With a Message for Funders, Advocates for Better Nonprofit Worker Pay Join Forces

Last month, two of the leading organizations advocating for better pay and working conditions for our nation’s overworked, underpaid nonprofit workforce announced that they were combining forces: Staffing the Mission, which was formerly housed within the larger nonprofit Class Action, has become part of the decade-old Fund the People. Class Action has closed its doors after 20 years of working to include economic inequality and classism to existing DEI efforts.

The marriage of these two organizations has reduced the overall number of larger organizations involved in boosting the nonprofit workforce to four: The National Council on Nonprofits, All Due Respect (which focuses on nonprofit advocacy workers), New York’s #JustPay Campaign, and the Wellbeing Project’s Funders & Wellbeing Group. On the surface, this development may look like a loss, but there’s actually reason to hope that the marriage of Fund the People and Staffing the Mission will ultimately lead to increased impact for both.

The merger comes at an important time in the sector, as the pandemic and its long tail, along with a new wave of unionization efforts and a nonprofit hiring crisis that has seriously impacted the sector’s effectiveness, have prompted some funders and nonprofits to re-examine how they compensate staff. But while awareness is growing, it’s still a cause without a huge number of organized advocates. Groups like Fund the People and Staffing the Mission have been leading the charge to get foundations to prioritize livable salaries and benefits in their grantmaking.

One goal, two approaches

Fund the People and Staffing the Mission have always shared the same ultimate goal — to improve nonprofit workers’ pay and other working conditions — the two nonprofits have also used different strategies and targeted different primary audiences. Staffing the Mission, which was launched in 2016, has largely focused on nonprofit leaders and what they can do to improve nonprofit jobs (including advocating with funders). Fund the People’s target audience has mainly been the funders that, after all, hold most of the power when it comes to determining how much or how little nonprofits can ultimately offer their employees.

Both organizations have been involved in creating separate tool kits for their respective audiences, but the bulk of Staffing the Mission’s efforts revolved around creating and conducting online and in-person workshops. Meanwhile, Fund the People has focused most of its work on producing online resources, including a podcast launched in 2020 by Fund the People founder, President and CEO Rusty Stahl.

However, the two groups have always had a close relationship: Staffing the Mission Coordinator Betsy Leondar-Wright said her organization called Stahl first when it was time to form an advisory council for the group, and both Leondar-Wright and Stahl said that the organizations were always careful to ensure that their work was complementary, not competitive.

By combining forces, Leondar-Wright and Stahl are looking forward to creating more of a wraparound approach to their services. For example, Fund the People had already planned to launch an online Funding That Works Academy consisting of videos, worksheets and other materials this year. Now, they said, they may well use Staffing the Mission’s expertise to develop and offer Funding That Works workshops, as well.

Ultimately, the merger just made sense. “There's such a limited political will to support these efforts that it's tough to go it alone,” Stahl said.

Ready to be a “donor magnet” with a message

The merger is complete in terms of combining staff and budgets, but it’s also new enough that both leaders are still exploring their next steps. It’s too soon to determine whether the merger will generate excitement and generous “wedding” gifts from the individuals and organizations that were used to funding them as separate organizations. Leondar-Wright said that the two organizations had different funding streams.

“Hopefully, this [the merger] will be a donor magnet,” Leondar-Wright said, because while all of the operational details haven’t yet been worked out, she and Stahl are certain that their combined efforts will result in stronger programs.

Leondar-Wright and Stahl may be hopeful that both group’s supporters will be excited by the merger, but even more importantly, they hope that all funders will take more notice of the ongoing, interlocking crises of staffing, burnout and inadequate pay that have combined to hamstring the social service sector.

“The combination of the chronic underinvestment and the current crises gives us a sense of urgency,” Stahl said. The groups will be urging nonprofits to do what they can to truly invest in their staff and advocate with funders to make those investments possible. The situation should also give funders pause as they consider their own missions and impacts.

“If funders are ignoring this issue with their grantees or in the communities they support — because it remains a major blind spot for funders — it’s to their own detriment, and to the detriment of the effectiveness and the equity of their grantmaking.”

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