There was a time, not long ago, when entering the nonprofit sector meant entering a community. Experienced practitioners made time for newer ones. Relationships developed across organizational lines. The informal transfer of knowledge (about funders, about boards, about the quiet art of keeping a program alive through a budget cut) happened naturally, through proximity and shared commitment to the work.
That culture has not disappeared entirely. But it has eroded. And the erosion is not accidental.
Donor-advised funds have become one of the most popular philanthropic vehicles in the United States, and for good reason. DAF grantmaking totaled $64.89 billion in fiscal year 2024, a figure that reflects how dramatically these giving accounts have grown in recent years. For nonprofits, DAF gifts can represent significant revenue, and the number of donors using them continues to rise.
Most nonprofit leaders believe their organization communicates well. They have a website. They post on social media with some regularity. They send an email newsletter when something important happens. They show up to community events. By the usual measures, the communication box is checked. It isn't.
There is a particular kind of dread that settles in before a major donor phone call. It is not quite stage fright and not quite social anxiety. It is something more specific. The awareness that the person on the other end of the line knows exactly why you are calling, regardless of what you say first. That the opening pleasantries are a thin pretense. That the whole conversation could go sideways in any number of directions, most of them uncomfortable.
The title is an observation offered by Dave Paule of Our Fundraising Search. We were working on a Nonprofit Snapshot episode when he said these words. Dave isa seasoned leader with hard-won perspective. This observation is not about temperament. It is not suggesting that good leaders should be combative, aggressive, or indifferent to the feelings of the people they lead. It is making a more precise and more important point: that the inability to engage with conflict, to tolerate its discomfort and navigate its complexity, is a disqualifying trait in anyone responsible for leading people or managing organizations.
It is one of the more baffling phenomena in nonprofit governance: a board composed of smart, capable, hardworking people, people who clearly care about the mission, just cannot bring itself to fire an executive director who is visibly, demonstrably failing.