Consider the following nonprofit employment statistics:

• The voluntary turnover rate is 19% for nonprofits (compared to 12% across the entire US labor market).
• Nonprofit leaders are disproportionately experiencing burnout, with 60% of them reporting that they feel “used up” at the end of the day.
• Nonprofit employees across the entire organization are not faring much better, with 30% of them already reporting being burnt out and 20% more in danger of burning out soon.

In light of these sobering statistics, it is especially troubling that according to Forbes, a whopping 80% of nonprofit leaders report that they do not have a talent retention strategy in place.

Let’s take a look at how much this kind of turnover is costing your organization, why employees are deciding to leave, and what you can do to stop it! 

And while nonprofit staff and leadership greatly appreciated the advice on how to avoid mission creep, board members asked a key question that we did not get to cover in that initial article: “What if we’re already dealing with mission creep – how do we respond?”
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So, in this article we are going to address mission creep from that perspective. What do you do when mission creep is already happening? How can you recognize it? And what do you do to stop it?

Mission creep can have a wide range of negative effects on a nonprofit, including:

• Staff burnout
• Cash flow shortages
• Damage to the organization’s reputation
• Board and key stakeholder confusion
• Leadership turnover
• Difficulty raising funds
• Reduced effectiveness

Unfortunately, mission creep causes nonprofit casualties every year, which is why one of the most important parts of nonprofit planning is deciding when to say yes and when to say no as opportunities are presented. So, let’s take a look at how to avoid the trap of mission creep.

• Public/private collaboration with a government entity
• Direct, equal collaboration where both organizations are co-leaders on a project
• Contractor collaboration where one organization owns the project but seeks support for one portion of it from another organization
• Coalitions where multiple organizations come together on a project

This can be an incredibly difficult question to answer!

Anyone in the nonprofit space can give you examples of wonderful collaborations they have been a part of where the outcome was far greater than either organization could have achieved on its own. These collaborative wins are fuel for high impact nonprofit missions – the veritable magic that can make 1+1=3 …or 4 …more.

And yet, anyone involved with nonprofit work can also give you examples of when collaboration was an organizational killer – the precipitating factor that derailed an organization’s mission, culture, or effectiveness. Collaborating on the wrong projects or executing collaborative efforts poorly can result in mission creep, stretching an organization too thin and diluting their impact.

Maybe this is due to concerns over other timely threats (the economy, foreign military conflicts, the rising cost of living) or sheer fatigue from being on guard for so long. Or maybe it’s because respected health organizations like the WHO have announced that the end of the pandemic is near. It’s hard to pinpoint the cause.

But regardless of what’s driving it, most of society seems to be largely ignoring COVID at this point. People are gathering with friends and loved ones, traveling again for leisure and for business, and expecting that in-person events are going to be held like they were before. Office work may continue to be remote or hybrid, but in all other areas we are back to a face-to-face culture.

This perspective shift is important for nonprofit organizations to understand if they are going to continue to be effective, and here's why:

​The most shocking part about that excerpt is that the article was written in January of 2020. This goes to show that rapid change in the nonprofit space was happening long before the pandemic hit. And in today’s post-COVID world, change has only accelerated further.

In fact, recent research from Ernst & Young in collaboration with Oxford University indicates that 85% of senior leaders have been involved in two or more major organizational transformations over the last 5 years, with 67% of those surveyed indicating that at least one of the transformations they have been a part of has underperformed relative to expectations. 

COVID-19 and the all the stress that surrounds it has made for a very uncertain time for many social service organizations. Lockdowns kept us from connecting with the people who count on our services. Many offices had to move to remote work plans. Fundraisers had to be reinvented as “virtual” or cancelled all together. We all know these and many more unsettling realities about our world since March of 2020.
 
In the beginning of all this, we prided ourselves on “pivoting” to be able to bridge and adapt to changing realities. Now we are sick and tired of pivoting. In reality, many of us are just…sick and tired.
 
Like our mothers always told us though (or at least mine did), there can be a silver lining if you are open to finding it. 

​2020 was truly a váltás, a time to pivot, think outside the box, adapt, and change from one direction or place to another. Few will look back on this year with fond memories; however, many will recall how resilience, empathy, and a deep commitment to one another was demonstrated in both small moments and big ways.