I’ve been working for nonprofits, as a professional or as a volunteer, for 47 years, starting when I was 13 and volunteered in the office of a hospice where my mother worked. I’ve always been drawn to nonprofit organizations – to mission-based organizations. It’s more than the charitable nature: nonprofits work to create appreciation for things I hold dear, like the arts or a clean, natural environment or walkable, livable cities. They push for causes that are core to my own values, like human rights. Whether it’s encouraging people to spay and neuter their dogs and cats or encouraging young girls to play sports or providing shelter to people experiencing homelessness or promoting the idea that web sites should be accessible, nonprofits play a crucial role in making life worth living.

But working for nonprofits – or charities, as they are called in the United Kingdom, or non-government organizations (NGOs) in other countries – is not easy, and having devoted most of my professional life to such, I’ve been reflecting on those challenges:

• Despite our vital, necessary work, despite the level of responsibilities we have, despite the experience and expertise we bring to our work, and despite the expectations for our work, nonprofit professionals are grossly underpaid. I work with employees receiving SNAP benefits because they are paid so little – EMPLOYEES!

• There are people actively encouraging funders NOT to pay nonprofit professionals competitive salaries. There are people that don’t believe nonprofit professionals should get to be homeowners, or send their children to university, or drive a new car. These people don’t believe a university degree, including higher degrees, are necessary for the complexities of nonprofit work, and therefor they think it’s ridiculous that nonprofit employees have degrees and the debt that comes with such. There are people that believe those that work at nonprofits should never expect to financially prosper from their work.

• Many from the for-profit world don’t believe nonprofits are experts at anything. They believe that nonprofit staff are people who couldn’t get jobs at corporations or other businesses. They think nonprofit staff don’t know how to do basic business functions, like accounting or project management. They believe they could figure out how to do any job at a nonprofit in just a few minutes (if that). I cannot count how many times someone from the business world has talked down to me because I work at nonprofits.

• Many from the for-profit world think volunteers are just free labor, and the reason to involve volunteers is because there’s too much work to do for employees, or that it’s a great way to eliminate paid positions. They never see volunteer engagement as a way to reach potential new donors or other supporters, and get angry when they have to work with volunteers. These for-profit business folks also have never taken any course nor read any material on how to work with volunteers and scoff at the idea that they need such.

• Many from outside our industry think that solving an ongoing community or environmental problem is just a matter of inventing a tool. How many times have I seen yet another design for a simple home for the homeless or for refugees – ignoring the fact that the challenge is WHERE the homes will go, not what they are made of or how quickly they can be assembled? Or all the people that think the challenge to more people volunteering at nonprofits is recruitment, not the reality that most staff have no training in working with volunteers and the resources needed to adequately support volunteers are out of reach for most nonprofits?

• Too many people ignore what nonprofits are trying to achieve and that most of what we do is NOT charity. Absolutely, people are in need of things like free food, temporary shelter, blankets, etc. But most nonprofits are trying to create and improve community, promote social cohesion, address inequities, improve public health, help more people access education, jobs and more, and on and on. And these activities aren’t just nice; they are necessary. They affect housing prices, property values, the quality of public schools, public safety, crime rates, the profit margins for small margins, and employee recruitment for large corporations.

• The idea of being a mission-based organization, rather than a profit-focused organization, is completely lost on most of corporate America. Promoting the arts in prisons isn’t meant to be an income-generation activity – it’s meant to teach people how to understand the range of their emotions and their connection to other humans, with the hope that they won’t harm other humans or themselves. That something isn’t financially stable through income-generation doesn’t make it somehow NOT something worth having.

• Our industry is dominated by women professionals except at the executive level. And most major conferences will have a slew of men as speakers and trainers disproportionate to the number of women who staff nonprofits and NGOs. Women leaders are still seen, primarily, as pushy, not as the innovators and amazing managers that they are.

• There are people actively trying to disparage and undermine our sector. Some are angry that nonprofits have been successful at curbing business activities that harm the environment or that have been harmful to certain groups of people – and therefore curbing their personal profits. Some are angry that nonprofits have successfully advocated for marginalized people, thereby eating into the power of men, especially white men. Some are angry that nonprofits are advocating for equity – also known as fairness – for all people which, again, eats into the power of men, especially white men, forcing them to work as hard as others.

Nonprofits – mission-based organizations – aren’t without fault, and there are many that could, and should, be run better. But the same is true of many corporations.

I have no regrets at the career I’ve chosen. But I’m sad to see a lot of my work disappear from the web, and a lot of initiatives I’ve been a part of and that were making a difference for certain communities get defunded and abandoned. I am sad to see so many nonprofits fighting to continue to exist and under attack from political and corporate forces.

As nonprofits shrink and their work disappears, the loss will be for everyone, not just for the nonprofits.

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