Nonprofits Are Burning Through Their Best People: The Fix Starts in the Boardroom

Back in 2020, when I was brand new to the nonprofit sector, Kim Wilt took me to lunch. Somewhere between ordering and the check, she gave me a warning I have replayed more times than I can count. Be careful. Protect yourself. Don't let this work burn you out, because we need people like you in this sector.

It was one of the highest compliments anyone has paid me, and I took it seriously. I tried to do exactly what she said.

And yet here I sit, crunchier than KFC chicken.

Last week I read a post from Emily Gaylor that stopped my scroll: "Donors don't build trust with a revolving door. Fundraisers can't produce results on command while spending their first six months repairing relationships, learning the organization, and discovering which promises made during the interview weren't true." It struck a chord because I am seeing it more and more. Boards and leaders are running good people out of their organizations, or putting the wrong people in place, because finding the root cause is hard. Sometimes the root cause also happens to contradict the story the board has been telling itself for years. If we want a sector that is strong and thriving (and not staffed by people burnt to a crisp), boards need to examine their own mental models, start treating turnover as a governance issue and recognize what we lose every time a seasoned leader walks out for good.

The Mental Model Problem

My own exit is the case I know best, so I'll start there. A mental model that was outdated and entrenched in a board created friction. The friction turned into strife. And ultimately, I left. Not just the organization, the sector.

I did my best, and the organization was in a better place when I walked out the door than when I walked in. I'm proud of that. What I didn't see was how much it had cost me. It took months to realize I was burnt out. You know it's bad when community members stop you to say you look so happy now, or that it looks like you've finally stopped sticking forks in light sockets. You laugh, then you pause... and then you realize, yikes. That was bad.

Here's the tricky part about outdated mental models: they never feel outdated to the people holding them. Giving has shifted since COVID. Donors engage differently, companies give differently and staff need different things to do the work well. A board still running the old playbook will read every shortfall as a people problem. The staff didn't make the right pitch. The director didn't show up enough. So they swap the person, keep the playbook and wonder why the results look the same eighteen months later.

Turnover Is a Board Issue

The data backs up what so many of us have lived. CompassPoint's Daring to Lead study of roughly 3,000 executive directors found that 67% expected to leave their current role within five years. Only 68% were satisfied with their boards, and 45% had never received a formal performance evaluation.¹ That last number deserves a second read. Nearly half of the people running these organizations were never told, formally, how they were doing.

Fundraisers have it worse. A 2019 Harris Poll survey for the Chronicle of Philanthropy and AFP found that 51% of fundraisers planned to leave their jobs within two years, and 30% planned to leave the profession entirely. Eighty-four percent reported "tremendous pressure to succeed," and only 12% pointed to retirement or personal reasons for leaving.² In other words, most of the reasons people leave are organizational. They are fixable.

Now run Emily's math. If a development director stays two years and spends the first six months cleaning up after the last one, a quarter of their tenure goes to recovery. Then they leave, and the next person starts the clock over. Donors notice. Staff notice. The only people who seem not to notice are the ones hiring.

We Can't Afford to Lose the Veterans

Hear me clearly: the sector needs new blood and new ideas. I was new blood once, and I'd like to think I brought some fresh thinking with me.

But I am watching leaders who were here long before I arrived head for the exits. Leaders who came in after me are leaving too. That is not a healthy sign. When seasoned leaders walk away, they take relationships and institutional memory with them, and they take the mentoring. Kim's lunch was mentoring. It was a veteran looking out for a rookie. That conversation doesn't happen if Kim has already left.

A sector that burns through its veterans ends up with nobody left to tell the next generation to protect themselves. And the cycle repeats.

So, Boards...

If boards that have grown complacent, or that are dug in against any new model, don't start looking inward, it is not going to be good. We will see more churn and more people exiting the space for good.

So here are the questions I'd ask any board member reading this. When your last executive director or development director left, did the board ask what part it played? Would the story you tell about why they left match the story they would tell? And the next time the results aren't there, will you look at the person or at the playbook?

Kim was right. We need good people in this sector.

The question is whether the sector is willing to keep them.

Part 2: Getting Unburnt: What It Looks Like When a Board Gets It Right

Andy Gail, MBA

Andy is the founder of Gail Consulting Group and a nonprofit executive with leadership experience spanning turnaround management, strategic planning, and organizational operations. GCG serves nonprofits, small businesses, and government-adjacent organizations across Virginia and beyond.