Bi-Weekly Wellbeing Brief: 10/28/2025
October 28 Overview:
Burnout in the nonprofit sector continues to disrupt organizations and workers across the country: nonprofit staff are stretched beyond capacity with workloads, community commitments are piling high, and the risk of people depletion is mounting. At the same time, innovation is emerging: organizations are beginning to rethink roles and job quality, funders are speaking out about their own burnout stories and need for wellbeing, and conversations about long-term investment in people might be signaling a possible shift toward sustainable wellbeing.
🪫 The B-word: What’s happening with Burnout?
In one recent survey of U.S. nonprofit professionals shared by The Economic Times - Business Verticals, only 45% of workers plan to stay in their current role, with 14% actively job-hunting. To quote the article, “Mission alignment alone proved insufficient to prevent turnover.”
An article from Candid written by Building Movement Project mentioned that, across frontline and non-frontline nonprofit workers, over 60% report “often” or “always” experiencing a demanding workload—and BIPOC frontline staff report higher exposure to “invisible labor” (e.g., representing community, emotional labor) and less voice in decision-making).
A Forbes article titled “The Burnout Paradox: When Saving The World Destroys The People Doing It,” anchors the issue in the paradox of mission-driven work. A call to action was shared by author Tara Fitzpatrick-Navarro: “The choice is clear: Nonprofits must make employee well-being a strategic priority, not an afterthought.”
💭 Innovations & New Thinking
A major study (“Long-Haul Grantmaking: How Many-Year Grants Can Transform Nonprofit Jobs and Amplify Impact”) found that many-year (7-year) unrestricted grants allowed organizations to increase job quality: more livable pay and benefits, better work–life balance, reduced fundraising burden, stronger internal systems. Fund the People helped to capture the case study with the Walter & Elise Haas Fund's Endeavor Fund.
Research by Ndifreke Essien (and co-authors) highlights evidence-based strategies to improve workforce retention and wellbeing in social impact orgs: transparent compensation frameworks, predictive HR analytics, and equity-centered systems.
An article “Why burnout prevention starts with leadership” underscores that preventing burnout is not only about self-care, but about how leaders design roles, model boundaries, and shape psychological safety.
On this podcast episode with Fund the People, Laura Bacon shares her insights from working with a growing group of funders who are thinking about wellbeing strategy through the The Wellbeing Project. The conversation emphasizes the critical importance of maintaining focus on wellbeing initiatives during challenging times.
📍 Local to San Diego
Coming up in San Diego: Reflect. Reimagine. Recommit: Protecting San Diego’s Nonprofit Workforce (Nov 6) is a gathering supported by Do Good Leadership Collective and Fund the People, focused on workforce wellbeing in the region.
The President of Kinship Fund, Kim Berry Jones, tells her story of burnout and exhaustion, and her commitment to wellbeing and investing in the health of San Diego nonprofit leaders.
The San Diego Nonprofit Academy is back at The Nonprofit Institute. Sign up for a free 2-day experience (beings today, Oct 28) designed to support, uplift, and activate the leadership that the San Diego region needs right now.
✅ Quick Takeaways
Retention is a major red-flag: mission alignment alone won’t keep people if fair pay, role clarity and healthy leadership models are lacking.
Heavy workloads, invisible labor, and inadequate recovery are converging to deepen burnout—especially for BIPOC and frontline staff. Check out Do Good Leadership Collective’s blogs on Reasonable Workloads, The Need for Rest, and Creating Space to Process for ideas, powerful questions, and helpful insights.
Wellbeing solutions require structural adjustments: longer-term funding, fair compensation, meaningful job design, leadership modeling.
Do Good Leadership Collective is a San Diego-based consultancy that helps social impact professionals Do Good and Be Well.
