Bi-Weekly Wellbeing Brief: 12/8/2025
December 8 Overview:
This is our last Bi-Weekly Wellbeing Brief for 2025! Although we only started this initiative a few months ago, we're thrilled to see the response from our online community. Despite Thanksgiving last week, our inbox was flooded with news on #NonprofitBurnout and #NonprofitWellbeing. Thematically, we read several articles tackling burnout as it relates to specific populations (immigration lawyers, those of Jewish faith, etc.). We’re seeing a wave of creative, structural, and even experimental solutions. The field is moving beyond “more resilience” and toward multi-layered strategies that address the roots of exhaustion.
🪫 The B-word: What’s happening with Burnout?
An article from Law360 shared that immigration lawyers, especially those connected to nonprofit organizations, report mounting caseloads and emotional strain as deportation surges drive longer hours, moral distress, and a sense of powerlessness. These conditions seem to specifically accelerate burnout and staff churn within this population, calling into focus how burnout should be addressed based on each nonprofit’s unique mission.
The Baylor Lariat reported on a new faith-leadership certificate that explicitly targets loneliness and burnout among ministry and nonprofit leaders, highlighting how human-service workers and faith leaders are seeking better preparation and community to stave off isolation and exhaustion.
The nonprofit sector’s business case is growing louder: this opinion piece from Jaime Saunders argues that nonprofit instability and burnout are not just human-service problems. These are problems that affect financial sustainability and business ecosystems, signaling that workforce health and organizational health are inseparable.
💭 Innovations & New Thinking
We’re bringing attention again to the National Council of Nonprofits Microgrants for Wellbeing. This short video summary of the microgrant program highlights that small, flexible investments (microgrants) produce measurable improvements in staff wellbeing and organizational resilience.
Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Support is taking a new approach to retreats and alternative care for nonprofit staff. Their new psychedelic retreat for Jewish professionals signals organizations experimenting with non-traditional, intensive restorative modalities to address deep exhaustion and trauma among nonprofit and sector professionals. These are framed as therapeutic, cohort-based responses for those with the means/access to participate.
COMMUNITY ACTION PIONEER VALLEY has received the ‘Well Worth It Award,’ which publicly recognizes employer wellness efforts in New England. The awards are offered by a local health insurance provider (Health New England) and strive to promote the health and wellness of employees.
📍 Local to San Diego
The San Diego Solidarity Network hosted its year end event earlier this month, emphasizing the importance of solidarity in San Diego’s efforts to better resource communities--centered around this Solidarity Is practice guide from Building Movement Project. The event brought together social impact leaders including philanthropy, nonprofit, grassroots organizations, mutual aid organizations, and more.
The national pulse shared in this briefing (training certificates, microgrants, employer awards, etc.) suggests that tangible program ideas are available for San Diego funders and intermediaries to pilot.
✅ Quick Takeaways
We are seeing more solutions that are structural in nature, moving away from the notion that burnout is contingent on individual resilience.
Small-scale, staff-driven wellness investments can deliver meaningful impact.
Organizations are willing to experiment; whether it be with retreats, recognition programs, or leadership certificates. This shows an early promise.
Do Good Leadership Collective is a San Diego-based consultancy that helps social impact professionals Do Good and Be Well.
