We Dare You To Figure Out What Our Nonprofit Does

First published February 6, 2024 in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Thank you for visiting our nonprofit organization’s website. The first thing you’ll see are some inspiring photographs — young people planting a tree, a diverse group of folks chatting on a street corner, and an unhoused person being handed a meal. You might imagine this means we plant trees, help young people, or serve food to the unhoused. But honestly, do you think we’d make it that easy for you?

If you want to know what our nonprofit does, start with a deep dive on our website. Visit our About, History, Mission, Programs, Milestones, and News pages. They won’t tell you anything specific, but they will prolong your visit, boosting user traffic that justifies the money we spent on our website.

Still think you can find out what we do? Give it your best shot. Read our Mission Statement, Goals Statement, Vision Statement, Issues Statement, and Statement of Values Statement. Download our reports. Subscribe to our newsletters. Study our executive director’s old blogs. After conducting this exhaustive research, you will know exactly what we do: produce indecipherable accounts of what we do.

You would think we could convey our purpose in plain human language, but that isn’t the case. Our initiatives exist in a realm beyond comprehension. Our activities can be understood only by using a particle accelerator, an AI supercomputer, and a fifth-century Benedictine codex. Even the description…