Scared Out of Social Work

A couple of weeks ago, the graduate school of social work at UT asked me to be on a panel. They were bringing in a group of social workers who are Executive Directors of non-profits to have a panel discussion for the students. Good idea - get the straight scoop on running a non-profit from a group of their peers from the field.

And the cool thing is, there are already a group of us who have done this before. Meg, Julia, Laura and I have done this panel a couple of times. I also have them present to my UT class over the summers. And we have a monthly happy hour with other Executive Directors. Margaritas are the perfect accompaniment to discussing crappy boards, annoying staff, and the omnipresent existence of fundraising in our lives. Not MY board or staff, mind you.

The group gets together often enough to have acquired a name - the "Young Executive Directors." I keep lobbying to change that name, since I am not, well, young. They keep telling me that it's very loose, and that "young at heart" counts. To which I reply, I am in fact "old at heart." While others have an "inner child," I in fact have an "inner 40-year-old." Oddly, since I am a few years past 40, I now am somewhat younger at heart than before.

We did our first panel a few years back for the "Young Non-profit Professionals Network." It was entitled "Executive Directors Under 40." I successfully changed it to "Executive Directors Under 42," which does not have quite the same ring to it.

But anyway. The four of us were recruited to do the UT Panel. We got a hint of trouble when we realized that they had sent us three different room numbers. And they sent out discussion questions to only two of us. And they sent out an invitation to the students for the first time 2 hours before the panel.

But we came. We rounded up the group of us from the various rooms and settled on one location. Six o'clock arrived and the students arrived. Or, more accurately, the student.

His name was Brian. He was an undergraduate, and considering going into social work. He still had some time to think about it, since I believe this was his first semester. You can't really imagine the look of terror on Brian's face when he realized he was the only attendee of this panel discussion, sitting at a round table with four people who ran non-profit organizations who were prepared to talk about strategic planning, development, board relations, and the like, while soliciting and answering questions from the crowd (which was him). Brian was clearly not prepared for this. He thought he was coming to a panel discussion where he could sit in the back, learn, and leave quietly. He had not expected to be THE audience. And whether through politeness, or catatonia produced by abject terror, made the unfortunate decision not to bail on the whole thing.

For whatever reason, we plowed through. I guess it's because we are all social workers, or were waiting for one of the other of us to call the whole thing off, or (in my case) perversely were intrigued about how this might go.

We introduced ourselves, talked about our organizations, our challenges, and our successes. Brian stared without blinking, with a fixed, frightened smile. We asked if he had any questions. He stared blankly. I passed over to him the discussion questions the school had sent to two of us.

"Why don't you ask us one of those?"

Brian stared without blinking. It was about this time that the building janitor walked by and I tried to wave him in so we could double the attendance and let poor Brian off the hook. He would have none of that and continued down the hall.

So Julia, Meg, Laura and I started asking each other questions. And had a lovely discussion. Brian stared, smiled, and did not blink. We chatted about boards, staff, challenges, and goals. Brian stared, smiled, and did not blink.

At a few minutes before seven, we let him out of his (and our) misery. He got up and left quickly, never to return. Brian will never go to a panel discussion again, will not go into social work, and I worry that he may never even return to college.

We went and had margaritas, and set some parameters for future panels, including: at least as many audience members as panelists before we agree. And Brian has to be there.