This is quite depressing and very familiar. The expectations both in terms of resources and leadership are largely broken. Board members and donors (with some exceptions) do not understand the hoops that nonprofit executives are jumping through just to make shit work. They do not understand the nonprofit labor market. They do not understand the absolute organization murdering nature of staff turnover. And they in many cases think that people and wages are somehow plentiful and cheap.
I am a consultant and contractor on a very narrow area of nonprofits for just this reason. Absolutely the only way I would go back in-house now is if it was small nonprofit with limited goals and the board was largely my friends.
Everyday I see things coming out of boards that I find astonishing in their short-sightedness or cruelty to the staff. They don’t know they are doing it but they absolutely are. And then they are SHOCKED when everyone leaves for the private sector or another nonprofit.
This article surprises me because it leans into the idea that somehow becoming one with the mission will make everything better. “OH look at the good we are doing, ah, that feels better.”
No it doesn’t. It’s still a freaking job, innit? Retention, the wage market, benefits, culture, and your competition for employees all matter. And you’re competing against the for-profit world. No matter how much you don’t like it, you are. Get over it. And if you pretend you don’t, prepare to retrain again and again and again. And accomplish next to nothing.
Every time I hear some nonprofit executive say “Well, nonprofits are different…” I know the next few sentences are going to make want to scream and/or cry. Go ahead and try to operate that way.
I should expand on this rant and see if it gets back to my clients.
Carl Oberg 