Yes, And… How to Stop Loving the Problem

#philanthropy #nonprofit #socialsector #futurism #nonprofitleadership #futuregood #systemschange #futurethinking #skiptheproblem Sep 24, 2026

Vu Le just wrote something important - check it out. He names what the whole sector is feeling right now: that funding is harder to get and the ground keeps shifting. And that through all of it we are told the problem is us. Our storytelling, our data, our grant writing isn't quite good enough. Meanwhile the systems around us keep failing on purpose, and the people with the most power and money keep pointing the finger at the people with the least. He is right about every bit of it.

So here is my "and." We have to name these systems and we can be angry about them, but there is a trap on the other side of that anger, and I see nonprofit leaders fall into it all the time. I call it Loving the Problem.

Loving the Problem is when you use up all your energy describing how terrible things are, in your meetings and your annual reports and your grant applications and in conversations exactly like the one Vu is responding to. When you spend all of your time there, you have no mental space left to imagine a way out. At FutureGood, one of our solutions is Skipping the Problem.

Skipping it does not make it go away, but it means you stop pouring every ounce of energy into how bad things are and you spend some of it on the other end instead.

Picture your problem completely solved, and then ask what has to be true, who is at the table, and what conditions inside your organization and out have been met. That is where the solutions live, not in the description of the wall but in the map of the door.

This time is hard for all of us, but you've got this. So here is your homework. Block off 30 minutes in your calendar right now, and spend it dreaming about what it looks like when you skip your big problem instead of loving it.

Yes, And… How to Stop Loving the Problem

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