The Chronicle Of Philanthropy
By Holly Hall
November 12, 2009

Many charity leaders are grappling with unprecedented personal stress as they try to keep their organizations afloat in a tough economy.

Tom Adams, president of TransitionGuides, a Washington consulting company that works with nonprofit groups, says a big problem is that many veteran executives cannot afford to retire because the stock-market crash devastated their retirement savings. But, he says, “they don’t have the will or energy to lead the way they have in the past.”

Michelle Gislason, an executive coach at CompassPoint, a San Francisco consulting group, says nonprofit leaders today are exhibiting “a whole new kind of burnout.”

“In the past, nonprofit leaders were overburdened, and they would call us for help in how to say No,” she says. “But recently the calls have been more charged. These are executive directors who’d intended to leave but cannot because their 401(k) has been decimated. So they are staying, but they are not staying happily.”

To relieve such pressures, some charities have devised creative solutions. Mr. Adams points to Shelley Geballe, former executive director of Connecticut Voices for Children, a New Haven advocacy group.

Ms. Geballe is now serving as a “fellow” of the organization, earning half of her former salary and working part-time from home to help shape the organization’s advocacy ideas and analyze state-budget allocations for children’s services.

Meanwhile, the group has hired Jamie Bell, a new executive director, who has been on the job for about a year. Both women say the arrangement is working well.

While Ms. Geballe’s taking on the new role was not motivated by the recession, she says it could be a model for leaders who want to retire but need earnings.

Employee Morale

Another concern among nonprofit leaders is sagging morale among employees who have suffered pay cuts but are working harder to cover for laid-off colleagues.

Most executives have little or no money in their budget to reward such employees.

At the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Paul Meecham, the orchestra’s president, says that his organization gave employees a lift by holding a staff meeting at a nearby public school where the orchestra provides free music lessons to needy children. “It was a huge morale booster to see what we were doing in this forgotten neighborhood,” he says.

Other charity leaders are stressed out now about rapid change and uncertainty.

Carlina Hansen, executive director of the Women’s Community Clinic, in San Francisco, says that she has been planning to lift a furlough of one day per week among some of her senior staff members. But an imploding state budget crisis has her worried that, if she does, she might have to reinstate the reduced hours.

She says, “What is hard for me, and hard to convey to my staff, is that we have to learn to rest with a certain amount of uncertainty.”

Aspen Baker, founder of Exhale, a hotline for women coping with the aftereffects of abortion, credits a CompassPoint workshop with helping her get over “always feeling stressed.”

Instead of focusing on scarce resources, as so many charities do, Ms. Baker says she has learned to concentrate instead on strengths.

“They introduced me to thinking about what I am good at,” she says. “What if instead of focusing on the problem, I focused on the challenge of leading while standing in my strengths? Just that little switch was an ‘aha’ moment.”

Ms. Baker says the shift in thinking has enabled her to step back and consider where she wants her charity to be, rather than simply reacting to problems. For example, she was able to change her initial response when several volunteers who answer hotline calls quit.

“People started to leave, and I started to freak out,” she recalls.

But instead of following her first instinct, which was to make it easier to become a hotline volunteer, Ms. Baker decided to gamble on strengthening her organization by adding stringent new volunteer standards. Volunteers now must commit to one year of service, complete 54 hours of training, and work 24 hours per month.

The result: “We have more volunteers than we need,” says Ms. Baker.

Link: www.philanthropy.com