The gatekeeping. The unspoken rule that you had to be wealthy to intern. The slowness that sometimes became paralysis. The resistance to any data that made us uncomfortable.
There’s a quiet nostalgia creeping into conversations among long-time fundraisers, program directors, and NGO workers. We’re starting to whisper about what I’ve started calling the gamla np religion
Gamla — old, in Swedish and other Nordic languages. Not ancient, but not new. Something that belonged to a previous era of non-profit work, roughly pre-2010, maybe pre-COVID. And religion — because it wasn’t just a job. It was a doctrine. The gatekeeping
So, what was the Old NP Religion?
Maybe we need a reformation , not a revival. Keep the rituals of care, but embrace the tools of now. Keep the long-term faith, but report honestly on short-term stumbles. The resistance to any data that made us uncomfortable