You Gotta Give

July 7, 2010 | Career Advice, Philanthropy

This is a guest post by Brigid Slipka, a fundraiser and sorta philanthropist in Los Angeles. She blogs about giving at www.actuallygiving.com

There are so many good fun things about having a career in nonprofits! Like not making very much money, and having no professional development, and also never having a life outside of work.

And if all that weren’t delightful enough, there’s another thing you’re going to have to do in order to succeed in a nonprofit job, something that we in this sector don’t much talk about:

You’re gonna have to make a financial donation to your very own employer.

I hear you already: We give up our time, we give up a higher paying salary in the for-profit sector, we give our hearts and souls for our nonprofit career. And in return we get a pittance of a salary. And of that little bit of income that you do get, that little bit that’s actually yours at the end of the day… you have to give part of that, too.

Yep, it feels totally unfair.

But while it’s true that we feel underpaid compared to the other hundred or so people at our college reunion, compared to the other billion or so people occupying the rest of the world, we’re doing just fine. We’re professionals working in America. We’ve all can make a few choices to free up a few extra bucks to give.

(This doesn’t mean we still don’t address the low salaries. We must.

It just means that when we do get paid more, we also have to give more, too.

Can y’all tell I’m a fundraiser?)

Ok. So we agree to give. But do we have to give to our own employers? The place that somehow seems to demand not just our expertise but our every waking thought and heartfelt passion?

Well… yes.

Three reasons why:

You can’t be a hypocrite. You’re going to ask other people to support the mission of your company, and you’ve got to be backing that up. You can’t make a sales call on behalf of Coke, take your prospective client to lunch and order a Pepsi.

Your employer is addressing that issue that you care about. You’re in health care/education/arts/social justice because you want to make a difference there. And that cause needs money. The same pull-in-the-gut that got you behind that desk has to get you to punch in your credit card number in your company’s own online donation site.

(If you don’t think that your company is solving the problem you’ve dedicated your life to, ok, you can be excused from giving them a gift. Because you’ve got a far bigger problem to start addressing – or a new job to find).

You are an evangelist for your cause. In his manifesto, Sasha Dichter decries fundraising as “necessary evil” and instead cajoles us to “be an evangelist for your idea and to convince others about the change you want to see in the world. Tell them that if this idea is worth supporting then they should jump in with both feet and support it with their time and money and by telling their friends it is worth supporting.”

He’s absolutely right. The people you talk to should want to financially jump in with both feet.

The first person to leap must be you.

You make a gift to your own employer not for any arm-twisting eye-rolling fine-I’ll-do-it-if-I-have-to-reason. You make a gift to your own employer because you love this work. You make a gift because you know you can address this issue. You make a gift because you aren’t the kind of person to just observe life. You’re the one to dive headfirst into life.

Make the dive. Make the gift.

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Tags: Brigid Slipka, Career Advice, Fundraising, nonprofit career advice, Philanthropy

laura

I wonder what people see as the differences between asking employees to give and asking board members to give? Board members are usually giving their time and expertise with no monetary compensation, but we are usually comfortable with the idea that they are expected to give, right? I know for a lot of organizations, board members are people who have a capacity to give, but what about younger or less economically advantaged board members?

I feel like full staff participation in giving shouldn't be demanded, or even expected. But I do think it's a tremendous endorsement of the organization when it happens. And beyond employees who give to their own organization, non-development staff members who ask their own friends or family to give.
Allison Jones

Which reminds me, what if giving was simply part of the work environment? Beyond asking employees to give outright, what if giving or participation in fundraising events/activities was the norm at all levels of the organization? Wouldnt that be awesome?!

I also wouldnt discount non-monetary forms of giving which go a loooooong way. Free website redesign? Um, hello!
Elisa M. Ortiz

I can appreciate the thought of integrating giving into the work environment (especially the way you describe it in your school experience), but being asked/expected to give/fundraise outside my job description would make me very uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong: I've continually asked to get trained on how to be a better fundraiser but there is a difference between that and being expected to host fundraisers or give myself.

One of the biggest reasons this makes me uncomfortable is because of the often-times huge disparity between what people make in nonprofits (i.e., between execs and lower level staff). I worked in a large national organization where the CEO made over $400K while I and many of my colleagues barely broke the $30Ks. How is it fair to ask us all to give? Plenty of us did give in that we often weren't compensated for overtime despite being covered by a union contract, but that's not the same thing.

Anyway, the point is there will always be some places that encourage the kind of loyalty that make you happy to give and other places that won't. Setting some sort of outside standard to equalize the two in terms of staff contributions (which it sort of sounds like Brigid is hinting at above) would not make sense.
Rosetta Thurman

I love the idea of giving as part of the work environment. To me, it's a mark of a successful organization to have a spirit of generosity from all employees who are not only willing to go beyond their job description, but really and truly want to.
Allison Jones

At my last job I had no problem participating in the fundraisers, especially the ones that the parents planned.

I worked at a school so we had various fundraisers at the school level and at the board level. On the school level: raffles, bake sales, candy sales, events etc. I participated in those all the time because they were both fun, community focused, and often went to specific classes/programs that I was witnessing first hand (i.e. raising money for 7th grade to go on field trip etc). These kinds of fundraisers may seem insignificant but when a bake sale gets close to $1,000 or a Christmas party raises $2,500....well....

I would often plan more board focused fundraisers which would ask for significant amounts of money for more long term or bigger projects (like installing smart boards or patching up the roof). Those, I didnt give money to. They often became board projects and werent as fun for me as a donor :)

On the flip side, I was more cautious when spending. Not that I was ever denied anything that I needed (I dont have a story of working under grotesque conditions, etc) but if I could save money or think of new ways to stretch the money we just raised, I would share them.

But I guess working at a school put me in an interesting position as a donor: there were just so many different ways to give and so many ways to maximize what was given. Giving was part of the school environment.
Brigid Slipka

Thinking more about what Marlene and Elisa have said... easy for me to glibbly write: if you don't think you're company is doing enough in the field for you to give there, find a new job. But I totally totally get that realities of life often mean it's not that simple.

I am extremely discriminating in choosing where I give, as are many of us, I know. What if we were as discriminating in choosing where we work?

But even if in the short-term we can't align where we give with where we work, because we just have to do this job to pay the bills, I hope we can get each get there sooner rather than later.

And if I were a funder, and staff were not giving because of the reasons Marlene offers (which all of us know of places like this), then I would be very, very interested to know this.

Rosetta, you got some smart readers.
Marlene

This is a very interesting discussion. Though I'm now my own boss, I worked in nonprofit for eight years and faced this scenario often - either in my own mind or when asked to contribute.

I have to say, I really agree with AndrewK for what I feel are his many valid points, so I don't have much to add. I would like to say, however, that while it would be nice to always work somewhere/for a cause about which you are passionate, sometimes things just don't work out that way. For example, maybe you were passionate but once you were on the inside, didn't agree with how things were done or learned about someone else going about it a better way. If you are a skilled worker, you can either leave or stick around and be a part of making things better - and maybe donate then. Or what if you are passionate about the work but also don't like the way funds are managed? In another scenario, the organization may be involved in work that doesn't hit close to home, but you know that both you and your employer will benefit from your contributions.

All of that being said, I worked in program delivery and then marketing, not fund development, but from my perspective, it's not as simple as 'everyone must give'. My two cents!
Rosetta Thurman

Good points about having passion for your job - that it's not so cut and dry. I spent 8 years doing mostly fundraising, and it always felt a little bit fake to me to apply for a job where I couldn't say 100% that I would financially support the organization (even though sometimes I didn't have the means to actually do so). If I couldn't pass that test, then I felt like I should be applying to other jobs where I had more faith in the work as well as the management.
Marlene

And I totally agree with your attitude: be proactive about your own situation and move on/find a new path if it's really not the right fit!
Bernadette

Which in this environment is easier said than done. I'd rather have a job making funds that I can donate to a program that IS doing the work, the way I think it needs to be done than quit, have no where to go and have no funds to contribute to the cause. Spoken from the experience of watching my husband get so discouraged with the way things were at his job, so he quit and 5 months later is still trying to get in with someone who does it "the right way." Alas...
TP

Wow! Great post and really thought provoking (those are the best kind, whether you agree or not...). I, too, shout "here, here!" to everyone's thoughts about feeling passionate about what you do and *wanting* to contribute on a different and higher level ... though I'd throw in there that contribution may not always be a cash donation. Perhaps it's hosting or otherwise contributing to a fundraising activity or volunteering for a special event--that is not part of one's job description.
Rosetta Thurman

I agree - I think you should definitely have the passion, but if you don't have the cash, you can (as most nonprofit employees do) contribute in other ways.
EN

I say "Here, Here!" to Brigid and disagree with some of the points AndrewK makes. You are not "giving" time, effort, and time away from family to your employer -- that's your job, you are compensated for it, and you agreed to that when you took the job. Your passion for the mission of your employer should motivate you to also want to make a charitable contribution toward their good work. This also makes you a role model for other employees at the organization, not just donors! It's very true that you may give much more to other organizations you care about, and that's also a very good thing.
Rosetta Thurman

I think your comment speaks to a larger issue that I often wonder about - should nonprofit professionals seek to only work at organizations where they have a passion? The kind of passion and commitment that would motivate one to make a donation to the organization themselves? My answer has always been yes.
AndrewK

I don't agree with this at all. 1) There is a huge difference between being a salesperson for Coke and buying their product for the purpose of sales calls (I don't expect American Heart Association employees to smoke) and Coke expecting that their employees actively buy shares of the company as a requirement for their job. You're not comparing apples to apples here.
I'm not a huge fan of bonuses in the first place, but I'm an even greater opponent of "reverse bonuses" back to my employers. I think that all fundraisers especially should give--but the choice of whom to give to shouldn't be dependent upon where you work. If you would give to the organization you work for if you didn't work there, then fine, give all you want, but creating one more stupid expectation (like low salaries, no professional development and long, nearly impossible working hours) is just not right. I give to plenty of organizations I wouldn't (or don't want to) work for for any number of reasons. I give my time, money and expertise generously--even sacrificially--but I don't give money to the people I work for. It's not that I don't love what we do, or who we do it for, just that I only have so many resources available, I give a lot to them in terms of time, effort and time away from my family and I know of other organizations who need my money more than we do (in part because we're good at fundraising.) I've never had a donor ask me if I gave personally since they already know I'm passionate about the mission.
I expect to make my career in nonprofit, and that likely means that I will work for a number of organizations. Some of them I will be passionate about, and others will be great organizations but just pay my bills. In either case, I won't ever go in with an expectation that doing my job well isn't enough and that I have to make further sacrifices.
Besides which, if there is no professional development opportunities at the NPO you work at, wouldn't your money be better spent training yourself to be a better professional? If you are spending so much time at work, wouldn't spending some of that money on a vacation or a hobby so that you are rested, thoughtful, engaged and not burned out be a better use of the money?
I think it is fair to expect people who routinely ask for money to also routinely give money--but I don't think it is appropriate or fair to expect that the money should have to go back to my employer.
Great post, btw! Thanks!
Brigid Slipka

Hey Andrew,

Thanks for your response. It's giving me a lot to ponder. I am literally at my computer tapping my index finger to my lip. You have made me a cliche ;)

One thought, one fact. and one speculation:

The thought: If a nonprofit staff member acted as you suggest, I'd disagree but not fuss about it. However, I would have a problem if a nonprofit leader did the same. Sure, an average worker at Coke may not buy shares, but it would be huge news if the C-level execs did not have stock in their own firm.

The fact: I actually do get asked by prospective donors if I give to the school that employs me. As do other fundraiser colleagues of mine.

The speculation: The number of donors who do ask this is on the rise.

Thanks again for the thoughtful response.
Bernadette

On the thought: Many of those c-level execs at coke (or most other for profits) have those shares built into their total compensation package. If my non-profit employer was paying for me to attend the $250 a ticket annual gala and building that into my total compensation package, I'd also have "shares" in my company that might look great publicly, but not necessarily be about "brand loyalty" at all.

As a non-development employee at a non-profit, I'm not asked personally if I give back to my company. Pretty much, I think people assume that me working at the company and taking the lower pay is my "gift". Then again, those vary same folks are very profit based and think anyone working in the NP realm is automatically giving by how much we are paid (smile).

One other thought for me: Like any gift, when it is mandatory or "expected", it kinda takes the lustre off that pearl. I've found that in environments where I was not expected to give, I did so willingly and, admittedly, without much thought. But as soon as it became expected, I started to resist. That's when I started to go the "you'll get the very least amount that is expected of me" and when I started to push back - especially when furlough days were handed out, benefits were cut and my take home pay was being cut to ensure that the organization survived. I understood and agreed with the necessity of that, but, respectfully, said "Consider that my gift this year". It's a tough go out there.
Elisa

I agree with Andrew here and would like to challenge you Brigid on the further comparison to the Coke company: in the corporate world C-level execs are GIVEN many shares as part of their compensation package (why do you think they have such an incentive to lie, cheat and steal to drive that price up?). Nonprofit execs or other employees for that matter aren't being given almost anything.

I, like Andrew, give to several other nonprofit organizations whose missions I believe in. In fact, I've been working on bringing my full contribution level up to a tithe of my income - I can't afford to give that much away yet, but I hope to be able to do someday.

I think spending 40+ (or 50 or 60+) hours at your job a week, attending events after hours, and giving your blood, sweat and tears to the organization you work for is quite enough; I'll keep my money thanks.
Bernadette

lol...you beat me too it on the comment on C-level for profit execs being compensated with those shares. I think I need to read further before responding.
Rosetta Thurman

I agree that "spending 40+ (or 50 or 60+) hours at your job a week, attending events after hours, and giving your blood, sweat and tears to the organization you work for is quite enough." But I wonder if that sentiment is different for nonprofit leaders who actually do get paid very well and have work/life balance? One of my former bosses got paid six figures and always gave a hefty contribution to the organization around tax time.
Elisa

I think that you are right and that it may be different for those who get paid well and have a work/life balance. But of course there are so many of us that don't make enough money to give...

Donating to one's own organization is certainly a great idea - I just don't think it should be expected or required.
Brigid Slipka

Yeah, all metaphors fall apart eventually. Points for delivering the final blow.

I agree that one should not give ONLY to their employer and think it's critical to give to other places too. But say you're giving to an org you believe in... wouldn't you jump at the chance to work there, too? It's about lining up how you choose to give with how you choose to spend your 40+ hours a week.

And people who tithe (or are reaching there) are Rockstars. Amazing stuff, you.
Elisa

I actually wouldn't want to work at some of the organizations I give to; for one of them I happen to know people who've worked there and had a bad experience, but I give to support their clients (who are survivors of domestic violence).

I think the argument does make sense though. As I said to Rosetta above, I don't think everyone should stop giving to their employers, I just think it shouldn't be required or expected.