Charitable Burnout

The nonprofit sector is made up of 74 percent women, but men tend to fill organizations' highest ranks. Cristen and Caroline donate an episode to nonprofit's not-so-generous gender dynamics and burnout-prone working conditions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mob Never told you. From how stupp
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about nonprofit
work and philanthropy, partly because as we're recording, this tis

(00:25):
the season the holidays are upon us, holiday giving. Not
to mention that Caroline and I both have personal experience
in the nonprofit space and we're not making a joke
about podcasting. Yeah know. I actually had two back to
back nonprofit jobs before I came here, and both were
super women dominated. Um, we didn't have a whole lot

(00:48):
of dudes. And at both uh, the upper echelons were
also stocked with bunches of women, which, as we will
get into, not to spoil the whole show, but um
that that can be pretty rare for for bigger nonprofits
that are in charge of lots and lots of millions
and millions of dollars. So my nonprofit job was my

(01:11):
very first job out of college because in a quintessentially
millennial way, I decided that if I was going to
work forty hours a week, then it should be for
the betterment of humanity and everyone out there who works
in a nonprofit. Just laughed at you saying forty hours
a week, but continue right, uh? And I was fortunately

(01:38):
working with a terrific team of people, and um my
boss really took me under his wing and was such
a kind mentor. And oh man, I could tell you
so many stories about him. He's just fabulous and if
he's listening, hello, magnus. But I was quickly introduced to

(01:59):
all of the stereotypical things that come along with a
nonprofit world, Like you said, working forty plus hours a week,
particularly around annual giving time, around our annual gala um,
and also making very little money at it. I mean,
granted I was freshly out of college, but compared to

(02:22):
starting salaries at for profit jobs, it was it was
tough to live on in Atlanta. Well, and we put
out a call on Facebook not too long ago for
ideas of topics to cover, and we heard from listeners
who really wanted us to cover this topic, specifically what
you're talking about when it comes to money and the

(02:45):
expectation that because you are young, uh, and you are
passionate about a cause, that you will be okay with
making less money, working crazy hours because of your love
for the phil in the blank, whatever it is that
your your nonprofit is supporting. And a lot of our

(03:05):
our listeners who sent in request were saying like, yeah,
we love what we do, but I mean we have
to live as well. It's a recipe for burnout a
lot of times. Totally. I am curious to know whether
you and your your back to back nonprofit jobs, whether
you were intending to join a nonprofit, whether you were
specifically seeking one out, or if it's just sort of

(03:29):
what fell in your lap, because there's some terrific nonprofits
around here. Yeah. I actually, um, the first nonprofit I
wound up at was a total accident. Um. But when
I had worked at the newspaper, frequently I would tell
one of my managers that, like, I've got to get
out of here. I mean, for so many reasons, but
I've got to get out of here. I want work

(03:51):
that has meaning to it. Because again, it's not like
I was a reporter saving the world, right. I was
a copy editor. I was behind the scenes and that's
where it was comfortable. But I really wasn't helping anyone
other than to correct grammar, which is really important, you guys.
But it's important. It's not the same thing as working
directly with people, helping people, raising money whatever, whatever the

(04:12):
case maybe um, and so I knew that just like you,
quintessential millennial who like wants to be involved, wants to help,
has stars in our eyes. UM, I knew I wanted
to get involved with some type of nonprofit. But I
also was in the thick of the recession when I
was at the newspaper. And as we'll touch on a

(04:34):
little bit later, that's how a lot of people in
our generation have wound up in nonprofits, especially right out
of college, because there were obviously during the recession, so
many layoffs, so many companies shrank, and what you would
see around that time about you know, not quite ten
years ago, was a lot of young people taking the

(04:57):
jobs they could get, and a lot of those ended
up being at nonprofits. So you had back to back ones. Though,
did you ever feel in your time, especially because we
don't have to name them, um, but they were very
different experiences and very different types of places with either
of them, did you feel like you were making did

(05:20):
you feel like there was take home value on top
of your paycheck of the good feeling supporting the cause
that your nonprofit was all about not really no. UM. Well,
the first nonprofit was not the kind where you are
necessarily helping anyone, like a social enterprise. It was, yes,

(05:41):
it was. It was not going out and directly helping people. UM.
The second nonprofit I worked at was a massive, massive,
massive company and it did not feel like a nonprofit,
you know. UM. In this political season, you hear people
referred to as Rhinos Republicans the name only, and I
often felt that I worked at an in Pino nonprofit

(06:05):
name only because all of the higher ups did drive
the BMWs and the Mercedes is is is and UM
had all of the designer clothes and bags. And I
would never begrudge anyone that kind of stuff if if
they can afford it, and that's what they choose to do.
But the only time I truly felt that I connected
with the people that we were working for was when

(06:27):
I actually did interviews and wrote articles about the families
and the children. UM. And then that was rewarding because
you'd end up speaking with someone on the phone for
two hours and crying with them because their child survived cancer,
you know, so a little bit of a different situation.
And I think that the larger as we're going to
talk about the larger of a nonprofit budget that you get,

(06:49):
the wider of a gap that you see between the
entry level coordinators, say UM, who are freshly out of
college like I was, and your CEO who is winding
and dining with wealthy people, partly because that's the way
that you drum up money. UM, but there are also,
you know, questionable issues around that, especially when you look

(07:11):
at the gender breakdown of the nonprofit sector and it
is so heavily female dominated up until you get to
the upper management where you do start making more money.
And UM, I even even as someone who had not
much but some experience in the nonprofit world, to kind

(07:35):
of take all of our research in and contextualize that
gender dynamic within all these issues of burnout and low
pay and working however many hours a week that you
have to UM and essentially being taken for granted sometimes
and it being considered women's work because the charity UH

(07:58):
is really just sturbing, honestly. And before we get into
the darker issues of the nonprofit world, why don't we
start out with a little bit of history. Yeah, and
without going all the way back to the seventeenth century,
because trust me, I could invite me to a party,
I'll tell you all about it. UM. But let's start

(08:22):
in the nineteenth century, which is a very good place
to start, because that's when you see the progressive air right.
You start to see more and more people concerned with
social issues, health and education issues, and you've got an
explosion in these things called voluntary associations. And that's everything
from the Freemasons to UH types of organizations that we've

(08:44):
talked about on the podcast before called women's clubs. Basically,
UH these were everything from social organizations to get together
to help people, um, get into politics, to having marginalized
groups get together to help one another. And if you
think about all of these forces that are happening in
the United States around this time, with as you say,

(09:07):
you have an influx of immigration, industrialization, urbanization, the expansion
of education UM, and also just moral reform UM. You
might have groups like the Daughters of Temperance who were
focused on drunkenness, public drunkenness UM. And then of course

(09:29):
around the Prohibition era, you would have a lot of
women involved in that UM. With suffrage, you have the
rise of groups like the League of Women Voters and
then when it comes to education, you see women getting
together and forming clubs that ran daycares and across the board.
If you look at the focus of women's nonprofit and

(09:52):
charitable work, it tends to focus on education, child care,
and women's issues, which may sense I mean, because they
are we're focusing on usually the underserved. Yeah, and I
mean the percolation of all of these nonprofit organizations and

(10:12):
voluntary associations that that started happening in the progressive era
really would end up informing um nonprofit and activist work
that we would see in the nineteen sixties, fifties, sixties,
and even today because you would see the establishment of
civil rights nonprofits like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in

(10:33):
double a CP, Congress of Racially Quality Student Non Violent
Coordinating Committee UM and their activism and advocating directly contributed
to the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. You
also see groups like Now and Narrow launch disability rights
groups like the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and
United Cerebral Palsy. All of these groups, a lot of

(10:54):
which still exist, and they're following in the footsteps of
these people who were coming together starting in the mid
to late nineteenth century. UM. And you know, Kristen mentioned
the issue of immigration also in the context of the time,
you have to think about the fact that we had

(11:14):
in this country a lot of Roman, Catholic, German and
Irish immigrants who brought their traditions of voluntary action and
charitable groups to this country, and they, UH, in their
neighborhoods would launch what one source referred to as a
benevolent empire of schools, orphanages, temperance societies, and social welfare

(11:34):
groups to help their communities and help look out for
each other. Although, of course, like that's not just a
European import if you look at Native American groups and
cultures around the world. I think that's a natural human
impulse a lot of times for us to get together
and help out where perhaps more traditional institutions or government

(12:00):
leave off exactly exactly, um, which is why you see
among marginalized communities, among immigrant communities, and among women, uh,
what one source referred to as parallel power structures. You know,
the a lot of these people were shut out of
the traditional you know, white male power structures of the day.

(12:21):
A lot of the for profit companies or just being
able to work at all, and so you have a
lot of these sort of parallel employment and activism tracks
running alongside the main economy. Yeah, and it's it's interesting
to see how women use this kind of work to
sidestep a lot of those even just legalities like uh,

(12:44):
married women not being allowed to own any property or
any money so um, before that became illegal. Um. You
see wealthier women in particular being really drawn to forming
charitable organizations because they could actually control the money in
those situations, or kind of on the flip side of that,

(13:06):
a lot of even earlier charitable work by women centers
around religious groups and nunneries because again that's the only
way that they can have more more independence and say
is by essentially like getting away from dudes, except for
like god, dude, thank god the bicycle was invented right

(13:29):
right right away, from those dudes to your nonprofit work,
to your convent. But you also see during this time too,
it's not just that more groups are emerging, it's that
the existing groups and the new nonprofits start becoming more organized.
They develop uh national level organizations with state and local chapters.

(13:49):
You know, you especially see the speaking of churches, you
really see this with different Christian denominations. Um. And someone
who really really changed the non profit game, not surprisingly
in the eighteen eighties was super professionally wealthy dude Andrew Carnegie.
And um, he flipped the script right. So he criticized

(14:13):
traditional charity, saying that it only responded to suffering rather
than addressing the causes of poverty. And I'm like, yes, yes,
that's a great attitude. We should be helping people and
meeting them where they are. Oh, but he felt that
it was because a lot of charitable giving only work
to encourage the slothful, the drunken, and the unworthy. So

(14:33):
that sounds a lot like our podcast a while back
on welfare and those progressive era concepts of bootstrapping and
moralizing poverty the deserving port right exactly. And and I
bring up Carnegie not because we want to dedicate a
whole podcast to him, um, but more because it is

(14:54):
important to note that in the history of voluntary association's
charity and nonprofit, it took very very very wealthy men
like Carnegie, men who were making their millions off of
banking and railroads and things like that. Mining. Um, these
new booming industries in our country, the new giant billionaire

(15:19):
millionaire type people. It took them to sort of change
how nonprofits worked. And so it took a Carnegie or
a Rockefeller to launch these foundations. And of course the
foundations were meant to help people. They were meant to
direct funds to the deserving poor or what have you,
arts organizations, education. Um. They were also a good way

(15:43):
to protect yourself from taxation, which would definitely come into
stark relief about thirty years after Carnegie started his foundation.
But you know, there's all these big men, these railroad guys,
these oil guys who were launching these early foundations. But
there are some really incredible early lady foundation starters. Many

(16:07):
of them have some problematic sides to them. They were
for sure products of their progressive era existence. Um. But
one that jumped out to me because she was literally
named alongside John D. Rockefeller, was Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage,

(16:28):
and she started a foundation to address social welfare issues. Now,
stage is super impressive, right. So, in addition to being
incredibly wealthy, she grew up in a very conservative family
and attended the Troy Female Seminary Because why wouldn't our
wealthy child from our wealthy family be educated. But the

(16:49):
side effect of going to the Troy Female Seminary was
that she was like, oh, women should have rights, because
that tends to happen when you educate your ladies. And
the Troy Email Seminary actually quietly advocated financial independence for
women through education. And so Margaret gets all of these
kookie ideas to try to do whatever she can to

(17:10):
reform women's role in society. And so she starts out
as a teacher once she graduates, which is of course
one of the only opportunities open to women to participate
in the mainstream economy. And in the meantime she's frequently volunteering.
She's like, so rich and has all of these doors
open to her in life, and she's left and right
turning down marriage proposal. She just wants to volunteer. And

(17:35):
she finally marries though this railroad baron Russell's sage at
the age of forty one. She's forty one or he's
forty one. She's forty one. Oh man, she's practically dead
according to uh women's age at that time. Practically yeah.
But here's the interesting thing about her, right, so, um,
she's married to Russell for forty years. He kicks the bucket,

(18:01):
leaving her the single largest taxpayer in the entire country
because she has so much freaking money. She has a
quote from after her husband died, and that is, I
feel like I can finally live. So it like eighty
years old, Marge launches the Russell Sage Foundation, uh, with

(18:23):
the equivalent of like a billion dollars today and it's
still active. Oh yeah, I remember the Russell Stage Foundation
from the nonprofit I worked for. Yeah, now, Stage, you
know I've said problematic a couple of times now. She
did advocate things that reminded me a lot of peace
laugh Philish Laughley conservative traditional femininity, even though she did

(18:45):
work outside the home um and was big on the
idea of women earning their way. Um. She also advocated
stripping lands from Native Americans to give to the whites.
So she was not without her face. Lins Well, hopefully
the Russell Stage Foundation continues to make up for her racism.

(19:06):
Let's just call it that, one would hope. Um. We
also have to shout out though a few other women
who use their money for good and this I mean
you've got to remember too that like this is such
a new thing of women being able to kind of
throw their philanthropic weight around. And in the mid nineteenth century,
if we head over to Hawaii, Yes, Hawaii, Hello Hawaiian listeners.

(19:30):
I know you're out there, and I love your state,
as I say anytime we get to talk about Hawaii. So,
Bernice Howie Bishop was a Hawaiian noblewoman and philanthropist, and
she endowed schools that still exists. So I'm curious to
know if any Hawaiian listeners have heard of her. Um.
She was the leader in charitable organizations like the Stranger's

(19:53):
Friends Society, which helped sick travelers, which I could have
used when I was stuck a boat in China with
a horrible food poison a couple of years ago. And
she headed up the Women's Sewing Society, which provided clothes
for the poor. And there were a lot of similar
societies where women would get together and use their needlework

(20:15):
and handicrafts to make blankets or clothes or even during
the Civil War making bandages for people. So women, you know,
using the tools that they had, which a lot of
times were their hands, to make the world a better place. Yeah.
And then as now, it was so important to have

(20:36):
a great partner, right, And so when Bishop died of
breast cancer in the late eighteen eighties, her husband, who
was super rich, started the first bank in Hawaii, which
is still like the biggest bank in Hawaii. And I
hope that's what it's called, just the biggest bank in Hawaii.
Biggest bank in Hawaii. Um, it's so big. Uh. He

(20:56):
continued all of her philant therapy. He knew how important
helping children, educating children, providing for those less fortunate was,
and so he continued to help her educational foundation thrive,
which I just love it. Well, you also got to
love old Katherine Drexel. I mean, this woman was a

(21:21):
real powerhouse, both financially and also in the work that
she did. So she was around in the late nineteenth century,
and in case you were wondering, she was a Drexel
of the Philadelphia Directels. Very important. So, like we mentioned earlier,
one way that women found independence, ironically enough, was through

(21:43):
becoming a nun. And so Catherine becomes a nun and
then she establishes missions in the South and West United
States to educate and provide for African Americans and Native Americans.
She also establishes orphanages schools and vowed not to quote
undertake any work which would leave to the neglect or

(22:05):
abandonment of those groups. So it sounds like Drexel less
problematic than Sage. I think, yes, I think she is
generally less problematic than than a Margaret's Sage. And um, Basically,
her story is so fascinating because everybody in her life
was like, Katie, Katie, you're too rich, you're too beautiful.
You can't become a nun. You can't hide yourself away

(22:27):
like that. You've got to stay out in society. But
when she was younger and was able to travel because
her family was so disgustingly rich, the girl could travel
and she went out West and she saw what essentially
white people had done two American Indians, saw the poverty,
the alcoholism. She saw what was happening to African Americans

(22:50):
who were not provided for if they had either escaped
slavery or had been freed and had no basically communities
of support. And so she was basedly like I'm gonna
grow up and I'm going to help people however I can.
And she went to Rome. She got an audience with
the Pope and she's like, I need you to send
missionaries to America to help these neglected people. And the
Pope was like, UM, hold up a mirror, you are it.

(23:15):
And she was like, oh, well, I guess I should
become a nun. And so she actually ends up post
becoming a nun. She gets a grant from Drexel University
because that's her uncle's school that he established, and with
the money, she and her fellow sisters founded Xavier University
in New Orleans, which is the only historically black Catholic

(23:37):
college in the US. And she was an outspoken advocate
both vocally and with money UH for aid to reservation
schools and anti lynching efforts. And in the year two
thousand she became a saint. That's our second saint. On
the podcast, We've got St. Catherine Drexel and Saint poly Murray.

(23:59):
UH also shout out to New Orleans, Love your city.
Just this is just a geographical shoutout episode for me. Um.
I've always always wondered though about Xavier because I have
friends who went to Loyola and l SC, which I
knew was not in New Orleans but ban Rouge. But

(24:20):
nonetheless they're all right there, um, And I had no
idea about this history of Xavier because driving into the
city you always passed this like giant sign for it.
And now I want to go visit the campus. Um.
Around the same time, though, we have Mary Elizabeth Garrett,
and her story reminds me of monopoly because she was

(24:45):
the daughter of the B and O Railroad president. UM
and since she was born with vagina, she couldn't exactly
take over the family business, but with a massive inheritance,
she did me manage to establish a philanthropic group of
super rich ladies called the Friday Evening. Dude, Dude, I

(25:07):
totally want to start a band that's called like Caroline
in the Friday Evening because it just sounds cool that
around this time you've got all of these like smoky
dark men's clubs right where all of the boys are
getting together and helping each other succeed in the world. Well,
here's an old girls club, an old rich girls club. Well,

(25:27):
and think about our episode on uh International Women's Day
and the labor reform movement and how women well healed,
women like a Mary Elizabeth Garrett and her Friday Evening
friends would go out in their foes and fancy cars
and things, and would sort of buffer serve as a

(25:49):
barricade for all these um working class people who would
be striking for union rights and you know, doing what
they could because the police, of course, we're not going
to come after and arrest a Mary Elizabeth Garrett. UM.
So it is cool to see how women at this
time were Yes, they were born into massive wealth, but

(26:12):
you do have some of them who were using it
not just to buy fancy new dresses. Well, and what's
so wonderful? You know we mentioned that women and generally,
you know, communities who were marginalized had to create these
parallel or alternative power structures. And the thing that comes
with money is that you can get people to do

(26:33):
what you want. And if you have a progressive outlook,
frequently that can mean paying people to be inclusive. It
becomes in their best financial interest to no longer be jerks.
And so Garrett provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to
John's Hopkins University to help establish its medical school on

(26:58):
the condition that they admit women. Yes, that is the
way you use your influence. And there was a quote
from one of the higher ups at the medical school
from the time, and he said something along the lines
of I so enjoyed being bought. Uh, basically it worked

(27:18):
out for everyone. You get to have a prestigious medical
school and women get to be educated to be doctors. Now,
someone who was not born into wealth but who worked
her way up was Sarah Breedlove, better known as Madam C. J. Walker,
who in nineteen sixteen launched the Madam C. J. Walker

(27:40):
Benevolent Association. And in case you weren't familiar with Madam c. J. Walker,
she built a hair care empire um focusing on African
American women's hair, and in the process she became America's
first self made female million there um. But she also

(28:01):
knew that giving back and reinvesting in communities was good business,
so she was kind of setting up what would be
the predecessor to like corporate responsibility departments now at bigger
businesses and corporations. Yeah, she knew that she could help people,
and she felt that she had a responsibility to do so.

(28:22):
But she was not She was a smart cookie. Oh yeah, well,
and also knowing to the importance of investing in black
communities in particular, so with her Benevolent association. She trained
and employed women in the US, Caribbean and Central America
and just across the board. She was a huge philanthropist

(28:44):
and advocate for African Americans. And I mean it wasn't
only you know, uh, the importance of just investing in
communities in the return that you would get on that from,
you know, the the uplift, the general uplift, but also
some good pr you know, like she was. You would

(29:06):
imagine that someone who reinvented herself as a Madam C. J.
Walker neew the power of pr And at this point
we have to take a leap in time to look
at our modern nonprofit landscape, which we're gonna do when
we come right back from a quick break. So the

(29:35):
nonprofit world is really a product of our post World
War two society. More than ninety per cent of nonprofits
today have been created since the nineteen fifties, and really
the nonprofit sector that we're familiar with and kind of

(29:56):
how it runs more as a business dates only too
the nineteen seventies, along with the rise of NGOs or
non governmental organizations, and it is the fastest growing type
of organization in the world. How about that? Well, so
you know I mentioned earlier with Andrew Carnegie and foundations,

(30:18):
I said something along the lines of it's a good
way to avoid taxes. Well, the origins of that, and
I'll go through this kind of quickly so we can
get to the good gender stuff. Uh that that could
be the alternate name of our podcast, by the way,
good gender stuff or a bad gender stuff depending. So,
in the wake of the Great Depression and leading up

(30:39):
to World War Two, you've got FDR who's super steeply
progressive income and estate taxes prompted the very very wealthy
in this country to find ways to avoid taxation through
large scale charitable giving. I mean, you see foundations like Carnegiees,
but also like the Ford Foundation exploding, and and I

(31:02):
do not mean to say that our charitable foundations in
this country are in this world, are awful and have
terrible motives and things like that. Obviously, groups like the
Ford Foundation do incredible work. I'm simply giving you a
a little bit of an explainer as to why we
saw leading up to World War two sort of this explosion.

(31:23):
And post World War two you've got the massive growth
of government public sector subsidies of charitable giving, um, all
of these things are stimulating the growth of nonprofit enterprises
even more, and so by the seventies, a massive chunk
of nonprofit revenue was direct from the government, thanks to
grants and contracts and vouchers like the g I Bill.

(31:45):
So basically the impact of all of this is that
again you see a massive rise in nonprofit organizations because
essentially they're doing a lot of the work on the
ground that the government can or won't. They're almost like
contracting it out to a lot of these nonprofits to
handle a bunch of tasks. So in nineteen eighty Reagan

(32:09):
comes in in his president and he's like, whoa this.
The government is way too big. There's way too much spending,
and the line between public and private is way too blurry.
But you've got to keep in mind that nonprofits were
dependent on all this government money. So all of a
sudden you have these organizations becoming less responsive to community

(32:29):
and client needs because they have a lot of their
funding dry up from the government, and so they have
to become more business like and they have to bring
on more professional nonprofit managers to basically manage this newly
complicated funding environment. Oh gosh, and whenever we hear that
word professionalize, it usually means men in suits taking the

(32:53):
highest paying jobs. Yeah, that I mean, I think that
that's like an excellent point to lead us right off
the diving board and into the gender pool. Let's go,
let's cannon bolve right in, belly flop right right on
into this gender pool. So it should come as no
surprise to our fair listeners that women make up a
bulk of the nonprofit workforce. But did you know, I

(33:15):
didn't realize it was this high. That on average, women,
according to study, makeup on average sent of the nonprofit workforce.
And when you break break down those rank and file numbers,
it's really interesting. I didn't really expect this. But the
bigger the organization is and the more money it controls,

(33:36):
the fewer women percentage wise are in the organization. So
at smaller nonprofits, women are eighty two percent of the workforce.
At mid size groups there about seventy four. But when
you hit the big um nonprofits, the ones that control
like twenty five million plus, women make up just fifty

(33:56):
nine percent of the workforce. Still not a minority, but
still a lot less than those smaller nonprofit organizations. I
am so not surprised because it follows this general pattern
of money where smaller nonprofits basically that's not even Yeah,
I still have a smaller headcount, but we're really talking
about your budget. So at the teeny tiny nonprofits you

(34:21):
were not making often you might not even be making
a living wage, Whereas if you are working in a
massive nonprofit, it's possible to make decent money. And so
I would imagine that that entices more men into the ranks.
Not to say that, um, guys are only out for

(34:42):
you know, the money and not for the causes, but
I mean it just fits in with this broader pattern
that we see in the nonprofit sector and other sectors
like teaching. Well, you know, when you talk about the
higher ranks and people rising to the top, uh, fifty
seven per scent of women who are in the nonprofit

(35:02):
world do aspire to reach that CEO level. Um. And interestingly,
when you zero in on the eighteen to thirty four group,
that number jumps all the way up to seventy two.
Because we still have stars in our eyes and haven't
realized that it's just an old contact. Yeah, oh my god,
how did I double up my contacts? No? Wonder everything
looks like a hologram. Um. Yeah, that's exactly it, because

(35:26):
you stereotypically or or statistically perhaps have not reached that
burnout level yet. Um. And so when you dive into
why women want to be CEOs, particularly in the nonprofit world, uh, frankly,
I mean, one thing that should be so painfully obvious
is like, hello, they have role models and mentors. Just

(35:49):
by virtue of the fact that the industry as a
whole is so female dominated. You can easily see in
a lot of these nonprofits women who are running them
or at the top, or are managing things and in
control of stuff. Do you like how vague I'm being, Um,
But basically you have foot footsteps to walk in. Absolutely,
And you also have this perception of work life balance

(36:14):
because you know, we millennials, we love our flex time
and paid holidays. I was surprised though, to see that
nonprofits tend to offer longer vacation packages. That was was
not my experience, but um, it was not mine either.
People in the nonprofit world. Maybe there there, maybe, maybe

(36:36):
there are sectors within the nonprofit world because it is massive, obviously,
um that that might be the case. I would imagine though,
if you're in a midsized down to more of a
grassroots organization, there's very little time to take off vio.
I imagine you're wearing more hats right literally if you're
working in a hat and profit right, but both literally

(36:56):
and figuratively UM and of course a lot of those
perks though do frequently come at the expense of um
making a lower salary. But what an interesting side note
I came across is that, according to research, women in
the nonprofit realm who are over fifty five are way
more comfortable asking for raises compared with younger women. Not surprising,

(37:21):
but just an interesting side note that with experience and
burnout comes, basically the cajone is to be like, no,
you're you're going to pay me more money now? Well,
and it it might also be that there, uh, their
starry eyed dreams have worn off a bit because um

(37:42):
it is another millennial value, as I experience, to be
attracted to the nonprofit sector because you want to work
for a cause that you are passionate about. And thankfully
we are seeing universities developing degree lands for nonprofit management
and social entrepreneurship to outline more of a direct path.

(38:07):
But the problem is if you are starting out, or
even just not starting out, if you were still in
like an entry level position, because I know women that
I worked alongside at my nonprofity were there for years
and still making next to nothing. Um, you you get
into a cycle that is completely dependent on obviously donations

(38:29):
and foundations and very relevant to our recent recession, government funding.
And so during that time when a lot of budgets,
especially government funding, just dried up, you get locked in
the cycle of having no budget. But it's not like
the mission goes away and you have to in order

(38:49):
to apply for grants and to grow your nonprofit and
expand your mission. Those grantees and philanthropic organization and foundations
want to see the evidence of your work in action.
But if you don't have the money to do it,
then how are you going to do it? And so
what you do is you have employees who are doing

(39:11):
a lot for not a little, and you can get
away with that, so to speak, the most with younger employees,
right because it's the whole attitude that is especially prevalent
in the nonprofit world of paying your dues. You're young,
you're you are starry eyed, and we're going to take
advantage of you until we suck the soul out of

(39:31):
your body. There's just the expectation and nonprofit people, I
want to hear from you, if it's worse than some
areas better than others, if you've experienced this expectation, that
you will give a hundred and fifty percent until you
are just sucked dry and we'll step down now. I do,
I do want to say that it's it's not all terrible.

(39:53):
This is also reminding me of a little reunion that
I had with my old nonprofit UM managers and co
workers last year, and I was so thrilled to see
one of my I guess she was more she was
more of a manager when I was working with her,
and she's now working at a very household brand nonprofit

(40:18):
that all of you listening have heard of, and she
loves it. She loves her job so much, and part
of it is just what she's doing in donor relations
really fits her personality. But also, I mean, this woman
is just an embodiment of integrity and she has been
blown away by how well such a large organization is run,

(40:42):
so it can be done in the right way. But
also too, I mean, I wonder and nonprofit people again,
you know, we totally want to hear from you, because
I wonder if it is harder if you are a
mid sized to smaller organization, because someone who is like
an A list nonprofit, they're going to just have bigger budgets.

(41:03):
So I'm gonna wonder if there's more more room for
more salaries and perks, right and you and I read
an Atlantic article that discussed the Department of Labor updating
it's overtime rules UM and basically it doubled the threshold
for guaranteed overtime pay from twenty three thousand to just
over forty seven thousand dollars. And while there was a

(41:27):
lot of pushback from companies in general in our economy UM,
the article outlined how some of the largest protests came
from the nonprofit sector because they basically were like, what
you're doing in making us pay our employees more and
cover their overtime is you're taking money out of the

(41:47):
coffers to go support the cause. But there were plenty
of other nonprofits who stepped up to sign a letter
essentially saying, sure, but it is high time that we
valued our employees, the people who are out there doing
the work helping people. It's time that we show that

(42:07):
we do value them as well. Right, because what you're
talking about right there are your lowest paid workers. So
what the subtext of protesting that is saying like, hey,
we we need our lowest paid workers unpaid work. And
it's like, well, where is the line? You know? So
no wonder you tend to have high turnover in a

(42:29):
nonprofit sector and incredibly high rates of burnout, which also
um our episode with Emily Aries talking about bossed up
and burnout would probably be a good follow up to
to this one. And it makes sense that the women
who don't aspire to the CEO positions then most of

(42:50):
them blame it on the time commitment required and the
stress involved in leading a nonprofit. Not everybody wants to
take that on and I totally get it. But when
it comes to leadership, the CEO level stuff, the executive
director level stuff, um men are the ones who tend

(43:10):
to be at the tippity top of the very top.
And we see this in education, we see it in
library sciences, we see it in social work, which we
are doing an episode on next. Men make up seventy
nine percent of CEOs at large organizations with budgets over

(43:31):
twenty five million dollars sevent and compare that seventy nine
percent to the fact that women make up fifty nine
percent of the total workforce at those larger nonprofits. And
it's not just a salary issue. A poll found that
female nonprofit workers UH sense a gender bias. Yeah, forty

(43:56):
percent of women nonprofit workers think that their organization's favor
men over equally qualified women for those chief leadership positions.
And at those big twenty five million dollar plus UH
nonprofit organizations, of women said that their organizations didn't put
as much effort into identifying and soliciting affluent women as

(44:20):
it does men, which is really strange to me and
not something I've thought about, but it's it's a huge mistake. UH.
Deborah Mesh, who's the director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute
at Indiana University UH, says that when you when it
comes to people running these huge nonprofits looking at their donors,

(44:43):
women are not considered to be major donors or decision
makers the way men are. And she said, actually, guys,
women tend to be much more loyal donors than men,
and they are often better at asking their network. This
goes back to the Friday evening girls. Uh, they're often
much better at asking their network of friends for support.

(45:07):
And she said, we certainly see that in many studies
there are financial gains for organizations when more women are
on the board. So how many women are on the board.
Not enough women make up of nonprofit board members. But again,
when you get up to those boards of those humongous,

(45:28):
big budget nonprofits, that number drops to just a third
of the board members. Not to mention, those women CEOs
make twenty nine percent less than male CEOs at those
largest nonprofits, which is a larger salary gap than in
the general economy, although you see it shrink along with

(45:50):
the size of the organization because the smaller than nonprofit,
the more women that you have working there. And it
makes me kind of just want to take a nap
because it's very exhausted to see women's work so completely
and totally undervalued, even though without nonprofits our society would
fall apart. But here is the thing. There is a

(46:10):
major problem with gender, okay, but there's an even major
rarer problem with how few people of color are in
those power positions on those boards. And running nonprofits. Yeah.
Derwin DuBose and Ruth McCambridge both wrote about this over
at Nonprofit Quarterly, and they cited a fourteen board source

(46:35):
study that found that eighty percent of nonprofit board members
and nine of board chairs were white, as were eight
nine percent of the executives. Nearly a third of the
nonprofit boards they looked at lacked a single person of color.

(46:56):
And the thing is, those numbers really haven't changed much
in like many years, despite the fact that you have
so many nonprofits out there who say, yeah, diversity and
inclusivity are our core values. And they talked to people
of color who actually existed at some of these organizations,

(47:17):
and more than six so that they felt excluded from
power within their organization. In thirteen percent reported experiencing tokenism.
And as research from the Anti Casey Foundation highlighted, there
is a major disconnect between the lack of diversity and

(47:37):
who is running and controlling the purse strings of these
nonprofits and the fact that at least sixty percent of
nonprofits are directly serving people of color. So if you
aren't having that kind of representation on your boards, staff,
or leadership team, not to mention your volunteers, people of
color end up as passive re appience rather than active partners.

(48:03):
And oh, this is reminding me so much of Ray's
new show. My god, I was just gonna say that
on HBO. It's called Insecure, and she works at one
of these quintessentially white, smaller budget nonprofits and she's the
token black person because we're gonna help We're going to
help the urban youths. But really it crystallizes a lot

(48:26):
of this podcast. We could have just said alone and
welcome to the podcast. Go watch Insecure. I maybe he
should do it anyway. It's a really good show, but
it is, it's a fairly accurate representation. Yeah, and uh,
Tizianna Daring, who is a Boston College professor and the
former executive director of Harvard's Houser Center for Nonprofit Organization, says,
as a result, we miss assets that they value in

(48:49):
the community and run the risk of failing to understand
what quality is to those whom organizations seek to support
and under leverage passion for cha change because when you
look at nonprofit employees, not not the c e o s,
but when you look at the employees, only eight percent

(49:10):
of them are people of color. Uh, and that breaks
down to ten percent of them being African American, five
percent Hispanic or Latino, and just one percent Asian or
Pacific islander. So you are missing out in general in
the nonprofit world on a lot of voices who would
have so much to contribute to these organizations missions. But

(49:32):
what it's going to take to change this situation is
really pulling Mary Elizabeth Garrett. If you are a stakeholder
and an influencer with the financial cloud to do it,
you vote with your money. You say, hey, I would
be happy to donate to your organization if you would

(49:55):
maybe diversify your staff. Yeah, exactly, And I mean Debos
points out that there really has to be a clear
commitment to inclusivity. And Debose talks about how people of
color who go interview for these nonprofit jobs report that

(50:15):
they feel most confident and this is pretty common sense
and not surprising at all, but they feel most confident
in the words that the interviewer is saying when there
are actually people of color there to back up those words,
those nice pretty words about diversity and inclusivity. UM. A
lot of people he spoke with and a lot of

(50:35):
the studies he cited, just show a general sense of
kind of disillusionment and not being connected because all of
these nonprofits are like, yeah, we want to be inclusive
and diverse and help diverse communities, but we haven't really
hired any people of color, and that can lead to
a lot of disillusionment and burnout. Well, and I'm sure

(50:57):
um extra burnout too if you are the array in
your office, if you are one of the only people
of color in your office. I mean obviously that that
would apply whether you're working in a nonprofit or not.
But when you add the typical conditions of a nonprofit
where you might be not paid so much and doing

(51:19):
a lot and sometimes depending on the mission, it can
be hugely emotionally draining as well. Um, that just adds
another layer to all of this. And it's not surprising
to see that an Opportunity Knocks survey found that half
of nonprofit sector employees might be burned out or in

(51:41):
danger of burnout. Um, but A, there's really no time
for self care and be there's no time, there's no
money for therapy. Yeah, exactly. And and Sophie morrisset wonder
she's related to atlantis UM wrote a piece really recently
over at the Stay in for a social Innovation review,

(52:01):
where she's like, yeah, this is not surprising, and nonprofit
leaders are super familiar with chronic nonprofit employee burnout, to
the point where it's almost just not that it's written
into the job description, but it's definitely imprinted on people's
expectations of their employees. And she says, you know, the
usual tips are to take vacation, no your boundaries, let

(52:24):
go of the need to do it all. But she
has some more advice from third sector Today that she sites,
which is basically like it's kind of depressing advice. Um.
She says, you need to know when to leave, set
a firm end date for your work with anyone organization,

(52:46):
recognize the feeling of burnout creep, and leave before you
end up freaking out, flipping over a table and burning bridges.
She says, hey, you know, on the on the upside,
this makes room for people with fresh idea and allows
you to return if and when you feel refreshed and
ready to take it all back on and listen. I

(53:06):
will add something else to that from my own experience.
If possible, find your allies who can help maintain that
awareness of what's going on, and I'm talking about maybe yes,
like signs of your own personal burnout creep, but also
signs that the nonprofit is not really treating employees in

(53:29):
the way that it should be, So go ahead and
get out when you can. And in fact, that is
what my boss, who mentored me in a lot of ways,
did for me at that nonprofit job. He said, listen,
you know this mission that we're working on is incredible,
but I think that you would be best served if
you go, because you know the hammer is going to

(53:50):
come down at some point. Um. And I am still
thankful to him to this day because that's how I
ended up ultimately in the podcast studio and to that end,
Morris Set advises nonprofit leaders on how that they can
make a big difference. Um, you can offer that moral support, yes,

(54:13):
but if you can pay people more and provide perks,
that's huge. But I feel like that's so much easier
said than done in the nonprofit realm. I mean, because too,
there's that issue of the lines being bored between employees
and volunteers, and you often ending up being treated like
a volunteer and not being paid for the work that

(54:36):
you're doing or treated like family. So when it's time
to ask for a raise, you things get really uncomfortable
because you feel like you're being rude to a friend
or or something like that, we're taking money away from
your mission. Let's say your mission is helping kids in
some way. It's like, well, we would give you more money,

(54:58):
but what about the kids. And of course the kids
need to help too, But UM, if half of your
sector are burned out, that's that's not going to help
the kids at the end of the day. So I
am wondering what people listening to, those who are who
are in that sector UM have experienced. UM. And one

(55:20):
gender dynamic that we didn't get into is in more
of the startup realm, where it's more acceptable, gender norm
wise for a young woman to start a nonprofit than
to start a for profit startup. UM. This is actually
something that Emily Ari's of Bossed Up writes about her

(55:40):
intent to start specifically a for profit enterprise simply because
that is her vision and her goal and you know,
she didn't want, doesn't care to be steered into what
is considered you know, a more appropriate realm. You know,
just go go the nonprofit route, you know, women are

(56:02):
more likable when they are leading nonprofits than when they're
leading businesses. Why is that the case? And why is
it totally cool that this overwhelmingly female dominated sector is
borderline exploited a lot of times? Exactly, You're just expected

(56:23):
to work for the passion of it. Yeah, and I
mean and these are broad, sweeping statements to make about
a massive sector. Um, but there there's some there's some
major issues going on behind the scenes of all of that.
Terrific on the groundwork that nonprofits are doing. So with that,

(56:45):
since you have so much time, people who are working
in nonprofits, write us a letter. Uh no, but sincerely,
we want to hear from you. Um, if you volunteer
with nonprofits, or if you work in the sector, or
if you have of benefited from services, we would love
to hear all of your perspectives on this. Mom Stuff

(57:06):
at how stuff works dot com is where you can
send your letters. You can also tweet us at mom
Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook. And we've got a
couple of messages to share with you when we come
right back from a quick break. All right, I have
a letter here from Brittany in response to our Oprah
wasn't built in a day episode, and she says all

(57:29):
I can say is thank you. Literally the night before
I listen to this episode, I was on my couch
crying over a glass of wine with my husband because
I hate my job and feel frustrated that I cannot
break into the field I want to work in, which
is HR. The frustration came because as I was reading
through literally hundreds of job postings, it became increasingly clear

(57:50):
to me that I was not qualified for these jobs,
despite my bachelor's degree in business and my Human Resource
management certificate. Enter smenty quote. Women don't apply to jobs
until they feel one percent qualified, whereas men will apply
when they feel only sixty percent qualified. Wow. I re
well on the podcast twice to listen to that again.

(58:12):
In that moment, I had an epiphany. I constantly feel
overqualified and bored at any job. I have no wonder
considering I apply to jobs that I'm already completely qualified for.
So within two months I am bored out of my skull.
Since listening to the episode, I have applied to HR
jobs that I am sixty to eighty percent qualified for.

(58:36):
I also taped a piece of paper to my bathroom
mirror that reads, Oprah Wasn't Built in a Day. Great
reminder every morning to just keep going. Thank you for
your awesome podcast and for inspiring me to go after
my dream job. Brittany, Oh, Brittany, now we're gonna be
crying into a glass of wine. I'm so happy for you.
And girl, let me tell you that's sixty versus percent thing.

(58:59):
Let a fire or me too, and I am so
happy for you. So I have a letter here from
Alyssa about the same episode, and she writes, Oprah Wasn't
Built in a Day. Seriously, could not have come at
a better time for me. I'm in my first semester
of grad school working on my Master of Library Science
shout out to your librarians episodes, and I've had a

(59:21):
rough couple of days academically. I goofed pretty majorly on
two different assignments, and I definitely had to cry myself
to sleep, want to give up moment listening to your podcast.
I totally related to everything you talked about. I've always
been internally motivated and done well academically. Failure is not
something to which I'm accustomed. This episode was exactly what

(59:42):
I needed to realize that it's okay to mess up sometimes.
It was just two assignments in a two year program
that I'm super excited about. Life goes on. Just as
Oprah wasn't built in a day, neither is a master's degree.
Oh thank you so much, Alissa. I'm so happy that
it came at the right time for you. And you
know what, Caroline, I'm just glad you bought that T

(01:00:03):
shirt that says over wasn't built in a day because
I think you have started a movement teas in the
trap of help start a movement. I love that T
shirt and I'm so glad that ciniment resonates with all
of you. And if you have a letter to share
with us, mom stuff at how stuff works dot com
is where you can do it and for links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so you

(01:00:25):
can learn even more about nonprofits. Head on over to
stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. We're more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com