The Nonprofit Fix
"The Nonprofit Fix" is a candid and insightful podcast that explores the challenges of the nonprofit sector and its potential to repair our broken world. Join hosts Pete York and Ken Berger, as they delve into the sector's issues, discussing solutions to foster a more effective and impactful nonprofit community.
Opinions expressed in this podcast are personal and not reflective of the hosts' employers.
The Nonprofit Fix
From Burnout to Resilience: Strategies for Empowering Frontline Nonprofit Workers
In the captivating episode "From Burnout to Resilience: Strategies for Empowering Frontline Nonprofit Workers," hosts Ken and Peter dive deep into the challenges faced by frontline staff in the nonprofit sector. They explore the complex issues that these essential workers encounter daily, from dealing with clients' severe trauma and mental health issues to navigating the limited resources available to them. The hosts share personal stories highlighting the emotional and mental toll that this demanding work can take on frontline staff, emphasizing the urgent need for better support systems within nonprofit organizations.
The episode illuminates the alarming rates of burnout, compassion fatigue, and high turnover among frontline nonprofit workers. Ken and Peter examine the factors contributing to these issues, including the lack of adequate staff training, resources, and mental health support. They also discuss the impact of these challenges on the quality of services provided to clients and the overall effectiveness of nonprofit organizations in achieving their missions.
Throughout the episode, the hosts not only shed light on the challenges but also propose potential strategies for empowering frontline workers and promoting their resilience. They stress the importance of comprehensive training and support, access to mental health resources, and opportunities for self-care. They also advocate for the reevaluation of compensation structures and career advancement opportunities, suggesting the creation of pathways that allow high-performing frontline staff to be well-compensated while remaining in direct service roles.
The conversation underscores the critical role of leadership in creating a supportive and sustainable work environment for frontline staff. The hosts emphasize the importance of fostering a culture of collaboration, both within organizations and between nonprofits, to alleviate the burden on individual workers and provide a more holistic approach to addressing clients' needs. They also discuss the concept of tying staff performance to client outcomes, stressing the need for realistic and achievable goals that acknowledge the complexity of the issues frontline workers face.
As the episode draws to a close, Ken and Peter offer words of encouragement to nonprofit stakeholders and workers alike. They remind listeners that while the challenges frontline staff face are significant, there is hope for positive change within the sector. By prioritizing the well-being and success of frontline workers, nonprofit organizations can build a more resilient and effective workforce, ultimately leading to better outcomes for the communities they serve. The hosts conclude by inviting listeners to join the conversation and share their own experiences and ideas to create a more supportive environment for frontline nonprofit workers.
Welcome to the. Nonprofit Fix a podcast about the nonprofit sector where we talk openly and honestly about the many challenges that face the sector where we will discuss current and future solutions to those challenges where we explore how the nonprofit sector can have much more positive impact in the world. A podcast where we explore how the nonprofit sector can have much more positive impact in the world.
Speaker 2:A podcast where we believe that once we fix the nonprofit sector, we can much more dramatically help to fix our broken world.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone, Ken Berger here with my wise and wizardly friend and podcast co-host, Peter York.
Speaker 2:He's there, I'm here, hello everybody.
Speaker 1:Just a quick request before we dive into today's topic. Please, please, please, give us a five-star review on your podcast app. It can really help to drive traffic to our podcasts so that more people will listen and hopefully learn something worthwhile. Now on to today's focus. This episode continues our journey through the challenges we face in the sector referred to as the exhausted sector. Welcome to episode 12, which is the fifth episode under that theme. And, for those of you who want to keep track, episodes 7, 8, 10, and 11 so far cover this topic, and now 12.
Speaker 1:So let's move on to the next area of challenge, and that is the challenge of serving some of the people that we care about and the challenges faced by the people that we serve. And, of course, this is directly related, or especially related rather, to the work of many of our direct service delivery organizations. It's a vitally, vitally important role that these organizations play in meeting some of the greatest challenges out there. So many of the clients, patients, beneficiaries whatever term is appropriate that we serve have faced in their lives extreme trauma, poverty, lack of opportunity over many years, if not over a lifetime, and our humble nonprofits are tasked with addressing these sometimes overwhelming, complex, intersecting challenges Example homelessness plus mental health issues plus addiction and so on, as just one example and it can feel insurmountable for both clients and the staff that serve them. So that's what we're going to be talking about today and, if it's all right with you, peter, maybe you and I can both start with a story. I thought you know we had shared this with each other and might've heard this on one of our other podcasts, and I thought my story was the topper. And then I heard Peter's story and it's like well, wait a minute. Oh my gosh, because the story that I tell and have told many times because it's burned into my memory is that I was working in a small homeless shelter. It was Church Mance in New Jersey and I was the executive director, but I had to do everything from cleaning the place to case management, to budgets and everything else.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, so one night I'm doing case management, I'm screening people wanting to come into the shelter, I'm sitting in the porch area an enclosed porch and it's dark outside. It's nighttime and this homeless person comes in, sits down across from me about you know, two feet away from me and he says you know he wants to come in. I do the assessment and determined that he is very drunk and our policy was that we can't accept someone in that state, that they need to be sober and unfortunately, because of the realities of that time, there was almost nowhere else for him to go until he sobered up. Actually, some clients, what they would do is they would crawl into a donation bin for clothing to stay warm until morning, anyway. So his response to me was I have a gun and I've put it in the bushes right next to this porch and I'm going to go out there and I'm going to shoot you dead from the porch area and thankfully it didn't happen.
Speaker 1:He didn't make good on that threat and I did have to call the police and unfortunately he was arrested. But I will say that for me that night I woke up in the middle of the night screaming at the top of my lungs and the trauma of that I carried with me for a long time thereafter, to this day. I'll never forget it. So that's my story of that and, peter, I know you have one that even more blew my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was a caseworker for the homeless. It sounds like we were in very similar settings. It's very interesting. We were actually asked if the timing of this was at the same time period, I forget when you were in your agency experiencing these things as an executive director. I was a caseworker, I was right on the front lines and I worked in a drop-in center, a provider in Indianapolis, indiana, and we were a day center, so if you were homeless, you could come to our facilities and we would offer you a space, a phone, an address you could store your stuff, and we had case management services and I was one of the case managers and one of the things we did was the city gave us an allotment of bus tickets that we could then use in order to help our clients get to job appointments, interviews, things like that, to be able to help them out.
Speaker 2:Well, everybody knew that we unfortunately had some of our clients who, because of drug addiction or alcoholism, and what we're talking about today is the complexity of issues that we're facing when we're trying to provide services. Nothing straightforward, nothing is typically that easy. Everybody comes with a complexity of sets of problems, but one of the challenges we have is that if somebody's got a drug addiction or other thing, sometimes they would come in and it was not uncommon for someone to want our bus tickets in order to then go out and sell them for food. And typically at the time I remember a lot of my clients were, you know, it was pretty cheap to buy, you know, colt 45 or you know whatever it was, which was a beer at the time, by the way. Way They'd get the hard stuff, they'd get that.
Speaker 2:But the point was that this one day this guy came in and we also had a policy, like you all did, we don't take people if they're drunk or high. But this guy came in and nobody picked up on the fact that he was waiting for me, signed up to see a caseworker, I brought him into my office and he was clearly high and I don't mean high as in marijuana high and that never led to any big problems. I'm talking about I have no idea what he was on, but he was completely rattled. He immediately shuts my door, pulls a gun out and threatens to kill me unless I give him the bus tickets. Now the challenge I have in recalling this is, first of all, when you have a gun pulled on you. It in and to itself is a pretty traumatic experience. Of course, your natural instinct is to protect yourself. And so what did I do? I'm like I reached for my bus tickets.
Speaker 2:Now my fear was that this guy was not going to be happy and he was clearly crazy. He was like off his gourd in terms of the drugs and whatever he was on. So of course I know I'm not dealing with somebody who's rational he's got a gun pointed at me. He shut the door so I really didn't have access to be able to let anybody see me, and the thing that scared me about it was that, you know, I thought at that moment I only get a certain allotment.
Speaker 2:I usually run out of my allotment of bus tickets, usually a halfway through the month, and I don't have any. And of course that ticks off a lot of people. When they come in they need stuff. So I don't have any. So I'm very we were very judicious about that and I remember thinking, as I'm sitting there looking, I'm like I just pray to God I hadn't run out because I didn't know what this guy would do and I I'm convinced to this day.
Speaker 2:Thankfully I had the bus, some bus tickets was able to pull him out of there, and he was able to. I was able to satisfy what he needed. But I have never had that kind of like experience and threatened that way, and I remember thinking afterwards and this was part of the trauma that I experienced was I just couldn't shake the thought that had he come at the end of the month, what would have happened, what would the consequence be? Right, and so it's that kind of stuff, and that wasn't the only incident in that particular setting, because you know a lot of people that are vulnerable. Now again, we're talking drug addiction, mental health issues. We're talking people that really are in a state of serious condition and situation when they're coming in. So that's my story and I have to tell you it stuck with me for a long, long time.
Speaker 1:So now I'd like to just for a minute. We were tasked by the city of New York. We wrote a proposal, and our proposal was accepted, to operate a shelter. That was innovative because people were permitted to be as high as as you know, they could be high coming in, and also we had lockers in the front entry area and it was like we didn't look at, we didn't whatever you put in there, you put in there as long as you know, once you enter the facility, you're not carrying anything, be it drugs or weapons or anything like that. So it was a way to try to get to where many of the people that we were serving were at, with chronic drug problems and needing weapons to protect themselves and all the rest of it. But anyway, that's just a sidebar to the other thing I just wanted to say. So the other side of the coin, in one sense, is the trauma and the challenges of those that we serve, and I just wanted to mention a quick story about on the other side of things, for some of the people served and provided a disservice.
Speaker 1:So during that same period of my life when I was working with the homeless, During that same period of my life when I was working with the homeless. At one point I worked at a place called the Fort Washington Armory. That's in New York City and in fact there is a movie about that place called the Saint of Fort Washington. That had Danny Glover, matt Dillon in it and it gave you a bit of a sense of the bullying and the problems in that place. But I worked there and I was responsible for serving people who were severely mentally ill and they were living in that place and every night it was basically the Lord of the Flies, they'd be in the program with us during the day and then when we went home they went into the main shelter area where basically the security guards locked the doors in this massive armory and it was completely unattended. So the guards stayed outside in the hallway and it was basically, you know, bullying, threatening, raping, you know just beating people. It was unbelievably frightening place and our clients were preyed upon unbelievably.
Speaker 1:And so these are people who have severe mental health problems and they're being placed in the most toxic, frightening, completely opposite of the kind of place that they needed, because the services that they should have gotten were not available to them, to them, and that is just sort of at the other end of the spectrum of this sort of unimaginable.
Speaker 1:It's like they're faced with tremendous challenges to begin with, and then these institutions are so toxic that it then becomes not surprising that many of them opted to live outdoors, to live in the subways, to live in tunnels, to live on the street, because this, well, you know, there's been more and more attempts to have, you know, permanent single room occupancy and, you know, reducing the populations in the shelters, but at the same time, unfortunately, it looks like the shelter population continues to surge in the city. And in my experience, last but not least, I'll say that the vast majority of the people that we served had substance abuse issues sometimes, or mental health issues, and oftentimes a combination of both, and so the term CAMI, and oftentimes a combination of both, and so the term CAMI chemically abusing, mentally ill became part of the jargon of the time, and so these kind of issues are just enormously in.
Speaker 2:I worked in patient psychiatry with kids and we experienced all kinds of different circumstances in those situations where, you know, looking back upon it, it was stress inducing. Sometimes it was, you know. You knew, that day when I was working in patient psychiatry, you know we did four points restraints and seclusions and therapeutic holds. We had kids that were, you know, fighting, violent and doing violent things to themselves, cutting themselves, whatever the case may be. So that's one, a different setting. I'll give you even what appears to a lot of folks who don't really do the work on the front lines and don't understand the complexities of the work that's happening. I'll give you an example, even with respect to, you know, as a school counselor I mean, excuse me, a camp counselor, in an afterschool program or during a summer program you'd be working in those settings and what and it doesn't matter sometimes where it is, but depending on the community that you're working in, even these after school programs, you're dealing with kids who are coming with all kinds of other problems and issues with respect to parents not picking them up and the trauma of that being the case. And being the case because there's all kinds of problems going on or other situations going on at home. You might have situations where kids are being bullied or other types of things that are happening. The point being is that everything that we do that is human services, and when you think about the providers on the front lines, what we often don't really contemplate is just yes, you're bringing compassion and a purpose to your work and we love this work, but it's complex. It's important that we understand that people come with and our beneficiaries and our customers come with so many different issues and challenges, as they do come with strengths and assets as well. But no matter what your setting is, teachers can talk about this in a school setting, in the classroom.
Speaker 2:Complex problems, stress, and I want to differentiate some things here that we're talking about. What's the impact that this has on, especially those that are on the front lines? You know, first of all, trying to figure out what to do and how to do it well takes time, but there's a lot of turnover as a result of this. People call it trauma's one thing that happens and we describe some of that. Sometimes they've labeled this compassion fatigue, which is not necessarily trauma, which is defined a little differently, but compassion fatigue is just that giving so much and seeing kind of some of the challenges that take a long time to work through and see better.
Speaker 2:You know outcomes and results from just the general stress, right, just the general workforce. There was a study that showed that one out of four workers in the general workforce not the nonprofit workforce experience mental health as a result of or caused by their workplace setting. If you were to take that now and expand it to a lot of what we do, especially in the human services, health services in the nonprofit sector, you begin to see that that's probably higher and there's a lot of challenges. So all this is to say that all this complexity and all this work, the front lines is, it's understandable why there's turnover, there's complexity and there's a lot of challenges there. And, by the way, that's your centerpiece of your staffing in any nonprofit model. We talk about the nonprofit fix. You know the heart of every nonprofit is its frontline practitioners, especially when it comes to service provision, especially when it comes to service provision, yep and the.
Speaker 1:I guess the other dimension of this I think I just want to mention and I think you're sort of heading there already, and maybe this is a place to pivot is a sense for many of the staff of being so overwhelmed by the challenges that they see in the people that they're serving and feeling that the tools that they have and that the impact that they can provide is so minuscule or they just don't see any progress, that that also can lead to the burnout and the frustration and the turnover and all the rest of it. So I mean, I guess I can just say an example of that is someone who comes into the shelter and has all kinds of issues mental health, substance abuse, whatnot and they stay for one night and they're gone the next morning morning, and so for me my sort of benchmark of positive impact was well, at least they got three hot meals and a cot, and maybe, if I'm lucky, I was able to give them a warm coat to send them on their way, and that would be the extent of it.
Speaker 2:Yep, Yep. I think one of the challenges we have in our sector is that for all of us and all of those who are on the front lines working with people, doing the compassionate work of so many of the providers in the nonprofit sector, do you have the tools and resources to really one best serve those clients and understand those needs? How many complex, like what complexities do people bring to this experience? And so part of it is what kind of information do we have? We're in a field where, you know, the average tenure is probably about a year and a half for direct line workers. In terms of frontline workers, in terms of the human service provision, you know what are the tools they have to understand where people are coming from. You know, do they have the assessment tools? Do they have the? What do they learn? What do they ask? How do they engage with those they're serving to understand what their needs are and kind of where they're coming from?
Speaker 2:That's one thing that's very helpful. And then, secondly, do they have the resources and supports they need themselves as workers to be able to process when you know things are stressful or maybe even somewhat traumatic or there's something that you're experiencing and you're feeling burnt out? What are the resources that these providers and practitioners really have access to? So let's talk about a couple of those and start leaning into the solution side of what we're talking about, Ken, and start talking about, like some of those, those options and thoughts on kind of what we could do. I just presented kind of two ideas One is to how we help practitioners and what nonprofit leaders and organizational leaders can do, and then, secondly, how we can actually better understand the complexity of clients, and I'll talk a little bit about the what we can do with data. But do you want to?
Speaker 1:sure, because they're one of those, yeah, so, so you know one, one of the things that, uh, I think we've mentioned in other episodes and it just keeps coming up to train, train, train the staff to give them as many tools as possible so that they feel that they have a clear sense of what to do and how to handle various situations that come up and what is the most effective way to help somebody.
Speaker 1:But, of course, within that context, that presumes that the tools are being provided in those trainings that are meaningful, that are evidence-based, that show that they can get to the kind of impact that we want.
Speaker 1:And I guess that circles back to a problem that we've talked about a number of times here, that you're the expert on, which is the typical training would be the training on what you might call the averages, like a sort of a generic approach, when in fact it's almost like it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy of helplessness, because a generic approach that's not tailored to the specific needs of an individual that's being served is far less likely to have the desired result as opposed to having a more evidence-based approach that tailors the services and the interventions to that specific individual.
Speaker 1:So, again, I think we keep circling back to this fundamental message that the future for us to lead to more help for the people with so many challenges and for more hope and possible satisfaction for those that are serving them will require, I think, a new way of of providing services that we're just now beginning to get into that area. I mean, I know the tools were there, but most of our organizations are just beginning to take advantage of those tools. But it speaks to this issue as to so many others that we've talked about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that one of the challenges we really do have is that we do continue to treat and think of our services as kind of one size fits all, especially if you're not on the front lines. People on the front lines know that one size doesn't fit all. Every case we've got to basically make adjustments. The challenge we have is that we really don't have the kind of information we need, the training and the tools. We only have a few things at our disposal. When I was a case manager, I had bus tickets, resource and referrals. I had my Rolodex of places I could call to get help. I knew if you need food, you need clothes, you need transportation, you know, do you need your light driver's license or an ID so that you can get a job, et cetera, et cetera. So there's very basic kind of things that I can pull on. But yet when I come, when the clients come into our services, you know, my thought was that the one size fits all and the way it always works is, if we don't tailor things, what we begin to do is realize everybody that comes into the office or everybody that comes for services individually, you automatically kind of like think holistically about all you've got to do right For this particular person. But part of that, the challenge is, and the opportunity now is, as we start to do better on gathering data, we start to understand and can learn from past clients, like the clients we're serving at this moment in time. The more we can leverage the data we've already been tracking, the more we can come to realize that we can afford practitioners the opportunity to be able to ask a few key questions. Ask a few key questions and learn quickly what this person really is going to benefit from right. So the point being is, we also know some clients are going to require a whole lot of help and some clients are going to require just a little bit of help. But if we don't have the tools to be able to understand first what their needs are and meet them where they are, we're going to burn out because we're going to approach every client as if I've got to think of everything I might do for them and I've got to, like, do this work of figuring out exactly what's the right thing, whereas if we just had better tools, right, better insights so I would even go as far as say data-driven insights Ask a few questions that are really important questions that help us go. Ah, now I know who you are. Oh, you're living in your car. You've never been homeless before, you have education and you have job history. All of a sudden what I can do for you is very different. Right, by just asking those few questions, versus if I were to now ask questions of another client, the same client coming in, and I say to them, I ask them some of those similar questions. I say I've been on the street since I was 11. I've been addicted. You know. You could tell they have a mental health and addiction problems. Now I've got a whole different, specific set of things I can do.
Speaker 2:The challenge we have is that right now, until we get to know our clients and our customers and usually that takes time and relationship and all of that we don't know what to do. So we tend to think I've got to figure out and I've got to ask them everything. What we're now getting to a place where we can do is actually start to help practitioners on the front lines get to the answer quicker, just like a doctor can run some lab results and be able to know specifically what to focus on when they see your bloods, your blood work and you see it on your labs, what to focus on when they see your bloods, your blood work and you see it on your labs. We can reach that place now, and the reason that helps with the standpoint of burnout and stress and everything else is because we only have so much we can do. And if we approach every client like they have a multitude of needs and I have no idea now I've got to figure all this stuff out Whereas if we can be more strategic, run the analog of our own tests, so to speak, ask the right a few key questions, we can start to calibrate our services. Oh, this is a light touch. I just need a couple things here and we become more efficient. That's really, really important.
Speaker 2:And then what it also does if we start to get into the data-driven solution orientation, the second thing we get, which we never had when I was a social worker. I never had up-to-date progress. For who am I working with? The next time they come in, I should have at my fingertips to see what we did last. I shouldn't have to do the analysis. I shouldn't just be putting data in and getting nothing back. When they walk back in my office, I should be able to pull up their information and instantly know what they're working on, know what the priorities are that I need. That can be helpful.
Speaker 2:See progress and actually start to see not just that I served them, I made the referral, but actually see preliminary outcomes. Ah, they actually got the job, they showed up to the interview, they're taking those next steps. Capturing that information and seeing that come up is also a reward system that allows you, as a practitioner, to get feedback. If I'm just an output deliverer meaning if all I'm doing is yep, I checked the box, I served another one, I served another one, I served another one it gets really tedious, right. But if I'm like, oh no, I'm making progress, I'm seeing some preliminary results, ah, this is really making progress and I can see it right, happening in real time, all of a sudden I'm getting feedback that I'm learning from. I can tailor my energy and effort more or less depending on needs and I can see what's actually happening.
Speaker 2:This is the day we've entered, and so what we need to do is bring these tools to human service practitioners on the front lines data-driven tools, insights, progress generation, you know, get to know people. With just a few key questions, I think we'll all be better off for it. It will save a lot of, at least stress and some of the stuff that we're talking about. It will also accommodate complexity, which I'll talk about in a moment. But that's kind of my thoughts, ken, as we start to talk about. This is that's where the opportunity lies, and right now we're kind of still. I would imagine a lot of practitioners on the front lines probably don't look that different than I did when I was in the 80s and 90s doing this work right In terms of what they're relying on doing, trying to do more evidence-based work.
Speaker 1:And I know that in the schools, some of the work that we're doing, you know, with the individualized educational plans and whatnot, where we have some evidence-based tools that we use to intervene and track, they are there, but I still think that they're not as customized as they need to be, like you're talking about. You know the other thing. You know, one of the things that I think on the other side of the coin for a minute is for staff. Back in the day, the term constituent voice was one of the concepts that was encouraged and on one side it's getting the feedback from beneficiaries and on the other side, I think it's also getting feedback from the staff. And I've been trying to do some work on the staff side of things where, basically on some periodic basis, we say to the staff what would help you? First of all, how are you doing, how are things going, how's your morale, how are you feeling? And then, what would you like for us to try to work on, for you to try to improve conditions in whatever way we can give you as best an environment as we can. I mean, we've done things like we have coffee available to people and we have, you know, rewards that we give out an employee of the month and things like that.
Speaker 1:But we recently in our school the staff for the summer we're asking if we could close early and earlier than we normally do during the full school year, and we really struggled with that because we know that that would put a real burden on the families, you know, because a lot of people work and that would be very hard for us to do. And so, trying to balance those things out, we realized that we would be able to do it one day a week. When I shared that with staff I got the most thunderous applause I think I ever have gotten since I started working there. And so you know, a place for them to just sort of decompress early on a Friday, always looking at ways to improve the benefits. One of the things that the staff said to us was you have this one basic health plan. Could you have a lower cost alternative? For those of us that every penny counts, Can you find a way to do that as much?
Speaker 1:Listening to staff and trying to get to a place where you can just improve as much the culture and the conditions that they work in, appreciating that, even with what I think will be these powerful tools that you're describing, and I do agree with you that it will lead to a much more job satisfaction.
Speaker 1:Even with all of that, the fundamental is that the challenges are very they can be very hard to, you know, to face every day for the people that are experiencing it by far, but also for those of us serving them. So I think everything that we can do to make the environment as nurturing and supportive as possible we should strive to do, and so that's just another tool. Use those surveys, listen to your staff, and you know we have meetings with the staff. I think I've mentioned before. You know we have an advisory committee of staff. We have small group meetings. We just try to keep the community suggestion boxes, whatever we can to hear from people and listen to people and to try to address, as best we can, the stresses that they face in doing the work that's so important that they do every day.
Speaker 2:That's a great point. I think there's so much we can do just interpersonally, relationally, and just getting to be able to create some of those spaces and opportunities like you're describing, ken. I'll also talk about something interesting from a structural standpoint. Um, I'll also talk about something interesting from a structural standpoint. Um, let's assume and I'm just giving you I'm I'm overgeneralizing, but I do think that practitioners on the front lines I think there's research in most sectors of the nonprofits that the average also contributes to some of this burnout and other things too is that interestingly and I remember I've done a few studies of this there are certain staff who, when they've been there longer two, three years they really develop an expertise and an experience base that allows them to better plan their work, almost like what I was sharing. That's possible with data. It's almost like they develop enough of a database that they know how better to work with folks.
Speaker 2:The challenge we have, though, is usually those frontline practitioners that get past that year and a half and they're there two years, three years, four years. The only way for them to make more money and acknowledgement for their great work and all that experience base, their own database is they get promoted, and the challenge we have there is. I remember I did this project and we were doing this work it was in the juvenile justice setting and we saw these caseworkers who were really effective at being able to deliver things in a very tailored way and they had tenure and experience. And the leaders of the organization said, well, how do we continue to maintain the results we're getting, or transfer those results and everything else? And I half jokingly said pay them much better, but don't promote them, don't make them managers, because you lose your impact creator at the point of impact, which is that front lines. And I don't mean don't promote them, that's almost sounds callous, I don't mean that at all. Do promote them, but promote them within their position by paying them more, give them more money, let them advance, give them titles, but make sure you don't basically take the job of the work with the client away from them and turn them into something that is no longer client-facing, because what you end up doing is creating this perpetual kind of process where the next one's coming back. Now, by nature of what you've done, you always have the low, experienced ones on the front lines.
Speaker 2:We need to really think about how we structure our rewards, remuneration titles, so we don't lose those that actually managed to stay that, that that out, out, outlive their, their compassion, fatigue, and figure out how to do this work, um, not suffer some of the burnout and everything we experienced.
Speaker 2:And I am convinced that we have both a structural problem with how we promote and pay and who's to blame them. They want to make more money, they need to join the management ranks right, but the challenge is why can't we pay them more, give them the kind of titles and acknowledgement that validate their leadership, but not lose the impact they're having by virtue of being there longer? So we really have to start to think about some of this, and I don't think we often think about what are the structural things we're doing to cause the problem of trauma, stress and inability to understand complexity and really address it? Well, just why do we have a year and a half or a year to year and a half tenure? It's not just that they're leaving the ones that are good, get promoted into the management ranks and don't stay the course where they're needed. So that's kind of some other thoughts about solutions is we've got to start thinking about pay, remuneration, promotion and what it means for people on the front lines.
Speaker 1:I think that's an excellent point, but I can also, at the same time that's an excellent point, but I can also, at the same time, uh, almost immediately hear in my own head and many people running non-profits.
Speaker 1:It's like, uh, remember that scarcity environment we talked about before, where we have limited funds, and so, uh, it's sort of we would love to do. I think it makes great sense to do what you're describing, but it is often so hard to do. So I think, though maybe there is in my experience, there's sort of a hybrid version of that, where you have somebody, for example, let's say you have a speech like in our school, you have a speech therapist, and the only way for them to make more money is as a manager. But they become a manager that still has a small caseload and supervises other people to impart the knowledge of the work that they have done, and so they. They do have a caseload, but, but they are sort of in a, if you will, frontline management role. But I think once it gets beyond that to the next level of management, then that tethering that you described, disappears.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you a question, ken. So I'm always trying to push the envelope a little bit on this. So you mentioned some things and you're like oh, the scarcity. I think you mentioned scarcity of funds or whatever the case may be. Let me just ask you so why not pay a practitioner, call them whatever title validates their leadership, pay them the same amount you would pay them to be promoting them to a manager and only have half caseload. Maintain their caseload, but just give them a different status level. Maybe they do a little bit more mentoring, maybe they serve up with some of the other practitioners.
Speaker 2:But just let me challenge the assumption. So why do we have to have, like? I find this in a lot of workplaces? If somebody is really good at what they do and they really do enjoy it, yeah, if the only option for better pay and acknowledgement of and validation of their, their growth and value is to basically give them a different title and therefore take them away from what they're really good at, as opposed to titling them in their current position, acknowledging and paying them, why wouldn't a practitioner on the front lines be able to make as much or more than a manager? I'm not sure I understand. Can we? Can we break the mold? Can we break the mold? You know I?
Speaker 1:you know, because I mean because I don't want.
Speaker 1:No, no, I, I wouldn't say that. No, what I would say is and I'm sorry if I'm circling back, maybe I'm missing your point but there's no money for that. There just isn't. There's not enough money to pay. It's hard enough to get people in leadership and management positions. The pay is barely there for that. And then to say we're going to now put more money into this other role I'd love to do it. It makes sense. Basically, you got to pick your poison because it is a zero-sum game. In this case, it is a limited pie. Also, in our case, we're highly regulated by our government funder. There's just a limited pie of resources and you have to make a calculated decision where can we allocate? But again, I keep saying this to you what you're saying to me makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:I know, let me challenge this a little bit further. So here's my point. I believe, mathematically speaking, that what we end up doing is you promote somebody, you pay them more in a management position and that person let's say they were a really good practitioner and instead of paying them more as to stay a practitioner, you're creating the need for more managers by virtue of having everybody without a lot of tenure on the front lines. So of course, you've got to manage those that are there only a year, six months, a year and a half. If you take those same people and get seasoning on the front lines, maybe you don't have as much need for three managers. You could do with two managers and be able to figure it.
Speaker 2:My point being is that, look, I obviously I like to put out ideas to just challenge the status quo. And while I agree and understand there's no money there I'm not saying so why can't we explore options that shift the money? Okay, I'm not talking about whatever you've got. It's a pie, and how you distribute that pie matters. What's the value? And, by the way, if we start doing what we've talked about on this show cost per outcome as the final metric that we finally get to results outcome then I would argue, if cost per outcome becomes a metric of success which you and I have talked numerous times about how important that is in an anchor, as long as it's a realistic outcome that that program can achieve then I would argue you've got to make sure your frontline people know they stay the course. The experts get the better remuneration. You're going to get better cost per outcome.
Speaker 2:Right now, when you say the money's not there, I think we're all still coming at that and the reason you're saying that and you're not alone in that and I can totally hear the argument. But I would argue that if we actually started changing our metric of success to cost per outcome, then we would all come naturally to what I just came to as a conclusion, which is we need to pay our frontline practitioners, especially those who figured out how to do it well, more, validate them in title. And, by the way, if cost per outcome were the metric, that model not promoting them to managers so that they can finally make the buck they deserve would be the model of success. But I think we have an output, output, output orientation in the sector and until we get to cost per outcome, I think we have an output, output, output orientation in the sector and until we get to cost per outcome, I think we're just continuing to just churn. The more service, the better.
Speaker 1:So a few thoughts on that. First one is I think when we get there, when we have these metrics for cost per outcome, I think that will lead to a lot of innovation where organizations will try different designs, different organizational structures to find the one that's the most effective. So I think you have a hypothesis and you have experience, so it's a strong hypothesis. You might well be right that, in other words, the organization is like look, if you don't reallocate these funds in this manner, you can have all the managers you want, but if you don't have more frontline people that are seasoned we've learned now that, cost per outcome wise, you're going to price yourself out. You might be right but you might be wrong, because my experience is managers, good managers, good supervisors are rare. They are gold, they are so important and the skills that are required to oversee things in the right way, with the right judgment it's a rare quality out there and so a lot of people who are in these direct service roles.
Speaker 1:They may not have the you know they may they may. You know they're looking to make more money. They see the management jobs, but if you've got good people in your HR department, it becomes very clear that that's just not a skillset for them. So forget about, you know, losing the skills they have. Well, this is a skill that that may not be part of where they need to go anyway.
Speaker 1:So I mean, look, there's only so many manager positions, there's lots of frontline positions. So, more typically. So the point being that, and then there are people also I know from my own family who come to the determination I don't want to manage people, I don't want to be a supervisor, I'm perfectly fine in this role and I'm happy in this role. And if I can't make as much because of the nature of the way things are structured, so be it. So there's also that dynamic. But I think my fundamental point is, at the end of the day, I do believe that when we have the metrics, it is going to blow up the system and it's going to cause us to really think hard about innovating to make sure that every dollar is being used that leads to the best outcomes, and it could very well be that the structure of organizations are going to fundamentally change.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It's not a matter as me, as I always say it it the hypothesis won't turn out to be right or wrong. It'll turn out to be, it depends. What I do know is that if we actually were anchoring our, our work on on cost per outcome, it would only naturally, I think, cause a restructuring that would evolve to a to that and we would come up with some different structures. And so, from that standpoint, I never liked the kind of false dichotomy of like, right or wrong.
Speaker 2:And the point being is, all I'm saying is we need to start to challenge our assumptions when we do these things. I have just as many stories, by the way, ken, of somebody who was a really effective practitioner becoming a manager and being horrible at it. Horrible, I'm with you, and a lot of times, the idea that somebody knows how to manage teams because they're really good at providing one-to-one counseling or case management to an individual case is just weird if you really think about it. Agreed, and the problem is and I fundamentally believe this the problem is we still orient our entire workplace around management equals better pay, supervisor equals better pay. If we started to orient ourselves in terms of what it is, we become specialists at doing whether it's case management, management, whatever and allow all of those particular roles to have different levels of attainment in terms of pay, remuneration and promotion. What would that do? Because we're playing to people's strengths.
Speaker 2:You know, I want us all to start to challenge some of our assumptions around this like outdated model of like in order to be successful, I've got to manage. You know, I want us all to start to challenge some of our assumptions around this like outdated model of like in order to be successful, I've got to manage. You know, I was listening to this podcast the other day that was talking about how we do have some very antiquated, been around forever models of, even in the private sector, of how we think about these things. There are people who are experts, who love to do what they do, they're really effective at what they do, and then they make them managers or execs and they just leave in two years because they can't stand that side of it. And the problem is that we've conflated this issue with pay. So I just ask if you're a frontline practitioner, why can't you reach the level of pay of a manager or an exec and still be a direct service provider? Why not?
Speaker 1:And so you could take the same argument and flip it the other way, because I've also seen that, which is that somebody is a good manager but they are not good at direct service, and some of your best managers may be in that. It's very interesting because I've seen an increasing phenomena where the CEOs of a number of nonprofits are the former chief financial officer, so they're the fiscal person that they put in charge of leadership, and they have a management head, they have a management orientation that keeps the organization chugging along, but they have never done direct service, and I'm not saying that that's the best. By the way, there are times where, if the person is just a bean counter in the leadership, that can be a problem too. So I'm not saying that they're all good at that. In fact, there's some disasters of people who become CEOs with that background, but there are times when they can be quite good, they can adapt and they may not have had the direct service experience. So I think it gets back to the thing that we always circle back to, which is it depends.
Speaker 1:But I do think that there's a core argument you're making here that I really do believe is true. I do believe that there is going to be disruption of the traditional model once we get a better handle on cost per outcome and, by the way, I think the other part of that is my observation is that sometimes the cost per outcome is going to be much higher than what we're. You know, we're going to learn that to your point. We need, we're going to need that. It's going to cost more because we're going to need more people like the ones you're describing that are being paid better to have seasoned people that have the skill set, that have the knowledge and to restructure in the nonprofit sector, which is what I'm also convinced of, and I've seen it in the data.
Speaker 2:It's rare that one program is going to address like a big outcome alone. So what ends up happening is we also have to be fair with the cost per outcome because of the complexity of problems. If somebody's like when I was a caseworker for the homeless, if you held me accountable and said we're going to measure your outcome as in they're no longer homeless, that's ridiculous. I'm a resource and referral person. My outcome is did they actually show up to the job interview? Did they get the job? Did they actually show up to their medical appointment and are they healthier because of it? Right, did they actually, you know, believe it or not? That's a behavior I have some say on, and even then I'm not in complete control because when they walk out the door I don't control them. So what you choose as an outcome really matters. And along those lines, because it's so complex and you put the pressure on me as a caseworker to like get this person no longer homeless, and all I've got is bus tickets, food pantry, referrals and a doctor that comes once a week for two hours. You, you can't possibly expect me to do this right. So, yeah, so you have to give me a realistic outcome. But then what we all need to acknowledge is if we don't start having non-profits who know how to collaborate with each other so that there's so that when, when I, when they, we pass the baton and they take their responsibility for their outcome for the same clients we're serving. So part of this also has to do with breaking down the walls between our organizations, and again this comes back to something thematically that you and I have talked about in a lot of our previous episodes, which is we still have nonprofits that are going on.
Speaker 2:Size matters, the bigger the better. That's where the pay is, that's where everything else is. You just grow, grow, grow. You want your managers and supervisors, because that justifies the big money in the contracts and the government fees and everything else. Strategic restructuring this taps into this, because what's the purpose If we don't all kind of own our own like, if we all don't have a part of the bigger impact pie and collaborate together? This also reduces burnout, because what that does is it doesn't just give me the resources. Inside of my organization, I now have relationships with others who are helping my clients out. We're talking to each other, we're interacting with each other. So there's so much of this that really just needs to happen in order to make these things come to pass.
Speaker 2:So I think that the theme of today's show has really been about. We're talking about the direct frontline service provider, the practitioner, and what we're anchoring on is some of the challenges with the complexity of the folks that are doing this and what it does to the frontline practitioners, and how there's some structural, even impact measurement implications and complications. Let me just cite a few final things and pass it to you to kind of close us out here, ken. I just want to say so I was doing a little bit more research on this and what some research is showing in the sector. Just want to throw out some numbers as to how important this issue is that we've talked about today.
Speaker 2:There's research that shows that anywhere between 40 and some studies have shown as much as 85% of helping professionals in the nonprofit sector develop vicarious trauma, compassion, fatigue and or high rates of traumatic symptoms. It's a wide range. There was another study that in the US, 48% of nonprofits struggle with burnout among their staff, according to the Nonprofit Employee Benefits Survey in 2021. What is burnout? It's a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress Turnover rates 45% of nonprofit employees who are surveyed this year indicated they would be seeking new employment in 2025, citing burnout and secondary trauma as key reasons.
Speaker 2:So, as we look at these numbers and we think about this, we have to take this very seriously. It is the frontline practitioner that is the sole key, in my opinion, the sole key to turning the outcome needle, to being able to help people achieve what they need. That's their job. If we don't resource them, I would argue, promote them, give them the right titles, but keep them where they are, celebrate their successes, give them the supports, the kind of things they need, including mental health supports. We're not going to be addressing this, and one way to do this is start to hold organizations accountable for cost per outcome and let these practitioners see their progress, learn about the results, know how to meet people where they are so they're not over-serving or under-serving. Their right sizing, and I pass it to you, ken, for your closing comments and thoughts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the frontline staff are the key and critical to all that is going to happen for people that we care about. I do think also that the leadership and the management staff having I get you know the old saying servant leadership and realizing how critically important it is to do everything they can to support those frontline staff and help them in whatever way they can is critically important. So you know, you also talked about collaboration between the nonprofits. I think it's a good segue. I anticipate the next episode, at least for the exhausted sector topics, is going to be competition and collaboration, and I think that's a whole other challenging area.
Speaker 1:I do want to just remind everybody that, as you're going on this journey with us, once we get through these remaining topical areas, the capstone or the finale of all of this that I'd like for us to talk about is what I would call the Nonprofit Fixers Survival Guide and how to survive with all of this myriad of challenges that we've described, and today's, I think, is a particularly sobering one, you know, as we both described in our own journeys and some of the things we've seen out there. So, please, everybody, just hang in there. There is a path, there is a way, do not despair, we're going to get there as a sector and each of us.
Speaker 2:We're not ending the podcast. We're going to be giving this a long time to come, amen, really talking about the exhausted sector and how we've had a series of thematic areas that we've touched on, as we call this kind of thematically exhausted sector kind of series of podcasts and episodes. We'll be exhausting this soon. I don't want anybody to hear your final as in. No, our podcast is continuing. We have all kinds of different themes and things we're going to be talking about, but yes, for the exhausted sector, that's what you're we will have exhausted the topic of the exhausted sector very soon, and then we will move on to other things.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And, of course, you will hear throughout our podcast, and we set the stage for this in the first episode, and if you haven't listened, go back and listen or do it again. It's very, very good, it's anchors, everything, um, you're going to keep hearing all of these themes as we talk, and you know, um, and we continue our podcast.
Speaker 2:Uh, ken and I are enjoying this very much. So, no intention of not doing it, and, as you, probably, if you listen to all of our episodes and I encourage you to do so if you can you'll hear a lot of themes that keep coming up, and so these are themes we're going to keep coming back to, in part because we also do believe that if we are going to fix the broken sector, we have to be able to do so in a way that presents solutions that are a little bit out of the box, that are thinking a little differently, at least provoke a conversation, maybe some action, maybe some trying, some of these hypotheses that Ken and I talk about and sometimes debate. So that's it for today, for today's episode, all right.
Speaker 1:Thanks Peter, thank you Ken. See you again soon. See you soon. Bye everybody. Bye Ken. See you again soon. See you soon. Bye everybody, Bye everybody.