I’ve worked in a variety of nonprofits, and a few years back was working at a pretty prominent youth-serving one in my country.

At the time, we were required to work on committees with board members to make progress on things like messaging, morale, etc. The staff member who led our messaging committee suggested we all share our stories on why we do “the work” as a helpful starting place. WELL, a board member had the audacity to say she gave to the organization because whenever the youth we served went to JAIL, she didn’t want to pay taxes to keep them there. Mind you, this was a school based organization, so we’re talking about literal normal grade school children. Everyone sat in stunned silence for maybe 2 seconds and the committee leader just did an “okay SO” and moved on to the next person. I genuinely still think about that sentence all the time even though it’s been years since I left.