Oh great, another article about nonprofits and how much they need money (we do!), all the amazing work they do, or some horrible news that will ruin your day. Not this time!
I want to talk about the people doing the hard work, and the emotional toll that direct nonprofit service takes on them. Executive directors, managers, development staff, case managers and supervisors all work with people, the people we meet may be terrified of test results, hungry, exhausted, escaping abuse, facing homelessness or in absolute crisis. In that moment, we may be their hope. But what does the person doing the helping feel? I truly believe that if you work in nonprofit service, you have to have a caring heart. We want to change the world, fix injustices and see our missions thrive. But that comes at a cost.
Picture this. Prescott, 2026: You arrive at your office on a day like any other. You check your email and find a message from a mom. Her daughter got sick and spent a week at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Mom lost hours at work. Her husband was injured on the job. They fell behind on rent and are now facing eviction. You listen through her fearful tears and try to help. But there is no rental assistance funding. There is no affordable housing available. There is no family shelter where they can all stay together. So instead of offering a solution, you give her tips on where her family might safely park their car if they become homeless.
The next call is from a senior who dedicated his career to teaching high school. His health is failing, and his condition may be terminal. He needs to know where to get a food box. He and his cat have nothing to eat because every dollar left from his Social Security check went toward rent. You give him the name of the closest food bank and wish him well. But you wonder: What happens next month?
Then the shelter opens.
Like most nights, more people need a place to sleep than there are beds. Tough decisions have to be made about who stays and who goes. You try to feed everyone. You hand out water, blankets, anything that might help them. If we're being truthful, sometimes we do those little things because they make us feel a little better, too.
These scenarios don’t happen every day. We have good days and bad ones. But during the quiet moments, we remember.
We think about the family living in the car, the patient waiting for test results that may change everything, the woman risking her life to leave an abuser, the people who didn’t get a shelter bed that night. Meanwhile, normal business must still happen. Paid time off needs approving. Budgets need reviewing. Someone worked overtime. There's a meeting at 2:00. Somehow, approving time off feels pretty trivial after you've spent the morning talking about human survival.
We talk a lot in this field about vicarious trauma, the emotional effect of hearing other people’s stories of trauma and crisis day after day. But there is another layer for nonprofit leaders. We don’t only carry pieces of our clients’ trauma. We often carry our teams’ emotions too. When you become the boss, you aren't just responsible for operations. Suddenly, everyone looks to you for everything. Staff, donors, volunteers, board members and community partners all need something. When you land a huge state contract, it’s an organizational victory. When everything goes to hell and you're staring directly into the eye of a poop storm, it’s the boss's problem, even if you were on vacation when it happened. Those are the days you might find the boss quietly crying in their office or sitting in the parking lot staring into the abyss.
Bruce Springsteen really overhyped being the boss. But here’s the positive spin — yes, I have one.
We aren’t alone. We have each other. We have donors, boards, volunteers, colleagues and community partners who help pull us out of what sometimes feels like the Bog of Eternal Stench. We call each other. We spend the first ten minutes of meetings venting. We strategize about how we’re all going to win the lottery. Occasionally we meet for a drink, or some drinks.
Our nonprofit community is unlike any other. We’re growing while somehow maintaining that small-town network of people who know one another, support one another and understand the weight of this work. The heart and soul of our nonprofit community is made up of some of the smartest, kindest and hardest-working people I’ve ever met. These jobs aren’t easy. They’re sometimes thankless. Sometimes we can’t fix the problem in front of us. But tomorrow we’ll show up again.
We choose to dedicate our lives to improving our world, which is convenient, because none of us got into this field for the money. Thank you for reading, and no, this isn’t about asking you for money. But since you're here
