Nonprofit Challenges: Limited Funding

Workhorses will often be punished with a heavier load than the other employees in any given company or organization because they have the reputation of getting things done. This highlights the very real (and truly exasperating) fact that the people who get things done are very often punished for their efficiency by getting work redistributed to them from people who are not efficient. So not only does the high producer (who planned in advance and hit their deliverables) get slapped with more work, but they inevitably also get slapped with other things. Like more stress, as the new tasks being transferred to them are usually in a chaotic state and usually right up against a deadline.

This punishment for good work is a toxicity that bleeds out more high-quality staff per year than anything else. Yet, the leadership of these companies and organizations never seem to learn from mistakes, replicating the damaging behavior repeatedly.

This is not unlike the nonprofit’s relationship with its employees.

For reasons I will never understand (having worked most of my life in/with nonprofits), there seems to be an unwritten agreement that it is totally appropriate and ethical to dump 5 different positions on one person, give them crappy pay, somehow expect it to be that way, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it, “because that is what working in the nonprofit sector means.”

Despite what the average Board or Executive Director of a nonprofit might think, people can’t afford to work for minimum wage in 5 job roles, running fundraisers or soup kitchens at all hours, and paying bills on minimum wage. These are professional, hard-working people, most of whom are still paying back student loans and trying to do all the things adults tend to want to do in society. Basic things, like have families, buy a place to live, and occasionally (shock and awe) take a week’s vacation from time to time without coming back to complete mayhem and an uncovered desk directly after.

Much is put towards the excuse of limited funding when we talk nonprofit, and it is true, they do struggle to thrive in many ways, but then, they are frequently also at least partially to blame for it.

For example:

• Growing beyond their means without the capacity or time to build supports first
• Overextending themselves in too many directions instead of placing a focus on the service and opportunities the organization provides
• Lacking savvy grant writing help
• Having a sluggish and unresponsive Board
• And more

I once worked with a nonprofit specializing in financial counseling whose goals were to get client employment help to land sustaining jobs at an hourly wage that employees of the nonprofit didn’t receive. There is something terribly wrong with the ethics an organization that underpays you so poorly that you would qualify for the benefits the organization provides, only you aren’t allowed to use them, because that would be embarrassing to report to the donor base.

We need to stop punishing the workhorses who work for the social good with these mistreatments of overwork and underpay as if it were something reasonable, with the idea that “it’s their own problem if they give up the private sector to work here.”

Instead, we need to treat nonprofit employees with the respect that their expertise and heart for community work deserves. We need to stop excusing the nonprofit sector from providing a proper desk and chair, a proper workload, and a proper wage for the service they provide. Our nonprofit organizations need to seek more funding, more alliances, and work harder to support the troops on the ground who are working to better our community. We need to consider scaling back and placing focus where it is most needed. Bringing in, training, and using volunteers to help reallocate the workloads. Lighting a fire under our sluggish Boards and reinvesting in the purpose we are meant to serve--keeping in mind that the employees working for our nonprofits are members of the community we serve, too.

Let’s stop making excuses and start troubleshooting. Nonprofits thrive at finding solutions to problems and helping people through crises. It’s time we start working on building a healthy, sustainable work-life balance for our own team.

The cobbler’s family needs shoes too.