: In addition to salary, the survey takes into account the benefits that nonprofits provide. Common benefits include healthcare coverage, retirement plans, and flexible work arrangements.

3. Factors Affecting Compensation: The study highlights that factors such as organization size, budget, and mission area can influence compensation levels within nonprofits.

The Importance of Nonprofit Compensation

Fair and competitive compensation is crucial for attracting and retaining talented individuals in the nonprofit sector. By offering competitive salaries and benefits, nonprofits can ensure the long-term stability and success of their organizations. Moreover, recognizing the value of nonprofit work through appropriate compensation is to signal how seriously we take the problems that the nonprofit works to address.

Utilizing the Survey Data

The King County Wage and Benefit Survey serves as a valuable resource for both nonprofit organizations and job seekers. Nonprofits can utilize the survey findings to benchmark their compensation practices against industry standards and make informed decisions about their pay structures. Job seekers, on the other hand, can leverage the survey data to gain insights into compensation expectations for different roles within the sector.

Additionally, these reports give the King County nonprofit industry some great tools for having industry-wide conversations. Hopefully, nonprofit leaders will be able to share their progress in the work to modernize compensation practices and bring them into alignment with organizational values.

Here are a few ideas for how your organization can engage with the 501 compensation tracker and the reports:

1. Many employees at nonprofits will find a very useful tool in viewing comparable salaries and benefits within their industry. Nonprofits will do well to engage in transparent conversations around wages and benefits. The employee engagement survey confirmed the nonprofit employee's craving for transparency in their workplace. Nonprofit employees can use the tool in salary negotiations as well for planning the trajectory of their career.

2. Executive directors and boards of directors have a current (and it's getting updated again this year) document with data on salaries and benefits in the nonprofit industry of King County in this report. Whether you are setting the salary for an incoming executive director or strategizing your entire staffing and compensation plan, having all of this wage and benefit information in one place is an extremely useful resource. Obviously there are constraints in what benefits can be offered by your nonprofit, but this report can give you ideas for how to be creative in your benefits package and what to prioritize.

3. Industry thought-leaders, funders, and fundraisers can utilize the reports to have industry-wide conversations. We inherited a structural problem as an industry. "Charity work," the pre-curser of the nonprofit industry, was unpaid labor, typically women whose families supported them financially. And yet, the challenges of compensating competitively is treated as a problem to be addressed by individual organization'’ leadership. This is an industry-wide problem that demands industry-wide innovations. Tools like the King County Wage and Benefit Survey Report can give teeth to these discussions and allow us to set collective benchmarks as an industry.

If you'd like to see a quick explainer video and hear a few more highlights from the report, you can check it out at this link.

Conclusion

Understanding nonprofit compensation is essential for building sustainable organizations and supporting the dedicated professionals who drive social change. The King County Wage and Benefit Survey offers valuable data and insights that can help nonprofits navigate this complex landscape. By focusing on fair and equitable compensation practices, we can ensure a thriving nonprofit sector that takes care of its employees and achieves its mission more effectively.

If your board is having tough conversations about how to compensate your staff competitively, I'd love to hear from you. I'm eager to hear from King County nonprofits leaders about how they've used the report and what they are excited to learn from the next round of surveying that was just completed and will be reported on later this year.

Download report here: King County Wage and Benefit Report

More from 501 Commons: https://www.501commons.org/resources/putting-people-first/king-county-nonprofit-wage-benefits-survey-report

Mid-Year Check-In on Your Annual Plan

There is something about Wednesdays that give me energy. Maybe it's because I'm a Libra and there is something balanced about the mid-week.

I'm similarly feeling that balance in this month of June. We're almost at the halfway point of the year. It's a great time to look back at accomplishments and reset for the next half of the year. Maybe even do a little re-prioritizing. 

When we set organization and staff work goals in January, we're usually trying our best to see into the future. There is so much we don't know yet about the shape our work will take and what resources will be available to us. We make our best guess at the conditions we will encounter. But by June, we know so much more! 

In my opinion, most plans are meant to be dynamic documents. Not so malleable that you're just blowing with the wind, but not so rigid that you can't react to new information and act accordingly.  Maybe you and your staff are already revisiting your annual work plans and readjusting or just re-grounding yourselves.  Maybe it's something you want to do, but between summer vacations and overwhelming workloads, has been put on the back burner. If doing a mid-year check-in on staff work plans is something you want to do, but don't have time for, let me take that off your plate! Let's talk ;)

In the meantime, some of my mid-year updates include a brand-new website and an updated menu of services. Check them out and let me know what you think! 

I'm also launching a video series this summer to tackle some of the thorny issues that I've encountered while working with clients and colleagues. I'll cover recent job reports on the state of nonprofits, how to find or be a fiscal sponsor for grassroots groups, and practical and actionable fundraising how-to guides. Stay tuned!

I'm happy to be in community with you and I'm excited to journey through the second half of the year and see all the exciting things that you do!

Much love, 
Tiffany

Gratitude Planning

Does planning your appreciation seem inauthentic? It did to me.

The first time I used a planning tool to prioritize where I spend my energy in nurturing personal relationships, I felt like a fraud. Shouldn’t authentic communication with others erupt spontaneously? Shouldn’t we be so overwhelmed with gratitude that we can’t contain it?

But don’t we also give intention and thought to the things we care about? Maybe planning out acts of gratitude doesn’t mean we are compensating for being ungrateful. Maybe planning just means you care deeply about this facet of leadership and will put in the work to ensure you do it well.

That’s why I made a little workbook to help me think about and prioritize acts of gratitude. I wanted to make it available to others to help integrate gratitude practices into your nonprofit organization. It takes less than an hour to fill out. Hold yourself accountable to a practice of gratitude. It's good for your own well-being and the well-being of your organization.

You can download the free Gratitude Planner here!

I hope this gratitude planner helps you boost morale and build more happiness and resilience in your work!

If you want to get ideas for how you can show your volunteers more gratitude, check out this video of 10 Ideas for Volunteer Appreciation at your nonprofit.

Enjoy gratitude planning!

Sincerely,

Tiffany