Bre Onna Mathis

Authored November 29, 2022

I have never been a morning person, so I set four alarms that go off three times each before I literally roll out of bed. My first alarm starts with a Spotify playlist, while my last alarm reads me the top five news stories for the day. This is the sign that I absolutely must get up and start my day. Lucky for me, my dogs are not early birds either, so we all get up at the same time.  

As I make my five-second commute to the living room, I tell my wife Lucy, who has been up since 6:30, “Good morning!” as I walk past her office door. While I let the dogs outside, I spend a few minutes soaking up some California sun before I get ready for the day. 

Most days my meetings start at 9 am and are back-to-back for a few hours, so I prep for everything the day before. Recently, some colleagues and I presented a workshop, “Connecting Money to Mission,” at the South LA Innovation Collaborative to Impact Homelessness’ monthly Knowledge Lab. The goals of the workshop were: to support nonprofit leaders as they develop and use financial information to inform challenging  decisions; to help them better communicate financial information to supporters, funders, and board members; and to familiarize participants with the range of services available through NFF. I am managing this two-year project, and it’s been one of my favorite projects since I joined NFF. 

My wife and I try to align our schedules so we can have lunch together at our outdoor dining table. I am a huge fan of sweet potatoes, so today I asked her to experiment with making sweet potato tacos. 

What I love so much about working at NFF is that every day is different. I get the opportunity to collaborate with a variety of different-sized organizations in different regions, from Hawaii to New York, that touch on various social issues and sectors. Today, my early afternoon is a combination of internal meetings with my team and external meetings with clients. After my meetings wrap up, I start working on a final report with a few of my colleagues. The report will lift up key themes from two grantee listening sessions that NFF hosted for a foundation. The listening sessions were designed to create space for grantees to share about their organization’s fiscal concerns, experiences with reserves, capitalization, and other related topics, so that the foundation’s program officers could learn how to better support grantees.  

After my last meeting of the day, I like to take a break to play Wordle, Dordle, Queerdle, Quordle, and Octordle. Or, I will step back outside to soak up a few more sun rays. 

 During the final hours of my day, I focus on my pieces of shared projects, plan for work that I am leading, and prep for the next day. Next week, I will be leading a workshop called “How to Calculate Working Capital Needs for Your Nonprofit” for a group of non-profit leaders in Hawaii. Today, I am finalizing the slides and my talking points. I’m also in the process of coordinating our Consulting Services team’s next monthly learning forum, which will focus on anti-racist budgeting. 

Pre-pandemic, I would take dance classes or yoga 3-4 times a week. I am trying to get back in the habit with a 30-day commitment to ride my Peloton or take one of the on-demand classes at least three times per week. If it isn’t too cold or windy, then the dogs and I will go for a walk around the neighborhood. When we get back, it’s dinner time – and this month, Lucy is in charge of dinner.  

In the last year, on top of being a pawrent, I have become a more invested plant parent. I love to check my plants for new growth! For Christmas, I got an AeroGarden, and my sister and I are currently competing to see who has the better green thumb at growing herbs. I have more dill than I know what to do with! I keep googling food and drinks that I can make with dill.  

After dinner, I usually work on my next home improvement project or unpack a couple of boxes. Then, it’s my favorite time of day … couch time!! I spend the last hours watching my beloved reality shows. In rotation right now are Love After Lockup, Married At First Sight, and 90 Day Fiancé!