Why so many nonprofits tolerate toxic employees
Leaders in the nonprofit sector seem loath to ditch bad employees. This social impact startup founder, who burned out after a decade in nonprofits, pulls back the curtain—and calls for change.
Working in the nonprofit sector for over a decade really burned me out. Today, I run my own purpose-driven consultancy and a social impact startup, and I’m more energized than ever. Compared to the constant wheel-spinning grind of nonprofit life, running two companies actually doesn’t feel like that big of a lift. I have the privilege of choosing my own teams, setting standards of work quality, and being intolerant when those standards aren’t met. If someone I hire turns out to be toxic, I show them the door.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of nonprofits don’t work this way. Instead, they have a tendency to make excuses for internal incompetence and toxicity. When someone on the team is a problem, they get moved to another department, where they’re allowed to continue mucking things up. It’s illogical, detracts from the mission, and wastes everyone’s time.
If the problem person is on the board, they’re usually kowtowed to and permitted to stay until it no longer benefits them. Furthermore, board members are almost always hands-off when it comes to maintaining a healthy organizational culture. Even if they know that someone is causing damage, they’re loath to intervene. Sometimes this is out of respect for the leadership team, but usually it’s because they don’t want to invest the time to get involved, which is not okay–even if they’re volunteering their time.
If someone at a corporation fails to deliver, earnings may be negatively impacted. If the same occurs at a nonprofit, people may go without food, housing, or healthcare. These life or death stakes merit increased accountability, not less. Yet, at most nonprofits, firing people who don’t deliver is unthinkable.
THE ‘CHARITY MENTALITY’
All of this is indicative of a double standard. Despite their public stance, nonprofit leaders are having trouble rejecting the charity mentality, which focuses on the symptoms of a problem rather than its root causes. Charity elevates the giver and positions the receiver as an object of pity. This mentality really bothers most nonprofit leaders, who do their best to work with communities instead of assuming that, by virtue of their current circumstances, they’re helpless and impaired. Charity supports a need-based (vs. asset-based) approach to community development that’s ultimately ineffective at creating real change.
The charity mentality gives people permission to be paternalistic, to use good intentions as a mask for sanctimonious criticism of others who should be doing more to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” It’s why we congratulate ourselves for writing a check or donating goods to a cause when neither provides a sustainable solution.
As Stanford professor of political science, Rob Reich, puts it: Charity and justice are conceptually distinct. Charity is about meeting short-term needs without addressing the system that enables them, and justice is about ensuring the system itself works for people. For the record, charity is not bad. Providing people with the resources to get through a difficult situation is what we should be doing for one another in wealthy countries. The problem with charity is that it creates the illusion of solving problems, when it’s really just kicking the can down the road.
Nonprofit leaders are different from others in that they view their work as innately good. Like the charity mentality, this perception of doing good allows for someone’s efforts to badly miss the mark so long as their intentions are pure. By contrast, not hitting your performance targets in a business environment puts you in serious danger of being let go. Whether your work product and/or your intentions were objectively good or bad is irrelevant; it’s the results that matter.
The belief that all charitable or nonprofit work is good was something I saw play out constantly in higher education. As a civic engagement leader at some of the nation’s top public universities, my job was to create connections between students, faculty, staff and nonprofit organizations. About a quarter of the students and faculty I encountered in my role blew me away. The effort they put into their work was remarkable.
Of course, others were a disappointment, and it was largely due to the mentality that “something is better than nothing.” Case in point, I’ve seen people donate used underwear and half-eaten cereal boxes to collection drives. The intentions of the giver are irrelevant; the assumption that others deserve our trash is blatantly disrespectful. Unfortunately, the charity mentality absolves people from meeting standards of excellence, because if something is better than nothing, that makes anything good.
A LEADERSHIP DOUBLE STANDARD
Most nonprofit leaders would be disgusted by a used underwear donation. It’s a non-starter; it contributes nothing, and is actually toxic and detrimental to the cause. Yet, when a toxic employee is getting paid to detract from the mission of a nonprofit, its leaders generally insist on being charitable towards that person. It’s a double standard that exonerates organizations from fixing what’s broken internally so long as they’re being hard on the issue externally. Sadly, charitable intentions do not eliminate toxicity–justice does.
Nonprofit leaders have a healthy disdain for volunteers, donors, and board members who don’t meet their commitments, but an unhealthy tolerance for toxic employees who detract from and undermine the mission. The barriers to equity for all are complex and uncompromising. Even when everyone pulls their weight, change is hard. It shouldn’t be made harder by a culture that accepts internally what it externally decries.
The bottom line is that being a “nice person” who “means well” shouldn’t give someone a pass for being ineffective at their job, especially when that job is critical to the well-being of vulnerable populations. In addition to facing all the normal job-related stressors, nonprofit professionals are almost always forced to make a dollar out of 15 cents, and as a result, they’re overworked, they wear too many hats, and they’re underpaid to a much greater degree than their counterparts in the business world. But, they’re also sabotaging themselves by putting up with BS from toxic individuals who drain resources and constantly make it harder for everyone else to do their jobs.
If it’s condescending to pity vulnerable populations instead of treating them as equals, why shouldn’t the same apply to coworkers? If it’s not okay for donors and volunteers (including board members) to shirk their responsibilities, why is it okay for paid employees to do the same without consequences? No matter how it gets applied, the charity mentality is an equity exterminator, which clears the way for injustice.
Equity begets equity. By treating underperforming employees with kid gloves, we’re making it impossible for organizations to fulfill their mission without burning out the rest of their team in the process. It’s time for nonprofits to truly put the mission first by raising the bar and finding intolerance for toxic team members.
The people and causes they serve deserve it.
