Nonprofit Leaders You Deserve More Money, You Do Good Work

Article by Karen Eber Davis, August 18, 2020

. . . you do good work. You help the illiterate to read. You put paintbrushes into frail seniors’ hands. You organize programs to solve pressing public problems. You do a myriad of things to make lives better.

Moreover, you often do this work under serious constraints. Too often, you operate in a chronically resource-short environment. You must decide between buying decent office supplies or helping clients.

Nonprofit work is hard. It’s not for wimps. Contrary to what you’ve heard, it’s not government or business jobs that necessitate top skills; it’s the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit leaders need the same abilities as every leader and more. Third-sector trailblazers, like you, work with volunteers, and use skills and finesse to ask for donations. What’s more, despite the challenges inherent in the work, the culture as a whole frequently looks down on the sector. The culture assumes nonprofits lack the brightest and best.

They are wrong.

Nonprofits gather brave, smart, and ambitious people who seek to improve the communities where we live. Nonprofits collect heroes.

This includes you. Since you do good work and you provide value, you deserve money and resources. In fact, you deserve more money so you can generate more impact.

You chose a noble calling.

The calling requires a noble heart that appeals to the best in people and, for those that respond, the chance to become heroes. However, while you deserve more money, and it would be fair for you to have it, you’re not entitled to it. Your noble calling doesn’t require you to:

Beg people to give to you
Sell your clients as pitiful human beings
Whine about your neediness
Build your sustainably on the backs of employees
Assume you’re entitled to a gift, grant, or donation

Instead, to be sustainable, you:

Refuse to wait for luck
Decide to be shrewd and smart
Study excellence
Develop a sustainability strategy
Use innovative twists in your work
Embrace flexibility

I started this section with the premise that you do good work. Let’s augment this principle, with a second: you have a reason for hope.

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