The system that non-profits act in is unsustainable. Short funding terms, a focus on quantitative measures, and needing to justify the value of its existence erodes a non-profit’s capacity to serve the population they serve. To survive in the non-profit industrial complex, people seeking values-based work are often forced to compromise on those same values, unintentionally replicating the harm that they claim to address.

Does it have to be this way? Vibrant Systems explores how non-profits are restricted by scarcity, and what we can do instead.

Who Am I To Talk About Non-Profits?

Before starting Vibrant Systems, a business that offers Community Mentorship services and personal growth tools, I worked in the non-profit industrial complex for most of my career.

I witnessed firsthand the importance of securing grants. I saw clearly how without long-term, multi-year grants, the capacity of a program to plan, expand, and build relationships within and beyond the organization was severely stunted.

Even when doing incredible work, the people holding the money require non-profits to jump through hoops in order to be worthy of it. I learned that there were creative ways to express need. I learned that there were even more creative ways to “prove” the value of a social program.

Through Vibrant Systems, a good portion of the work that I have done has involved writing grant applications for clients. I became very good at advocating for the value of a program, upgrade, or other need. Within the structure of non-profits, seeing this value is difficult when you are slowly taught to devalue yourself.

My experience working in non-profits was meaningful. It was also exhausting. My first brush with burnout came from a summer internship at a non-profit in my hometown. I still credit that organization with much of my personal growth, skill development, and personal vision, but the sheer amount of responsibility and urgency in that work sent me into a tailspin of burnout and depression. Some of my most intense periods of mental illness existed in this role.

All the same, I continued to pursue work with non-profit organization, because I held onto a belief that the only values-aligned work was work that didn’t rely on profit as a motive.

The only problem with this work is that if what is considered “valuable work” shifts with the season, the political climate, and the advent of a new buzzword, all of that time and energy poured into that mission can disappear at the end of a grant.

Part of the reason I want to talk about the non-profit industrial complex is because I have lived it.

Non-Profits and the Scarcity Mindset

I acknowledge that there are massive non-profits that last over time because they recognize how to ally themselves with an extractive system. These are the non-profits that have no problem securing grant funding, because usually they have mastered the art of extraction themselves.

These kinds of non-profits can and do exist.

My personal experience lies on the other end of the scale. I have worked in small-scale non-profits that saw grant funding as an excellent way to offer their services to people who likely could not access them otherwise.

Perhaps these small-scale non-profits are “truer” in a way. But in my experience, they are also inherently doomed to fail.

They require sacrifice of time and energy by their champions to continue thriving, especially when funding begins to dwindle. They might be creative with how they offer services, but they are also perpetually limited by what those champions think their funding is “supposed” to look like.

By necessity of lack of funds, the people working in these spaces are underpaid. In fact, most of the reward for this kind of work is expected to be the reward of getting to work that “matters”.

The real truth is that these non-profits are rooted in a scarcity mindset and the same devaluing of social and emotional labour that capitalism and patriarchy have actively devalued for generations. This scarcity mindset is quite literally baked into the structure of the non-profit system.

When people are working in a system that is actively devaluing their labour, their self-worth tends to come into question. Not only might they be exhausted because of the demands of their role, but in a society that often determines worth based on our pay check, these employees are routinely reminded of their own lack–their scarcity–their perceived worthlessness.

What do we think happens in a society that routinely shows it devalues social and emotional labour?

We end up with people not only unwilling to devalue themselves by taking on those roles, and we have social breakdown by a lack of care in our systems. Even while doing that work, non-profit employees may subtly take out their frustrations and lack of self-worth on the clients they are supposed to serve. Their experience with compassion fatigue may lead them to project the source of their unhappiness onto these clients, leading to actions of prejudice and judgment of people who may be at their most vulnerable.

How can we be inspired to help someone else thrive if we ourselves feel like we are not thriving while in the position of helping them?

It Comes Back To What We Value (Almost Always)

Most of our western society is shaped by capitalism, which as a system values profit over all else. Even while there are strong economic arguments for societies rooted in a love ethic, such as that advocated for by Bell Hooks, a capitalist society sees money disappearing and immediately devalues that love ethic.

In the perverted mind of a capitalist, money that is not adding to their mountain of wealth is money that is lost.

But the rest of us–those of us that DO care about other people and want to live in a society that values health, connection, and sustainability–we don’t have to play by the rules set by capitalism.

Our job is to deconstruct our collective beliefs that care work:

• Must be underpaid
• Must exist in externally funded spaces
• Must not seek profit of any sort
• Must be supported by the goodness of our hearts

Somewhere along the way, we began to accept the idea that care work, healing work, and community work is charity rather than something that is structural and NECESSARY for a functioning society. Whether this is women being expected to stay home and raise children, health aids not making enough to thrive, or non-profits relying on volunteers to carry out their programs, we have been sold an idea that this kind of work is inherently less valuable, and therefore it is okay for people doing this work to suffer.

Meanwhile, a tech billionaire who does nothing for their community and simply creates a new program that destroys our environment, is going to rake in tons of investor dollars.

My question is simple.

What if we started to choose to value what we actually care about with our time and money?

Community-Building Doesn’t Need To Be Thwarted By A Scarcity Mindset

More and more people are doing the work to build social connections, services, and supports in their communities directly, outside of the restrictions of the non-profit industrial complex. My challenge to you is to make sure that when you are doing this work, you are leaving the scarcity mindset out of it.

On one hand, this is because a strong social network is a kind of wealth that cannot be bought! The one underlying truth for the existence of humanity is that our capacity for collaboration and collective creativity has been the engine driving our greatest accomplishments. This kind of wealth is built through actually treating each other like people–not by throwing money at a problem.

On the other hand, there is quite literally no rule written that says we cannot be financially secure and socially-minded at the same time.

As we expand our awareness of what abundance and wealth can look like, our capacity for financial security increases.

So what can abundance and wealth look like outside of money?

• The strength of our relationships and capacity to maintain those relationships through hardship.
• The health of our local environment, including a resilient local food system.
• The creativity of the people around us to generate their own art, entertainment, technology, and locally-sourced solutions.
• The innovation and presence of local entrepreneurs who know that good business supports their community just as much as it supports them.
• The local sovereignty to not only confront complex challenges, but take the time to understand them fully and make an informed decision of what responding to that challenge looks like.

Vibrant Systems Is A Business On Purpose

In the kind of work I seek to do supporting local, grassroots community-building efforts, it is easy to start thinking that Vibrant Systems should be a non-profit. I offer people-first change management services to people who believe that this kind of community-based transition is possible. I chose to operate as a business instead, because it allows me the freedom to live and operate from my core values in an authentic way.

I don’t have to silence my beliefs in order to receive certain grants.

I have more flexibility in how I offer my services to all potential clients, whether that is in-person partnerships or simply creating resources like recorded workshop packages for a client to use on their own.

When I do generate a profit in my work, I feel good about the fact that my work IS valued for what it is worth and I get a say for how that profit flows from me back into my community.

I can plan, pivot, and grow without worrying about fitting inside a certain box.

Most of all, I get to work with clients who are ready to see their vision shine, because the work we do together is not limited by certain service options that need to be categorized.

The only ones who need to see the value of this are the people I am working with.

If you want to work with Vibrant Systems, building community connections in a way that is vibrant and abundant, feel free to explore my Community Mentorship services or check out the Vibrant Shop for available resources!

Let’s make your story a vibrant one.