Lessons From Stand-Up Comedy: How a Nonprofit Leader Hones Her Craft

Marnie Webb is chief executive of TechSoup, a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits access and adopt technology to meet their missions. Webb tells the Chronicle what she’s learned from more than three decades in tech development.

What do you wish more people understood about philanthropy?

That it often tackles problems that business and government have been unable to address.

How do you manage your time?

This is a place I get so geeky. Suffice it to say I keep a log of my days, and I look across it weekly to make sure it reflects my priorities and balances internal and external engagements. Also: making time for uninterrupted reading, thinking, and writing is very important to me. 

What’s a little-known fact about you?

I was part owner of a CD and record store in my late 20s.

What experiences helped you get where you are today?

I did stand-up comedy for a while in LA. In stand-up, a joke is only funny if people laugh. It’s up to you to do the work necessary — to engage in the craft — for people to laugh night after night at the same joke. That lesson, and the idea of work as craft, has shaped so much of the work I do.

What keeps you up at night?

The concern that the rift in the social compact may be getting too large to bridge. And the role we have — the big civil society “we” — in making sure that does not happen.

What trait do you most seek out when hiring?

Curiosity.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Smucker’s Uncrustables sandwiches.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity from written responses to questions.

—Edited by Emily Haynes

Correction: A previous version of this article referred to Tech Soup as a consult firm instead of a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits access and adopt technology.