Nonprofit Organizational Fitness and Health Are Not the Same

A few years ago I worked with an organization wanting to improve board engagement by creating a luxury “Ritz-Carlton experience” for its board of directors — a group of 70 people who met six times per year. One of my first questions was obvious, at least to me: “What resources — in budget and bodies — are you prepared to make available to accomplish the goal?”

“This shouldn’t require additional resources,” my contact said, “and we can add any additional responsibilities to the executive assistant’s portfolio.” 

Nonprofits and for-profits alike seek to mimic the fit behaviors of other organizations, and in doing so, they confuse those behaviors for organizational health. It’s sometimes easier to display fitness — the biceps of business. In social impact, these may be things like social media follower counts, visible marketing and even large budgets. Achieving these things may be markers of health, but what do they say about an organization’s culture and vitality?

There may be 50,000 social media followers. How many of those followers donate, share content and build community with — and on behalf of — the organization? There may be splashy, bright, shiny displays of press and media. How much of that media focuses on outcomes (impact) instead of outputs (numbers)? The budget may be big and increasing exponentially every year. Is the fundraising team large enough to sincerely sustain those resources, or are two staff positions that quit every 16 months consistently generating five (or more) people’s worth of revenue?

Over 21 years of managing staff and teams, I have watched wonderful people in wonderful organizations recoil or leave because of unhealthy environments. The turnover rate in nonprofits is higher than an all-industry average, 19% versus 12%, respectively. And even after something as jarring as a global health crisis, almost one-third of organizations (opens as a pdf) have made no change to their talent management strategies.

I pine for the day when nonprofits stop glorifying their fitness at the expense of their health, for two specific reasons. First, while fit organizations may be where people want to work, healthy organizations are where people want to stay. Second, when people stay, that’s when organizations are able to do real, big, transformative things for the communities they serve.

Case Studies of Leaders in Health

On the inside, we tout this field as one that is passionate and good, while on the outside only 20% of people (opens as a pdf) view our industry as trustworthy. To be fair, our sector is at least partially at fault for poor marks in health. We push aside self-care and psychological safety in an effort to achieve fit metrics (like big follower counts and hefty budgets). Instead of building truly vibrant organizations, we direct energy around making news headlines. But to what end? What do we have to show for it?

I find hope in some organizations doing healthy things, or trying to do healthy things. These organizations understand the benefit of a long-but-worthy road toward health.

Centre for Public Impact

On its journey to improve public life alongside governments, public servants and other changemakers, Centre for Public Impact has a very intentional philosophy with its own health and the health of its people: Flexibility with responsibility. While many organizations have been creating work-from-anywhere or unlimited-paid-time-off policies since 2020, Centre for Public Impact put serious thought into how it looks to be a flexible-yet-responsible organization. 

The nonprofit’s policy methodically covers work routines, paid time off, sick leave and myriad other issues. As an international organization, it thoughtfully includes various cultures and people. And beyond codifying all of these details, it also points to future dates when the policy will be next reviewed, demonstrating an ongoing commitment to health.

The policy is meant to “balance our own needs with the team's needs — to plan, to communicate, to come through for each other while also tending to the needs each of us has in our own lives,” Sara Beth Mueller, global director of people and culture at the Centre for Public Impact, said. 

In doing so it affirms responsibility in a really practical way, rather than the lack of gravity that often results from organizations attempting to implement flexible policies. The policy supports teammates in balancing “equitable access to taking time off… and how to negotiate saying no if someone's personal goals actually do conflict with the team's goals at a given point in time,” Mueller said.

At the end of the day, Mueller suggests this organization-wide work has been a boon. Current staff express appreciation for the approach and prospective employees count it as an appealing part of their job search. 

Downtown Boxing Gym

When I used to think about health and culture, I thought about large, traditional organizations—the 100-year old hospital, the university with a multibillion-dollar endowment. However, an organization like Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit makes it easy to reframe my perspective. 

“If you don’t pour into your people who serve other people, nothing else matters,” Jessica Hauser, executive director of Downtown Boxing Gym, said.

This permeates most, if not all, of Downtown Boxing Gym’s organizational decisions. When the organization was planning a major technology upgrade that would have brought everyone together using one back-end platform, it paused the process after realizing there were knowledge gaps. 

“We did not hire people for their email skills,” Hauser said jokingly, “so it would have been wrong to push something forward that only served one particular group.” 

This realization encouraged Downtown Boxing Gym to reflect for six months, regroup and ensure everyone could be brought along on the journey. And for those who question whether focusing on people pays off, look no further than the organization’s recent sustainability overhaul of its physical plant — 231 solar panels, insulation, a new HVAC system and 38 energy-efficient windows. This was also good for their bottom line as its culture inspired a donor to invest $3 million in the retrofit, which helped drop their monthly energy bills from $10,000 to $100.

BridgeYear

Youth is not always wasted on the young, as BridgeYear demonstrates. An organization devoted to bridging opportunities to non-traditional careers for high schoolers in Texas, BridgeYear is staffed by a team whose oldest member is 38. While age may be only a number, their youthfulness is important in demonstrating how an organization can be unencumbered by limited, age-old ways of doing business. 

Always looking to improve on the experience of the team, Carlee Morgan, director of strategy and operations at BridgeYear, invited organization-wide feedback through a team survey. Overwhelmingly, staffers indicated wanting meaningful connection during the workday, likely a response to pandemic-era distance. 

In response, BridgeYear began providing “Connection Cash” — $20 per month to all staff for workday outings that is meant to boost their engagement with other team members. Early on there was an overwhelming response with people using the funds to go for coffee and other treats with individuals on their teams and inter-departmentally, although uptake recently slowed. This inspired Morgan and senior management to re-engage the team to learn what’s next.

As a relatively young and new organization that was founded in 2016, BridgeYear leans into its ability to emerge as a superpower that allows the nonprofit to be nimble in responding to staff development.

Learning from Healthy Leaders

A few replicable behaviors are evident from looking at these organizations. But one thing must be acknowledged up front: The size and age of your organization should not prevent or deter health-building. Especially with emerging, start-up nonprofits, with the excitement of growth and early investments abound, it can be dangerously easy to say, “We don’t have time to worry about health and culture, we’ll get to that later when …” But “when” rarely ever comes, and when it does, there’s always another “later.”

Listen and Listen Again

Healthy organizations actively listen to their people. For these case-study nonprofits, their listening was intentional and purposeful. It was also ongoing, which is too often overlooked. Revisiting what you learn from earlier listening is incredibly meaningful — something I call “pentimentive listening,” borrowing from the painting technique (pentimento) where new art is painted over old art, and the older, deeper layers become visible as the newer layers wear over time. 

Consider small acts of listening that won’t overwhelm people’s already heavy workload, like beginning each one-to-one or team meeting with a “musing moment.” Also, acknowledge certain staff may not be comfortable giving feedback openly and make anonymous options, like Google Forms, available.

Act

After listening, healthy organizations make some decisions. I will tell you from experience, staff hate nothing more than to have their ideas heard by management only to land in the abyss of inaction. Both Downtown Boxing Gym’s and BridgeYear’s intentional decisions to stop and change course are perfect examples of when pentimentive listening leads to an action — even (and especially) if that action is a strategic pause.

Chop

Finally, building on the notion of decisions, healthy organizations let things go. One exercise I suggest is called chopping block, which acknowledges one fundamental truth: We are all doing too much. Chopping block asks us to consider whether our efforts right now are actually right. 

Some will respond by saying, “Yes! Because if we don’t do it, who will? And if it doesn’t happen, our stakeholders will suffer.” My response is always the same, affirming that if we don’t pause, pull back and/or recalibrate, this important work won’t get done at all, and then everybody suffers. Review everything, pause what you can, and chop what you must. 

While not a nonprofiteer, Virgin’s Richard Branson has said, “If the person who works at your company is 100% proud of the job they’re doing… they’re gonna be happy and therefore the customer will have a nice experience.” I believe 2024 is the Year of the Employee, and if we can lean into creating and sustaining healthy spaces for them in nonprofits, the benefits will ripple out.

Editor’s Note: Evan Wildstein predicted the talent retention crisis will be top of mind for nonprofits in NonProfit PRO’s “40 Nonprofit Trends for 2024” resource. Download the nonprofit trends resource to read his prediction, as well as 39 others from nonprofit thought leaders. 

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.