When a nonprofit leader sits down to design or revise a paid time off policy, one question tends to surface quickly: how generous is too generous? It is a reasonable thing to wonder, but it may also be the wrong question entirely. The more useful question is this: in a sector that routinely asks talented professionals to accept lower salaries in exchange for meaningful work, why would any nonprofit leader hesitate to offer genuinely excellent time off?
My intent here is not to offend. My intent is to preserve. But be forewarned (and please forgive me), I'm going to be plain-spoken and forthright. If you want coddling, you'll have to find it someplace else.
Volunteer-dependent organizations face a particular kind of vulnerability that rarely gets discussed openly: what happens when the person causing problems is also the person the organization cannot easily replace.
There is a question that surfaces in nonprofit circles more often than most people in the sector would like to admit: Is this bad management, or is something else going on?
It is a scenario many nonprofit executive directors will recognize immediately: A fundraising proposal lands on the board table. The numbers are sound: a modest participation assumption, a realistic cost structure, a meaningful net return. For an organization facing a significant budget deficit in a year when grant funding has contracted and individual giving has softened, the proposal is not a luxury. It is an answer to a real and pressing problem.
Yet the board votes it down. The reason offered: "That's just not who we are." No elaboration follows. The meeting moves on.
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