Nearly 90% of Nonprofit Leaders Worry About Burnout

UTEC, which helps young people who have had run-ins with the justice system, is coping with a loss of $2 million in federal funding. (UTEC, Inc.)

“As you can imagine, this work is pretty stressful for folks, day in, day out, working with young adults that have so many different challenges and just showing up for them, 24-7 many times,” Croteau said. “We’re doing our best to make sure that the funding climate doesn’t impact their sense of stability here, but it can be a challenge for certain.”

-Gregg Croteau, UTEC CEO quoted in the Chronicle of Philanthropy

By Barbara Frye, Contributor

MEND NJ, which provides fresh food for those in need in Essex County, N.J., saw demand for food spike during the pandemic, and the need hasn’t abated. But back then, an influx of federal funds helped prop up the group and other nonprofits around the country. Now groups are suffering from rollbacks of federal funding, attacks from government agencies, and unpredictable policies, all while struggling to address high demand for services.  

Last year, when the Trump administration ended a pandemic-era program that paid farmers to donate their produce to local food charities, MEND NJ nearly lost a reliable and important source of fresh food. The group was able to salvage the arrangement thanks only to a corporate donation.

MEND NJ employees also had to pivot when the administration changed eligibility requirements for the federal SNAP, or food stamp, program. They put together a guide to the changes and a list of resources in multiple languages and hosted a community briefing.

“A director of programming was previously overseeing just that and now has turned into this kind of community outreach and advocacy type role because everything is changing so quickly,” said Robin Peacock, the group’s executive director.

Employees throughout the organization are juggling an increasing number of responsibilities and spending more time on fundraising to fill gaps and address needs.

“The steady state of constant stress is a tough place to be,” Peacock said.

Peacock’s experience is increasingly common, according to the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s annual State of Nonprofits survey. Nearly all of the 370 respondents said burnout was affecting their staff. Eighty-nine percent of the nonprofit leaders had some concern about their own burnout, with 46 percent saying they were very concerned, up from 29 percent the previous year.

“Nonprofits are continuing to serve communities with immense dedication despite extraordinary challenges, but that sustained pressure comes at a real human cost to nonprofit staff and leaders,” said Kara Young Ponder, a vice president of the National Council of Nonprofits.

For rank-and-file workers, burnout, a perpetual issue at nonprofits, is an even worse problem than it used to be, Amy Chin-Lai president of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, wrote in an email. “The constant barrage of layoffs and political threats has created a level of instability we genuinely aren’t used to seeing,” she wrote.

Funding Cuts Fuel the Cycle of Burnout

Last year UTEC, a nonprofit in Lowell, Mass., that helps young people who have been incarcerated or have had some other run-in with the justice system, lost $2 million of its $16 million budget when the Justice Department ended community violence-reduction grants. Other funders have stepped up, but they are no substitute for long-term government support, CEO Gregg Croteau said.

Last year was the first in the organization’s 27 years that it has not added positions, and the coming budget will be the first to include no federal funding. Plans to expand some of UTEC’s programs are on hold.

Croteau said UTEC has not cut any services, and he stopped short of saying his staff is taking on more work. But he said the funding uncertainty, especially as they watch other nonprofits shut down, has them on edge. Adding to the stress, his employees have seen clients, friends, and family members get caught up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

“As you can imagine, this work is pretty stressful for folks, day in, day out, working with young adults that have so many different challenges and just showing up for them, 24-7 many times,” Croteau said. “We’re doing our best to make sure that the funding climate doesn’t impact their sense of stability here, but it can be a challenge for certain.”

Chin-Lai, the union president, said every issue the union negotiates these days is linked to burnout — wages high enough that nonprofit workers don’t need to take second jobs, health care and time off to allow them to recover, and workload protections that keep them from being buried in work when colleagues are laid off.

Where Are the Foundations?

Adding to the anxiety, and limiting nonprofits’ ability to help their burned-out staff, is a sense among nonprofit leaders that grant makers are in retreat. More than 40 percent of the nonprofit leaders surveyed by the CEP said their organizations had lost some foundation funding.

Peacock, of MEND NJ, said the group’s foundation supporters are still showing up, but the funds are slower in coming because those grant makers are poring over more funding requests than they have received in the past.

Bucking the tide has been the MacArthur Foundation, which has stepped up its giving, especially in areas where federal funding has ebbed.

“I think we’re in the midst of a full-blown crisis in the sector, and I think that we need to take it very seriously as the funders of many of the organizations that are experiencing this,” MacArthur president John Palfrey said.

The issue of burnout has been on the foundation’s radar for some time. Amid the federal funding cuts last year, MacArthur officials reached out to their grantees to better understand the challenges they faced.  

Palfrey said it was a profound experience. The staff heard that many groups had fewer resources available to address increasing demands for services, the same problems the CEP survey identified. To address this and other issues, MacArthur has been shifting more of its grants to general operating support. Palfrey said his and other foundations need to make it clear to grantees that employee well-being is a priority, right alongside productivity.

“One of the things that we can do as funders, he said, “is to give permission for [general operating support] to support the sustainability of people and organizations in the sector.”

Because the needs of organizations vary widely, the National Council of Nonprofits launched its Thrive program, which provides micro grants of $500 per employee to nonprofits to use for staff well-being. Groups have spent it on massages, days off, museum days, team-building exercises, and more efficient or comfortable workplaces, among other things.

“We’ve certainly tried to use Thrive to make the case more broadly that this type of foundation funding and other support for organizational well-being shouldn’t be an afterthought or the nice thing that comes after all the other needs are met, Ponder said. “It’s part and parcel of being able to support nonprofit missions.”

A Pizza Party Won’t Solve the Problem

Employers have had a range of responses to staff burnout. UTEC, for example, has tried to address problems with a volunteer staff wellness committee whose ideas have included half-days off and in-house health and fitness activities. The organization also pays for employee counseling sessions.

At MEND NJ, employees are keeping closer tabs on one another than they might have in the past, trying to make sure that those who need to can step away when it gets to be too much. “We’re constantly checking in, in a way that maybe we weren’t when I started this job 10 years ago. It was just like, ‘Here’s the work, go do it.’” Peacock said. “There wasn’t this kind of wellness piece to it.”

Burnout is practically woven into the culture of contemporary nonprofits, where low pay and long hours are the norm and workers who are passionate about the mission do what it takes to accomplish it. Though some employers recognize the problem, their solutions often fall short, Chin-Lai said.

“Some see the concern and think a pizza party will solve burnout,” she wrote. “What we actually need them to do is fill vacancies and better distribute workloads, be transparent with their staff about challenges, and live the values they preach. Many workplaces are doing this — they are granting more personal days and PTO, improving hybrid and remote work options, and absorbing rising health care costs. Nonprofits that do this right will retain great workers.”

Correction: A previous version of this article said nearly all of the 368 respondents said burnout was affecting their staff. It should have said 370 respondents.

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