04/28/2026
I've seen a pattern in nonprofits, and I've decided to do something about it.
- Nonprofit professionals care immensely about the mission and think the work should be done at all costs (even at cost to themselves).
- Nonprofit professionals form their identities around their work.
- Nonprofit workplaces aren't as invested in their employees as their employees are invested in their missions.
- Nonprofit professionals experience vocational awe, moral injury, and burnout.
- The talented folks *who are next in line to lead* leave, or consider leaving, the sector.
- The people who are left absorb their responsibilities, worsening their situations and shortening the runway of their own departures.
It doesn't have to be this way. I'm sure it of it. I'm not saying it will be easy, and I definitely don't think I can change it alone.
But something has to be done. Someone has to try.
The future of the social sector depends on it.
For the past several months, I've been having conversations about vocational awe, collective care, and how we can lead without losing ourselves in nonprofit work.
I realized recently that that the people participating in these conversations are a support group. It's *the* support group I wish I had had when I experienced my first moral injury.
My first nonprofit job became my entire identity. I gave it everything, and I almost lost everything because of it.
Because when my executive director's husband who was also the board chair (a tale as old as time) offered me her job for significantly less than the market rate (she had done it for free for years), he told me he was "buying me for what I'm worth."
Well, I wasn't for sale, and I had already given them everything. I had nothing left to offer. I walked away an empty husk of the bright-eyed and bushy tailed nonprofit worker I had once been.
When the organization closed its doors six weeks later, I thought I was responsible because I had left. I carried the shame of it with me for years — until I met someone else who had reported to married nonprofit leaders and also tried turn themself into a human shield between those toxic leaders and the staff — and who once also thought they were responsible for failing.
I learned that it wasn't my fault that the organization failed, and, more importantly, that I wasn't alone.
You're not alone alone either. We're in this together, and while doing it together won't solve all our problems, it may make it a little bit easier to carry them.
Nonprofit peer support group info in the comments!
[ID: Shannon Parris at her first nonprofit job, described in the caption, a decade ago. She is smiling next to a display of animal purses, holding a cat purse and a cat wallet.]
