Does ‘Meaning’ Substitute for Money?
Nonprofits pay less and prime workers for burnout. How do we create something different?
As I write this article, my Safari is littered with open tabs for half-finished applications to nonprofit jobs in DC. How did I get here, to month ten of my job search?
Growing up in the Maryland suburbs, the soccer moms supplying snacks every Saturday were also career women: national security advisors, nonprofit tech developers, government consultants. In the summer my mother brought her work to the beach, right alongside the sand pail and towels.
While I was an undergrad at Georgetown, friends either found summer internships in banking and private equity or received meager stipends and course credit to work on education and prison reform. Every visit to the career counseling center either recommended I apply to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps or review cases for consulting interviews.
Now, coming out of college with an ostensibly prestigious undergraduate degree, well-employed classmates, and high expectations, I am searching for jobs. According to concerned grandparents, nagging uncles, or even the practical voice in my head, I feel like I have two options available to me: find a job in the for-profit sector, or look for purpose-driven work at a nonprofit. At the latter, I’d be guaranteed to make less, but it would be in exchange for something. Meaning? Purpose? I’m not sure.
As Jill Lepore details in “What’s Wrong with the Way We Work,” the expectation that work gives us ‘meaning’ is a relatively new concept. “‘Meaningful work’ is an expression that had barely appeared in the English language before the early nineteen-seventies,” she says. Slowly, business executives and tech gurus started leaning into purpose as a tenet of job satisfaction, supporting a broad decoupling of wages from labor. “Meaning” was dropped in as a substitute, and “doing what you love” emerged as a new imperative to seek out in work.
Confused and very unemployed, I reached out to Rosita Choy, a DC-based workshop facilitator and coach with over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector who works with folks experiencing nonprofit burnout. She sees clients consistently overwhelmed by their work. Scores of young professionals walk through her door ready to throw in the towel. “It’s hard at my job,” Choy hears on repeat, “I don’t feel 100% happy. My boss is terrible! I work too much.”
Choy is adamant these symptoms signal a deeper affliction.
She sees the root of burnout in nonprofit’s huge aspirations: “Nonprofit [workers] are primed for burnout and exploitation because they want to solve these big problems in the world that really have no finish line: end poverty, end racism, make the world a more inclusive place.” With smaller budgets and bigger scope, nonprofits rely on people willing to accept the mission in exchange for less pay and longer hours.
Is that a fair, or sustainable, bargain?
As I saw in the people around me growing up, work will be everywhere. And issues are everywhere too: likely generational downward economic mobility, massive unemployment, skyrocketing rent and housing shortages in conjunction with near-continuous massive cuts for social services. If these are the givens, I want to be a kind of person whose work–and in some way, identity–supports more than myself.
According to a 2018 survey in Harvard Business Review, I’m not alone in this mindset. Out of over 2,000 people surveyed, 9 of 10 people were willing to make less money in order to do work that felt more meaningful. Half of respondents would prefer to earn 23% less over their lifetime if it meant their work would always feel meaningful. Put another way, that’s around how much individuals put towards housing each month.
Maybe it’s the pandemic or climate change, but I’m starting to think about what we are willing to give up in order to feel a sense of purpose as we stare down an uncertain future.
The people I grew up with place meaningful work even above relationships and community — meaningful work is seen as crucial to a fulfilling life. According to a 2019 study by Pew Research, respondents saw having an enjoyable career as more important than being in a committed romantic relationship in order to have a fulfilling life — by over 15%.
(Work in a nonprofit is by no means the only way to have a meaningful or fulfilling career. And there are other industries–teaching, care work, nursing, to name a few–that also have a similarly meaning-driven and underpaid dynamic.)
Too often, nonprofit work is packaged as inherently meaningful while obscuring low pay. Just look at the language used in job postings on Idealist. Or take the National Council of Nonprofits’ description of a nonprofit as an example. It leans on phrases like “embody the best of America,” and “transform shared beliefs and hope into action.” It goes on to elaborate that nonprofits “give shape to our boldest dreams, highest ideals, and noblest causes,’’ where people “educate, inspire, and nurture.” Amidst the superlatives and aspirational verbs is the idea that these noble actions and goals make the work worth it.
Research also consistently shows how choosing “meaningful” nonprofit work pays significantly less. A 2016 report posted by the very same National Council of Nonprofits found that nonprofit employees in DC made $14,000 less annually than their for-profit counterparts.
There’s a mindset that working towards a better world in lieu of pursuing profit is worth it, even at a substantial cost. But how far can purpose-driven work go?
There are no neat answers, but here’s what I took away from my conversation with Rosita Choy. Nonprofits exist in a for-profit system that leaves them struggling for resources. As Choy points out, “the models that people bring into nonprofit come from the for-profit world, from a very profit-driven viewpoint.” While for-profit companies are structured around the bottom line, nonprofits can actually have less flexibility. Nonprofits get a huge chunk of their funding from project grants, which cover only specific projects, sidelining overhead and operational costs. Employees are left to shoulder the burden.
A friend (who asked to remain anonymous) that works in a DC-based nonprofit sees this responsibility mostly landing on younger employees like her. As a project manager at an international renewable energy nonprofit, “senior people expect us to put in overtime. Junior employees are regularly overbilled–given more hours than initially contracted–for projects and expected to work weekends. It’s seen as ‘paying our dues’.” She hoped to bring on an intern to even out her workload but was told that there wasn’t room for a paid intern in the budget, leaving the work to fall back on her and her overworked team.
And it all hinges on the mission. At the very least, this system seems to stretch people thin.
This is a problem anywhere, but it’s pervasive in Washington, DC. In the metro, at the grocery store, on a bike ride: there’s a one in four chance that the stranger in front of you works at a nonprofit.
High density is one driver for the intense concentration of DC’s nonprofit culture. In other cities, you might work at a nonprofit but live in a community with folks that work in a variety of different industries. But in DC, “not only are there so many people doing nonprofit work, but they also tend to group together. And that feeds on itself,” says Choy.
A highly concentrated workforce with a culture of disillusionment sounds like the perfect recipe for organizing. So I reached out to Kayla Blado, President of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU), a union representing workers at over 30 nonprofits across the county. She has employees reaching out every day, confronting similar issues: burnout and frustration at the lack of transparency, movement and upward mobility at their organization.
It reminded me of something else Choy said: “Let employees take time off. Let’s be more generous with vacation, time out, flexible work hours.” If nonprofits trusted employees’ needs, perhaps employees could give time to what brings them energy, and to balance the needs of work with everything else that is a part of a meaningful life.
“Forming a union is not a quick fix. But it is a way to create true power and a mechanism for change at your workplace,” says Blado.
Sharing power is actually better for employees and the organization. Blado says, “being able to point to legally enforceable contracts that state ‘we’re guaranteed to this amount of starting salary, vacation time, professional development, etc.’ can help keep employees from feeling like they’re hitting a brick wall.”
Maybe there is a way out of this burnout cycle. Unions seem to be one step in that direction, a way to make purpose-driven work pay fairly and empower employees. I return often to a 2017 essay by Toni Morrison, about her early experience working. One line stands out: “You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.”
I’m not sure I’m there yet. I grew up in a world where work is the person you are, and I’m still searching for a meaningful balance.
