Small Charities Should Lead by Example in Paid Parental Leave

Excitement. Nervousness. Joy. Fear. Anticipation.

Those were the emotions I felt as my husband and I welcomed our daughter Norah into the world.

I couldn’t have imagined the rush of emotions I would feel or that I could have so many thoughts at once. One thing I wasn’t thinking about, however, was whether I would be able to juggle my job as CEO of Challah for Hunger, a Philadelphia nonprofit, and my new role as mother. This was because our organization has a comprehensive paid parental-leave policy.

I am extraordinarily lucky. While an overwhelming majority of Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — support paid parental leave, only 12 percent of nongovernmental employees work for a company that provides paid parental or family leave.

Given how good paid leave is for children, parents, and employers, this is an embarrassment. The United States has spent far too long languishing at the bottom of the list of countries that provide comprehensive maternity- or parental-leave policies, and it’s time the federal government made this a priority.

Yet a comprehensive national policy likely wouldn’t cover someone like me — an employee of a small nonprofit or a small business.

No Required Leave

My organization, a national nonprofit that brings people together to bake and sell challah bread both to raise money and to call attention to social-justice causes, has a large reach but a small staff. That means we are not required by the standards of the Family and Medical Leave Act to have any family-leave policy — paid or unpaid.

Only companies with 50-plus employees are required to offer this benefit, leaving out millions of Americans. In the current, and likely future, policy landscape, it’s essential that small-business and nonprofit leaders make this a priority for their employees.

Here’s how we went about it: Under the leadership of our board chair, Liz Smulian, we researched policies at similar-size organizations and developed our own policy to extend up to three months of leave to all employees.

Our biggest concern was about financial viability: Could we afford to have a third of our professional staff on leave and still meet our budgeted goals?

We agreed that it was a good long-term investment to provide this benefit to create a sustainable work environment for employees. We agreed to manage any short-term budget challenges by temporarily adjusting staff workloads — so that everyone had a hand in raising money — and empowering board members to play a larger role in the day-to-day operations.

Another concern was how to make this plan equitable for all employees — not just mothers giving birth but also fathers and adoptive parents.

We wanted to ensure equality in our workplace and promote equality at home. Parental leave not only allows fathers and mothers to play an active and more equitable role in child care but also helps women succeed in their careers.

Distributing Responsibilities

We put our policy to the test when a year ago I learned I was pregnant. Before my leave, we worked with Mama Said, a consulting firm, to create a plan to distribute my responsibilities among the staff and board. We also reached out to all of the people and organizations that are a key part of our work to share the plan with them and answer any questions or deal with any concerns.

It took a lot of energy, but our careful planning paid off. Staff and board members stepped up to ensure that Challah for Hunger survived and thrived, and I had three fulfilling months to focus on my family and my new role as a parent.

I returned to work in January feeling grateful and reinvigorated to expand our organization’s work to fight hunger. Having spent every single moment of those three months learning how to care for a child and bonding with my daughter, I am even more aware of how challenging it is for the many mothers and fathers who must return to work so soon after a child is born or adopted.

I share our story to show that organizations of any size can make this work. Our experience emphasized the urgency of this issue and made it very clear that no matter how the policy conversations continue on a national level, we, the staff and volunteers of small businesses and nonprofits, need to be leaders in this arena.

So I hope all heads of small nonprofits will take a leap: Do your research, discuss with your board, then decide — but don’t do nothing and let the status quo continue.

Carly Zimmerman is chief executive of Challah for Hunger, a social-justice organization in Philadelphia.