Fund the People’s Post

🔥 Burning Hot Reading List: All the blog posts on new CEP research about nonprofit burnout and funder understanding, concern, and response (or lack thereof) of this crisis in the nonprofit workforce. Posts are by Center for Effective Philanthropy staff and a variety of guest writers. The first two are research summaries by some of the report authors. These are followed by l reaction pieces from across the field. We appreciate CEP for inviting Fund the People and our CEO Rusty Stahl to be among these guest authors, and that our work is offered as a resource for funders in the report materials. THE BLOG POSTS: 1. This Year’s State of Nonprofits Highlights Mounting Concern About Burnout. By Christina Im Senior Research Analyst, and Seara Grundhoefer, Research Analyst, CEP https://lnkd.in/euGXsbBg 2. Foundations Are Concerned About Nonprofit Staff Burnout, Too. By Seara Grundhoefer, Research Analyst, Center for Effective Philanthropy https://lnkd.in/eDp2P5YZ 3. To Ensure Nonprofit Well-Being, Invest in Wages, Workload, and Working Conditions. By Rusty Stahl, Founder, President & CEO, Fund the People https://lnkd.in/e-wFa79K 4. Enhancing Grantee Well-Being Leads to Long-Term Impact. By Linda Grdina, Research Elder, The Wellbeing Project https://lnkd.in/erFMMEcH 5. Funders: Let’s Stop Making Nonprofits Choose Between Balanced Budgets and Burnout. By Jamie Allison, Executive Director, Walter & Elise Haas Fund https://lnkd.in/eDfGhtmG 6. Adopting a Mental Health Mindset Will Help Both Funders and Nonprofits Thrive. By Elizabeth Brown, Managing Director, Mental Health and Well-Being, Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation https://lnkd.in/efEjg73n 7. Let’s Go Beyond ‘One Foundation’: The Promise of Changing Practices in Philanthropy. By Claire Poelking, Program Officer, MacArthur Foundation You can find all these posts and lots more on them CEP blog: https://cep.org/blog/ THE RESEARCH REPORTS: Here are links to the two studies to which all these blog posts are a response: 1. State of Nonprofits 2024: What Funders Need to Know. By Christina Im, Seara Grundhoefer, and Elisha Smith Arrillaga, Ph.D., Vice President of Research, Center for Effective Philanthropy https://lnkd.in/euVJMFhi 2. How Foundations are Supporting Grantee Staff Well-Being. By the Center for Effective Philanthropy https://lnkd.in/eCZdyB2g

Check out this brief profile of the merger of Staffing the Mission into Fund the People. We’ve experienced a few logistical and organizational culture bumps and misunderstandings (and will likely have more) in the past eight months since merging. But as we explore the possibilities and design our merged effort, it gets more and more exciting!

Happy Monday! What do you all think? Did the “elephant in the zoom” catch its own tail? Did the mission-mirroring crack the looking glass? What’s to be done?!

NEA’s Staff Union Is on Strike—Halting NEA’s Biggest Annual Gathering https://lnkd.in/eSg3fTtX The staff of a union strikes against their own union. Stopping their convention. Cancelling a speech to their members from the U.S. president. Halting the union’s political agenda. The workers are striking to be treated according to “union values” by the management of their union-employer. They says they’ve been treated poorly and unfairly by the union itself in their own contract bargaining. This could be interpreted as a continuation or evolution of a dynamic described in the 2022 article, “Elephant in the Zoom: Meltdowns have brought progressive advocacy groups to a standstill at a critical moment in world history” (The Intercept, June 2022). https://lnkd.in/gxCfvVQW It could also be interpreted as a continuation of “mission-mirroring”, where values-based nonprofits fall into the trap of creating internally the very problems they seek to address externally in the world through their missions. (David Allyn, “Mission Mirroring: Understanding Conflict in Nonprofit Organizations”, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, June 2010). https://lnkd.in/e8t-PnVW Some of the questions this brings to mind for us in terms of investing in the nonprofit workforce…. — How can organizing and empowerment of workers in nonprofits strengthen their organizations, rather than weaken them? — How can unionizing and other internal change efforts within nonprofits not use an us versus them framing that pits “workers” against “bosses”? — How can nonprofit c-suite leaders do a better job of listening, learning, and responding to their staff about workplace conditions? And explaining the limitations under which they operate? — How can funders help grantee executives to use grant funds to proactively invest in the workforce, to address the needs of nonprofit workers intentionally and in a timely fashion, so that they can “live their values” and avoid harmful conflict? What questions does it raise for you? Tell us in the comments.

“Making the Federal Government an Employer of Choice for Early Career Professionals.” A new online resource for federal gov’t agencies from the Partnership for Public Service and Accenture. Sharing because some of it may be applicable to nonprofits! Also sharing to ask some questions: — Who is creating resources like this to help the nonprofit sector rethink and reboot how we recruit new talent?! — Given the current crises of nonprofit burnout and worker shortages, and the chronic deficit of investment in the nonprofit workforce, how can we “go on the offensive” to identify and cultivate great folks to join our ranks? — How do we make our organizations into workplaces that people want to join, and have the financial and other incentives to join? If you know of good resources or sources, please share (with links if possible) in the comments! #FundThePeople #StaffingTheMission #TalentJustice #FundingThatWorks https://lnkd.in/etz9JhVs