Bi-Weekly Wellbeing Brief: 3/23/202
March 23 Overview:
Spring is in full swing 🌸 Our inboxes have remained over these past two weeks—filled with research, calls to action, funding announcements, and reflections on what it takes to sustain the people behind social impact work. Personally, we are still celebrating the release of the Heart of the Nonprofit Sector report from the Nonprofit Finance Fund earlier this month. We had the opportunity to learn directly from their researchers and case study participants in Oakland, CA last week (see photo below). There is one thing that feels clear as Q3 comes to an end: the nonprofit sector is not short on insight about burnout and wellbeing. The question remains: how will we respond?
🪫 The B-word: What’s happening with Burnout?
In Canada, nonprofit leaders are sounding the alarm: budget cuts are direct threats to staff wellbeing. The sector, described as the “backbone of the social safety net,” is being asked to absorb increased demand with fewer resources, creating compounding pressure on workers.
Across the U.S., staffing challenges persist. Reporting from the Nonprofit Center in The Idaho Community Foundation points to ongoing hiring and retention difficulties, reinforcing how burnout and workforce shortages are deeply intertwined—fewer staff means more pressure on those who remain. In California, reports suggest that workforce strain may be slowing progress on homelessness initiatives, as overwhelmed staff struggle to sustain long-term program implementation.
There is also growing attention to the emotional toll of specific fields. Nonprofit Quarterly reports that climate leaders are navigating heavy workloads and climate anxiety—holding grief, uncertainty, and existential fear as part of their daily work. Similarly, frontline workers in high-stakes sectors continue to carry invisible emotional labor that compounds over time.
💭 Innovations & New Thinking
The Vermont Community Foundation is offering $5,000 grants that explicitly include staff and volunteer mental health as eligible uses—signaling a growing normalization of wellbeing as a funding priority.
The South Asian Bar Association of North America Foundation is providing community grants to support organizations serving immigrant communities, with funding that can be directed toward staff wellness and capacity for those on the frontlines of high-stress legal and advocacy work.
A new nonprofit, Medical Minds Matter, Inc., is working to destigmatize mental health conversations within the medical field—an important signal that wellbeing efforts are expanding across sectors and professions.
We are delighted to see more events across the U.S. like the Contagious Culture Conference–a national convening dedicated to helping nonprofit leaders build sustainable, people-centered organizations rooted in kindness, community, and capital.
📍 Local to San Diego
Here in San Diego, the conversation around sustainability and leadership continues to evolve. Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties recently released a call for applications to help launch their local Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative—a new pooled-fund initiative, focused on nonprofit capacity building and collaboration.
✅ Quick Takeaways
Burnout can be influenced by many factors, including funding cuts, staffing shortages, and the emotional weight of complex social issues
Workforce strain impacts staff wellbeing as well as programmatic outcomes (e.g., homelessness response, climate work)
Philanthropy across different regions is responding with targeted funding that explicitly supports staff and volunteer wellbeing
The sector has the insight (as seen in the NFF report); the opportunity now is to translate it into sustained action
Do Good Leadership Collective is a San Diego-based consultancy that helps social impact professionals Do Good and Be Well.
