5 Myths That Perpetuate Nonprofit Burnout

I have worked in nonprofits for 15 years—longer if you count volunteering throughout high school and college. I’ve been powering through burnout with full awareness for my entire career. But this year, at age 35, something snapped. I literally found I couldn’t work anymore—physical symptoms, compounded by stress, forced me to take medical leave.

Reading Beth Kanter’s and Aliza Sherman’s recent piece made me think more deeply about how we, as nonprofit leaders, can proactively face the reality of chronic nonprofit employee burnout. Nonprofit publications, human resource departments and conference speakers are brimming with tips on avoiding burnout: Take your vacation time, set boundaries, let go of the need to do it all. But one piece of advice from a recent article by Yvonne Hudson seemed more likely to enable the problem than to fix it: “Know when to leave. Recognize burnout creep.”