From Blue Avocado

This blog post originally appeared on Blue Avocado, the online magazine for American Nonprofits. Although the author here is speaking about funding for nonprofit organizations SPO thought everyone who has ever had to deal with funding restrictions on a project would appreciate it.

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Blue Avocado's humor columnist Vu Le dreams about restricted funding for cakes:

For the past few months one of our staff has an eye that's been twitching. "It's this grant!" she says. "It's for our after-school program. It pays for instructors' teaching time, but not their planning time! How can they teach when they can't plan?! How? How?!"

"Psst," I whispered, "Let's talk in the conference room. "Since the staff is so dedicated, they will plan anyway even without getting paid,” -- I paused, looking around -- "Why don't you just increase their hourly wages?"

"This grant capped the hourly wage, so I can't pay them more. The other grant might pay for planning time, but they don't pay for employer taxes!" She started pulling at her hair, and both of us collapsed on the floor, weeping and beating our chests in anguish and despair.