Media Contact: Chloe Heskett | chloeh@cep.org | 617-395-4092
Concern about burnout is increasing among nonprofit leaders and many report impact on their organization’s ability to achieve its mission, finds new Center for Effective Philanthropy report.
A new study released today by The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) reveals that burnout and staffing issues continue to plague nonprofits, but also that nonprofit leaders are increasingly worried about their own burnout and that burnout is impacting their organization’s ability to achieve its mission. This is a crisis not just for nonprofits, but for the communities and people they serve.
“It takes everything to run a nonprofit that it takes to run a business and much more,” said Elisha Smith Arrillaga, vice president, Research, at CEP. “You’re working on stubborn, difficult issues, and we depend on these organizations to do heroic work like they did in the wake of the pandemic. But people can’t do this forever and we’ll pay a price as a society if we can’t step up.”
The study, “State of Nonprofits 2024: What Funders Need to Know,” is based on survey responses from 239 nonprofit leaders participating in CEP’s Nonprofit Voice Project, a nationally representative panel of U.S. nonprofits that receive at least some foundation funding. In this second yearly survey, the authors took the pulse of nonprofit leaders again, to understand their perspectives and examine change over time. The data reveals:
- 95% of leaders express some level of concern about burnout, and 34% report that staff burnout has been “very much” a concern to them in the last year.
- 33% of leaders say that they are “very much” concerned about their own burnout, and half report that they are more concerned about their burnout now than last year.
- Almost 60% of nonprofit leaders identify staff-related concerns — including but not limited to losing staff to organizations with more competitive compensation and benefits, general lack of staff capacity and burnout, and internal/cultural issues — as one of their organization’s biggest challenges.
- About 50% of surveyed nonprofit leaders report having had some to a lot of difficulty filling staff vacancies in the last year.
- 76% of surveyed leaders indicate that burnout among their staff is at least slightly impacting their organization’s ability to achieve its mission, with 25% reporting that burnout is moderately or significantly impacting their ability to achieve their mission.
“There’s a baseline stress of being a nonprofit leader,” Smith Arrillaga noted. “Not only are you running an organization and chasing funding, but the stakes are high, given the vital role these organizations play in communities and in people’s lives. If there isn’t adequate support for nonprofit leaders, who is going to step up and be the next generation of leadership in the nonprofit sector?”
About the Center for Effective Philanthropy
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to provide data, feedback, programs, and insights to help individual and institutional donors improve their effectiveness. We do this work because we believe effective donors, working collaboratively and thoughtfully, can profoundly contribute to creating a better and more just world. For more information on CEP’s work, including its research, assessments, advisory services, and programming, visit www.cep.org.
