Conquering Turnover With Culture, Flexibility, and Growth Paths

Nonprofits have always had trouble holding on to fundraisers — the average tenure is a mere 18 months. But given the turmoil in the economy, massive cuts to government grant programs, and a year filled with nonprofit layoffs and closures, many expected that would change. 

But that has not been the case. “Turnover is still really big,” says Adam Miller, managing director at the consulting firm CCS Fundraising, which works with many nonprofits on fundraising.

Data from the Social Impact Staff Retention Project — an annual survey of nonprofit staff — indicates the job market isn’t pushing people to stay. The survey, conducted in 2025, asked if people were staying put in their jobs because of the layoff environment and general economic uncertainty. While the final data is still being tallied, the early results show people are still willing to move on, says Evan Wildstein, co-lead for the survey.

“I thought more people would say that this political, social, economic uncertainty would be a bigger driver for them to stay,” he says. “Those ranked almost either at the bottom or second to the bottom.”

High turnover can be problematic for organizations, leading to higher costs, lost productivity, and a lack of continuity in work. When fundraisers leave, the fallout can directly impact revenue. 

“When donors witness that turnover, they begin to question what is going on over there,” says Tammy Zonker, founder of the consultancy Fundraising Transformed. “Trust goes down, suspicion goes up, and people can really pull back on their giving or go away until they see that it has stabilized.”

What Drives Turnover

For many nonprofit workers, the reasons they move from one job to the next are often fairly consistent from year to year, says Wildstein. 

Employees report having too much work to do and not enough support, lack of growth opportunities, lack of flexibility, and unsupportive management. Perhaps not too surprising in a mission-driven environment, compensation is pretty far down on the list of concerns. Fundraisers in particular value flexible work hours, in part because the work is so demanding and the hours are irregular. “We’re often called to have dinner meetings or early morning meetings and still be at the office eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours in addition to those things,” says Zonker.

With funding so tight for many organizations, fundraisers are increasingly given unrealistic goals requiring them to work too many hours, Miller says. 

Budget cuts and layoffs have only exacerbated the situation for remaining staff who have to pick up the work that was done by those who were let go. “When you have layoffs, and you’re just asking your existing fundraisers to do more with less, it is absolutely a recipe for burnout and eventual turnover,” Zonker says.

Flexible Hours and Professional Development

Some organizations have been able to buck this trend and keep their fundraisers for the long term. Shannon Duval started as the chief philanthropy officer at Advocate Health, which is headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., but has reach across six states. She has been impressed with how long many of the group’s fundraisers have been with the organization. At a recent meeting of six development officers, no one had been there fewer than eight years. 

Advocate Health takes a lot of steps to keep its employees happy. The compensation is competitive. It makes fundraising staff feel valued by praising their achievements. Its hybrid workplace offers its staff flexible hours, and there is the general belief that fundraisers do their best work when out meeting with donors, not sitting at a desk. 

“Lots of the things that we can do to retain our best talent don’t cost money, especially in an era of budgets that are challenged,” Duval says.

The data bears this out, according to Michelle Flores Vryn, co-lead on the staff retention survey. “The number one reason people say ‘I would stay in my role’ is if they had increased flexibility,” she says. That could be achieved through hybrid or remote work options or by giving employees the choice to come in different hours than a static 9 to 5.

Prioritizing flexible work schedules has been one of the core strategies that BridgeYear, a nonprofit that helps high school students graduate with stable employment, uses to retain staff. The group requires people to work from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. but gives them flexibility to fill in the rest of their hours however they want. Victoria Chen, the group’s executive director, often works in the office from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., then spends time with her children until 7 p.m. and logs in from 7 to 9 p.m. Schedules can meet individual needs, but everyone is able to schedule meetings or talk to colleagues during those core hours.

Nonprofits can be notoriously stingy on professional development and obtuse on creating clear paths to promotion. Zonker says she knows many fundraisers at small nonprofits are paying out of pocket to attend conferences and online training, and even to get subscriptions that add value to their work. Heading off those impediments by offering professional development opportunities and clear paths for career growth — things that don’t have massive budget implications — will bolster staff retention, says Wildstein.

BridgeYear credits policies that do just that with much of its success in holding on to staff. Each team member has professional development options and clear growth plans to show the steps needed to reach the next position in the organization, she says. “We take professional development and staff growth pretty seriously.” 

Sustainable Work

Nonprofits have a long history of employee burnout because of unrealistic demands and a culture of self-sacrifice. Staff who are committed to the mission of an organization may well be willing to do more than they should until they are overwhelmed. Ensuring staff have manageable workloads is another key to retention, says Flores Vryn. “Sustainable work requires sustainable humans.” 

To achieve that, leaders need to have honest conversations about the work being done, including what the organization and staff can and cannot commit to achieving.

“You can’t commit yourself to over 100 percent all the time because unforeseen things come up,” Flores Vryn says. “A donor doesn’t give this year, or a new event gets put on the calendar. Things will always arise that are not planned for. And so best practice is committing 80 percent of your resources and then always holding some space for the unforeseen.”

It also means encouraging staff to use paid time off and not expecting people to work during that time. At BridgeYear, managers regularly check in if staff aren’t using PTO, and if someone responds to work email while on leave, there is pushback. “If I send an email on PTO, people will respond to say, ‘You should be on PTO. I am ignoring this,’” Chen says.

Recognizing the hard work of staff in ways that are meaningful to them is another key to creating a positive workplace culture, says Duval of Advocate Health. “Some people hate it when you give them public recognition in a meeting,” she says. “Other people love it. So really dial in on what is it that makes people feel valued.” Some people want comp time or a handwritten note or for Duval to let the CEO know about the achievement.

When fundraising staff are feeling well rested and sustainable, they do better work, says H. Art Taylor, CEO of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. “You can’t really do fundraising if you’re not in a good place emotionally about what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for,” Taylor says. “The fundraisers perform best when they are excited about the mission and the vision for the organization.”

A Potential Exodus

Strategies that help leaders retain staff are more important than ever now, says Wildstein. He notes that over the past few years of the survey, he’s seen a trend that is both hopeful and scary. “Only about a third of the respondents say they definitely want to stay working in the nonprofit sector,” he says. However, he says a large contingent of respondents — from 30 to 45 percent, depending on the year — are uncertain if they want to stay.

“That’s the group to focus on,” Wildstein says. “That’s the biggest danger point. If we do nothing, those are the swing voters. Those are people who will swing towards, nope, I’m done.” 

Anecdotally, many fundraisers move into consulting rather than leaving the field entirely, which may indicate that they love the work they’re doing but not the workplace. If nonprofits can shift what they’re doing, Wildstein thinks it would make a difference. “This field would be better if we can figure out a way to retain the staff who have a passion for the mission.”