Notes From Practice by Keira Haley

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Keira Haley writes literary cultural criticism from inside the feminized institution.

For twenty years she worked in nonprofit leadership, fundraising, philanthropy; the daily machinery of mission-driven work. Notes From Practice is what she learned to say about it once she could see it clearly.

The nonprofit sector claims to do good. This is an examination of what it actually does to the women inside it, to the language it uses, to the belief it asks you to sustain. The argument is structural, not personal: that mission-driven institutions convert hope into labor, then defend themselves against the people who name the pattern.

More than forty essays. A structural argument built from twenty years inside the institution, and a named lexicon for what the sector won’t call by its real name anchored by the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Continuum. The book those essays became, She Was Right: Calling It What It Is, is on submission.

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For Caroline Knapp, who opened the door. For Lucille, who was her compass. And, for Amelia, who was mine.

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Trust the reader. Cut until it hurts. Earn the silence.

— Keira Haley · keirahaley.com