SMNTY Classics: Charitable Burnout

The nonprofit sector is made up of 74 percent women, but men tend to fill organizations' highest ranks. This classic episode looks at all the ins and outs of nonprofit's not-so-generous gender dynamics and burnout-prone working conditions.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is Annie and you're listening to Stuff Mom Never
told You. And as we record this, as this is released,
it is the holidays. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday,

(00:29):
Giving Tuesday have all come and gone, and this is
the time of year for giving and donating, whether that
is your time or your money. But for many, especially women,
nonprofit isn't just a once a year thing. It's a
full time job. It's a job with conditions that lead
a lot of workers to burn out, which is something

(00:50):
else on our minds lately this holiday season. Please keep
in mind the people behind the charities you support and
how we can push for better for them, and please
enjoy this classic to learn more about the world of
nonprofit organizations. Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from

(01:13):
how Stuff 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 the season the holidays are upon us, Holiday giving.

(01:37):
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 of dudes. And at both uh, the upper echelons

(02:01):
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 very first job out of college because in a

(02:23):
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

(02:44):
fortunately 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 fabulo. Listen
if he's listening, Hello, Magnus. But I was quickly introduced

(03:07):
to 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

(03:29):
compared to 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

(03:52):
and the expectation that because you are young, uh and
you are passionate about a call us, that you will
be okay with making less money, working crazy hours because
if your love for the fill in the blank whatever
it is that your your nonprofit is supporting. And a

(04:13):
lot of our 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 back to back nonprofit jobs,
whether you were intending to join a nonprofit, whether you

(04:33):
were specifically seeking one out, or if it's just sort
of what fell in your lap. Because there are 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

(04:53):
to get out of here. I mean, for so many reasons,
but I've got to get out of here. I want
work 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 so important. It's not the same

(05:14):
thing as working directly with people, helping people, raising money whatever,
whatever the case. Maybe um. And so I knew that,
just like you, quintessential millennial who like wants to be involved,
wants to help us 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

(05:38):
when I was at the newspaper. And as we'll touch
on a 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

(06:02):
ten years ago, was a lot of young people taking
the 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

(06:22):
places with either of them, did you feel like you
were making Did 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

(06:44):
necessarily helping anyone, like a social enterprise. It was, yes,
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

(07:04):
referred to as rhinos Republicans in name only, and I
often felt that I worked at an in Pino nonprofit
name only because all of the higher ups did drive
the bmwts 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

(07:26):
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
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.

(07:48):
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 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

(08:12):
way that you drum up money UM, but there are also,
you know, questionable issues around that, especially when you look
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.

(08:34):
And um, I, even even as someone who had not
much but some experience in the nonprofit world, to kind
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

(08:57):
have to um and essentially being taken for granted sometimes
and it being considered women's work because of some charity
is really disturbing, honestly. And before we get into the
darker issues of the nonprofit world, why don't we start

(09:18):
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 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,

(09:40):
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 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,

(10:02):
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, you have an influx
of immigration, industrialization, urbanization, the expansion of education UM, and

(10:25):
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 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

(10:45):
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 charitable work, it tends to
focus on education, child care, and women's issues, which makes sense.

(11:08):
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 voluntary associations that that started happening in the
progressive era really would end up informing UM nonprofit and

(11:29):
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
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

(11:51):
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
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

(12:16):
the issue of immigration also in the context of the time.
You have to think about the fact that we had
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

(12:37):
empire of schools, orphanages, temperance societies, and social welfare 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

(12:57):
lot of times for us to get together and help
out where perhaps more traditional institutions or governments leave off
exactly exactly, um, which is why you see among marginalized communities,
among immigrant communities, and among women, uh, what one source

(13:19):
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, 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

(13:40):
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, married
women not being allowed to own any property or any money,
so um, before that became legal. Um. You see wealthier

(14:02):
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, a
lot of even earlier charitable work by women centers around
religious groups and nunneries because again that's the only way

(14:25):
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 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

(14:47):
groups and the new nonprofits start becoming more organized. They
develop uh national level organizations with state and local chapters.
You know, you especially see the speaking of church just
you really see this with different Christian denominations. Um. And
someone who really really changed the nonprofit game, not surprisingly

(15:10):
in the eighteen eighties was super professionally wealthy dude Andrew Carnegie.
And um, he flipped the script right. So he criticized
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

(15:30):
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
that sounds a lot like our podcast a while back
on welfare and those progressive era concepts of bootstrapping and

(15:51):
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
important to note that in the history of voluntary association's
charity and nonprofits, it took very, very very wealthy men

(16:12):
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
millionaire type people. It took them to sort of change
how nonprofits worked. And so it took a Carnegie or

(16:36):
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
to protect yourself from taxation, which would definitely come into
stark relief about thirty years after Carnegie started his foundation.

(17:01):
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
of them have some problematic sides to them, they were
for sure products of their progressive era existence. Um, but

(17:26):
one that jumped out to me because she was literally
named alongside John D. Rockefeller, was Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage,
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

(17:48):
family and attended the Troy Female Seminary because why wouldn't
our wealthy child from our wealthy family be educated. But
the side effect of going to the Troy fe Male
Seminary was that she was like, oh, women should have rights,
because that tends to happen when you educate your ladies.
And the Troy Female Seminary actually quietly advocated financial independence

(18:11):
for women through education. And so Margaret gets all of
these kookie ideas to try to do whatever she can
to 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

(18:31):
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 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

(18:54):
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,
leaving her the single largest taxpayer in the entire country
because she has so much freaking money. She has a

(19:18):
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
the equivalent of like a billion dollars today, and it's
still active. Oh yeah, I I remember the Russell Stage Foundation,

(19:39):
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
work outside the home um and was big on the
idea of women earning their way. Um. She also advocated

(20:01):
stripping lands from Native Americans to give to the whites.
So she was not without her failings. Well, hopefully the
Russell Stage Foundation continues to make up for her racism.
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,

(20:22):
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,
I know you're out there, and I love your state,
as I say anytime we get to talk about Hawaii.

(20:43):
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 a Stranger's
Friends Society, which helped sick travelers, which I could have

(21:05):
used when I was stuck on 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 and handicrafts to make blankets or clothes or even

(21:28):
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 a great partner, right, And so
when Bishop died of breast cancer in the late eighteen eighties,

(21:50):
her husband, who was super rich, started the first bank
in Hawaii, which is still like the biggest bank in
Hawaiian and I hope that's what it's called, just the biggest,
biggest bank in Huwaii. Um it's so big. He continued
all of her philanthropy he knew how important helping children,

(22:12):
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 real powerhouse,
both financially and also in the work that she did.

(22:33):
So she was around in the late nineteenth century, and
in case you were wondering, she was a direxel of
the Philadelphia Directxels. Very important. So, like we mentioned earlier,
one way that women found independence, ironically enough, was through
becoming a nun. And so Catherine becomes a nun, and

(22:55):
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
abandonment of those groups. So it sounds like Drexel less

(23:18):
problematic than Sage. I think yes, I think she is
generally less problematic than than on 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
like that. You've got to stay out in society. But
when she was younger and was able to travel because

(23:42):
her family was so disgustingly rich, the girl could travel
and she went out west and she saw what essentially
white people had done to American Indians, saw the poverty,
the alcoholism, She saw what was happening to African Americans
who were not provided for or if they had either
escaped slavery or had been freed and had no basically

(24:05):
communities of support. And so she was basically 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. And she was like, oh, well, I
guess I should become a nun. And so she actually

(24:28):
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 college in the US. And she was an
outspoken advocate both vocally and with money UH for aid

(24:54):
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 pol Murray also shout out to New Orleans, Love
your city. Just this is just a geographical shoutout episode

(25:18):
for me. Um. I've always always wondered though about Xavier
because I have friends who went to Loyola and LSU,
which I knew was not in New Orleans, but ban
Rouge but donethe lest 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

(25:38):
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 the daughter of the B and O
Railroad president. UM and since she was born with a

(26:00):
vagina she couldn't exactly take over the family business, but
with a massive inheritance, she did manage to establish a
philanthropic group of super rich ladies called the Friday Evening. Dude, Dude,
I totally want to start a band that's called like
Caroline in the Friday Evening because it just sounds cool

(26:21):
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,
and think about our episode on uh International Women's Day
and the labor reform movement, and how women well healed,

(26:45):
women like a Mary Elizabeth Garrett and her Friday Evening
friends would go out in their furs and fancy cars
and things and would sort of buffer serve as a
barricade for all these um working class people who would
be striking for union rights and you know, doing what

(27:06):
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
you do have some of them who were using it
not just to buy fancy new dresses. Well, and what's

(27:27):
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
what you want. And if you have a progressive outlook,
frequently that can mean paying people to be inclusive. It

(27:49):
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
the condition that they admit women. Yes, that is the

(28:10):
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
out for everyone. You get to have a prestigious medical
school and women get to be educated to be doctors. Now,

(28:33):
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
Benevolent Association, And in case you aren't familiar with Madam C. J. Walker,

(28:54):
she built a hair care empire UM focusing on African
American women's hair, and in the process she became America's
for a self made female millionaire UM. But she also
knew that giving back and reinvesting in communities was good business.

(29:15):
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. But she was no she was a smart cookie.
Oh yeah. Well, and also knowing to the importance of

(29:38):
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 and advocate for African Americans. And I mean
it wasn't only you know, uh, the ports of just

(30:01):
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, she was you
would imagine that someone who reinvented herself as a madam C. J.
Walker new the power of pr And at this point

(30:22):
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

(30:43):
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 non off its sector that we're familiar with and

(31:04):
kind of how it runs more as a business dates
only to 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,

(31:26):
I said something along the lines of it's a good
way to avoid texas 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

(31:48):
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 Carnegies,
but also like the Ford Foundation exploding, and and I

(32:10):
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.

(32:31):
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.

(32:53):
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't 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

(33:17):
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

(33:37):
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 mean the men in suits taking

(34:01):
the 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 cannonvolve 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 didn't

(34:23):
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,

(34:44):
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, ones that control like
twenty five million plus, women make up just fifty nine

(35:05):
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, still
have a smaller headcount, but we're really talking about your budget.

(35:25):
So at the teeny tiny nonprofits you 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

(35:47):
say that, um, guys are only out for 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 lie teaching. Well,
you know when you talk about the higher ranks and
people rising to the top, Uh, fifty seven percent of

(36:08):
women who are in the nonprofit 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

(36:29):
like a hologram. Um. Yeah, that's exactly it. Because 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,

(36:51):
I mean one thing that should be so painfully obvious
is like, hello, they have role models and mentors just
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,

(37:13):
but basically you have foot footsteps to walk in. Absolutely,
And you also have this perception of work life balance
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

(37:37):
not my experience, but um, I was not mine either.
People in the nonprofit world. Maybe there there, maybe maybe
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

(37:58):
off yea couple. Imagine you're wearing more hats, right literally
if you're working in a hat no profit, right, but
literally 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

(38:20):
in the nonprofit realm who are over fifty five are
way more comfortable asking for raises compared with younger women.
Not surprising, but just an interesting side note that with
experience and burnout comes basically the cajones to be like, no,
you're you're going to pay me more money now? Well,
and it it might also be that they're uh, their

(38:45):
starry eyed dreams have worn off a bit, because, um
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 plans for nonprofit management

(39:09):
and social entrepreneurship to outline more of a direct path.
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 of my nonprofitty were there for years
and still making next to nothing. Um, you you get

(39:31):
into a cycle that is completely dependent on obviously donations
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

(39:51):
the cycle of having no budget, but it's not like
the mission goes away and you have to in order
to apply for grants and to grow your nonprofit and
expand your mission. Those grantees and philanthropic organizations and foundations
want to see the evidence of your work in action.

(40:12):
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
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,

(40:34):
you're you are starry eyed, and we're going to take
advantage of you until we suck the soul out of
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

(40:56):
do I do want to say that it's it's not
all terrible. 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

(41:16):
she was more of a manager when I was working
with her, And she's now working at a very household
brand nonprofit 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,

(41:40):
this woman is just an embodiment of integrity and she
has been blown away by how well such a large
organization is run, 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

(42:02):
you are mid sized to smaller organization, because someone who
is like an A list nonprofit, they're going to just
have bigger budgets. 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 its overtime rules UM and basically it

(42:25):
doubled the threshold for guaranteed overtime pay from twenty three
thousand to just over forty seven thousand dollars. And while
there was a lot of pushback from companies in general
in our Economy UM, the article outline how some of
the largest protests came from the nonprofit sector because they

(42:46):
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 coffers to go support the cause.
But there were plenty of other non profits who stepped
up to sign a letter essentially saying, sure, but it

(43:07):
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 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

(43:27):
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 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

(43:49):
follow up to to this one. And it makes sense
that the women who don't aspire to the CEO positions,
then most of them blame it on the time come
of it 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

(44:12):
level stuff, the executive director level stuff, um men are
the ones who tend 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.

(44:32):
Men make up seventy nine percent of CEOs at large
organizations with budgets over 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.

(44:56):
A poll found that female nonprofit workers uh sense a
gender bias? Yeah, fort of women nonprofit workers think that
their organization's favor men over equally qualified women. For those
chief leadership positions and at those big million dollar plus

(45:18):
UH nonprofit organizations of women said that their organizations didn't
put as much effort into identifying and soliciting affluent women
as it does men, which is really strange to me
and not something I've thought about, but it's it's a
huge mistake. Deborah Mesh, who's the director of the Women's

(45:40):
Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University UH, says that when you
when it comes to people running these huge nonprofits looking
at their donors, women are not considered to be major
donors or decision makers the way men are. And she said, actually, guys, UH,
women tend to be much more loyal donors than men,

(46:03):
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.
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.

(46:26):
Not enough women make up of nonprofit board members. But
again when you get up to those boards of those humongous,
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

(46:49):
largest nonprofits, which is a larger salary gap than in
the general economy, although you see it shrink along with
the size of the organization because a 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 exhausting to see women's work so completely

(47:10):
and totally undervalued, even though without nonprofits our society would
fall apart. But here is the thing. There is a
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.

(47:34):
Derwin DuBose and Ruth McCambridge both wrote about this over
at Nonprofit Quarterly, and they cited a fourteen board source
study that found that eighty percent of nonprofit board members
and nine of board chairs were white, as were eight

(47:54):
nine percent of the executives. Nearly a third of the
nonprofit words they looked at lacked a single person of color.
And the thing is, those numbers really haven't changed much
in like twenty years despite the fact that you have
so many nonprofits out there who say, yeah, diversity and

(48:14):
inclusivity are our core values. And they talked to people
of color who actually existed at some of these organizations,
and more than sixty so that they felt excluded from
power within their organization. In thirteen percent reported experiencing tokenism.

(48:35):
And as research from the Anti Casey Foundation highlighted, there
is a major disconnect between the lack of diversity and
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

(48:56):
aren't having that kind of representation on your board, words, staff,
or leadership team, not to mention your volunteers, people of
color end up as passive recipients rather than active partners.
And oh, this is reminding me so much of Ray's
new show. My God, I was just gonna say that

(49:17):
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
of this podcast. We could have just said alone and
welcome to the podcast. Go watch Insecure. Maybe he should

(49:38):
do it anyway, it's a really good ship, but it
is it's a fairly accurate representation. Yeah, and uh. Tissianna 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 the
community and run the risk of failing to understand what

(50:00):
quality is to those whom organizations seek to support and
under leverage passion for change. Because when you look at
nonprofit employees, not not the CEOs, but when you look
at the employees, only eight percent of them are people
of color. Uh. And that breaks down to ten percent

(50:22):
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 what it's going to
take to change this situation is really pulling Mary Elizabeth Garrett.

(50:48):
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 maybe diversify your staff. Yeah, exactly,

(51:08):
And I mean Debose 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 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

(51:32):
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 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

(51:53):
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 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,

(52:15):
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 a lot and sometimes depending on the mission,
it can be hugely emotionally draining as well. UM, that

(52:36):
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 danger of burnout. Um, but A, there's really
no time for self care and be there's no time,

(52:57):
there's no money for therapy. Yeah, exactly. And and Sophie
morrisset I wonder if she's related to Atlantis UM wrote
a piece really recently over at the Stanford Social Innovation
Review where she's like, yeah, this is not surprising, and
nonprofit leaders are super familiar with chronic nonprofit employee burnout

(53:17):
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 go of the need to do it all, but
she has some more advice from third Sector Today that

(53:39):
she cites, 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,
recognize the feeling of burnout creep, and leave before you

(53:59):
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 ideas and allows
you to return if and when you feel refreshed and
ready to take it all back on and listen. I
will add something else to that from my own experience,
if possible, find your allies who can help maintain that

(54:25):
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
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,

(54:45):
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
come down at some point. Um. And I am still
thankful to him to this day because that's how I

(55:06):
ended up ultimately in this 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,
but if you can pay people more and provide perks,
that's huge. But I feel like that's so much easier

(55:29):
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
you're doing, or treated like family. So when it's time
to ask for a raise, if things get really uncomfortable

(55:53):
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,
but what about the kids? And of course the kids
need help too, but um, if half of your sector

(56:15):
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 gender
dynamic that we didn't get into is in more of
the startup realm, where it's more acceptable, gender norm wise,

(56:39):
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 intent
to start specifically a for profit enterprise simply because that
is her vision and her goal and you know, she

(56:59):
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 more
likable when they are leading nonprofits than when they're leading businesses.
Why is that the case? And why is it totally

(57:21):
cool that this overwhelmingly female dominated sector is borderline exploited
a lot of times? Exactly, you're just expected 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

(57:45):
behind the scenes of all of that terrific on the
groundwork that nonprofits are doing. So with that, 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

(58:07):
have benefited from services, we would love to hear all
of your perspectives on this. Mom Stuff 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. Are right. I have a letter here

(58:32):
from Brittany in response to our Oprah Wasn't Built in
a Day episode, and she says all 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

(58:55):
of job postings, it became increasingly clear 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 qualified. Wow. I re well on the podcast

(59:19):
twice to listen to that again. 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

(59:40):
I am sixty to eighty percent qualified for. 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, Brittany,
now we're gonna be crying into a glass of wine.

(01:00:02):
I'm so happy for you. And girl, let me tell
you that six versus thing let a fire under 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

(01:00:24):
Master of Library Science shout out to your librarians episodes,
and I've had a 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

(01:00:44):
well academically. Failure is not something to which I am accustomed.
This episode was exactly what 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 to a day,
neither is a master's degree. Oh thank you so much, Alissa.

(01:01:05):
I am so happy that it came at the right
time for you. And you know what, Caroline, I'm just
glad you bought that t 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
cinement resonates with all of you. And if you have
a letter to share with us, mom stuff at how

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