Today’s Nonprofit Leaders are Doing Too Much

It’s no secret that Executive Directors (EDs) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of nonprofits face challenging work roles. These leaders carry out important work in their communities while managing very limited resources, engaging dozens of stakeholders, responding to increased demands for services, and more.

In 2021 Habitat Communication & Culture undertook a research study to learn more about the unique professional experiences faced by these EDs and CEOs. This research included surveys and interviews with more than 100 nonprofit leaders, and produced a report that details how these executives interact with everything from job training opportunities and performance reviews to relationships with Boards of Directors.

This research came to be known as the Realities of Leading a Nonprofit, and it illuminated a number of challenges facing today’s nonprofit leaders. And here was a big one: Leaders of nonprofit agencies are doing too much. They’re spread too thin, and the “extra” or “distracting” tasks that end up on their plate have a very real impact on their degrees of engagement, commitment, and burnout.

Nonprofit Leadership is Particularly Tough

Let’s be clear: All jobs are an attempt at delicately balancing the requirements and demands of a given role with the finite amount of resources available to meet those criteria. What we learned as a result of this research, in particular, is that nonprofit leaders are especially squeezed by this balancing act. They often navigate vague or shifting expectations, receive little to no formal training, get no formal feedback on their performance, and are continuously expected to “do more with less.”

While it’s essential for nonprofit leaders to be resourceful and maximize the impact of their resources, the charge to “do more with less” can be harmful if it becomes an uncompromising expectation. Stakeholders, including funders, board members, and the community, may develop unrealistic expectations of what the nonprofit can achieve with limited resources. This creates what many refer to as the nonprofit starvation cycle, where the expectations increase without commensurate increases in resources, putting undue pressure on leaders to meet unattainable goals.

Why We Shouldn’t Confuse “Extra” for “Good”

We were particularly interested in learning how today’s nonprofit leaders spend their time and what types of tasks fill their days. Respondents reported working an average of 10 hours per week outside of standard business hours, and these 50+ hour weeks frequently included an abundance of what research participants described as “extra” or “distracting” tasks. Given that many EDs and CEOs already swim in vague waters and operate without clear goals or operating systems, this widespread prevalence of “extra” tasks is troubling.

During our research we heard more than 200 examples of these “extra” or “distracting” tasks from EDs and CEOs. 38% of these tasks can be classified broadly as “operations” work, and frequent examples included providing IT or technical support and carrying out general administrative tasks. 22% of these “extra” tasks fall squarely into “facilities” work, and include cleaning or custodial duties, maintaining premises, and fixing equipment or vehicles. Another 22% were considered “interpersonal” work, including the need to fill in for missing staff.

Moving Forward

A common refrain about nonprofit leaders is that they’re “passionate enough about the mission” to overlook the unique challenges that come with their role. We believe this theory is worth deeper consideration. Leading a nonprofit is taxing enough without the addition of energy-draining, out-of-scope responsibilities. Focus is a resource, too, and we should honor it in the same vein as other important resources like financial contributions and volunteers.

Nonprofit agencies and their Boards of Directors should carefully consider both the immediate and long-term impact of limitless “other duties as assigned” for leadership. These leaders and their energy should be focused on an organization’s biggest goals, not on machine repair or general administration.

How Habitat Helps

Our team loves any opportunity to partner with nonprofit organizations that are doing great work in their communities. We regularly work with agencies to help strengthen staff teams, develop strategic plans, maximize board effectiveness, and more.

• Training for managers, teams, and boards: It takes a lot of work to build and maintain a great team. That’s why we believe in giving managers, staff teams, and board members the training and tools needed to be most effective in their roles. Some of our most popular training sessions with nonprofit partners include Effective Communication, Let’s Have an Argument, Building Effective Teams, and Maximizing Board Effectiveness.
• Strategic planning: There’s incredible power in a clearly articulated vision for the future, measurable benchmarks along the way, and frequent conversations about progress toward stated goals. We’ve helped dozens of nonprofit organizations develop strategic plans and continue to visit with most of those teams monthly for ongoing scorecard reviews to track progress. Many of our nonprofit partners go on to use these plans and the accompanying scorecards in grant applications and/or grant reporting in addition to sharing them with their boards of directors.
• Performance management systems: Staff members at nonprofits are often expected to be fueled by their own personal passion rather than substantive feedback. The truth is that people want to know how they’re doing at work, and they deserve frequent, structured conversations about performance. We install systems that increase both the frequency of and the quality of conversations between managers and their direct reports, where each party shares constructive feedback with the other.
• Organizational assessments: We’ve seen first-hand that organizational improvement efforts are most successful when they begin with a solid understanding of the team’s biggest pain points and opportunities. Our organizational assessments dig deep into the challenges an organization is facing through customized surveys, team member interviews, and data analysis. We then use these findings to make a detailed set of recommendations (including things both within our service offerings and beyond) for how to address the challenges and maximize any team.