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In a larger sense, what might rest and liberation look/smell/feel/taste/sound like in our work lives?

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In a larger sense, what might rest and liberation look/smell/feel/taste/sound like in our work lives?

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Being able to have balance.

Sometimes we bring work from home. It would be ideal to be able to create more time for family and other things you want to do.

Not forcing too many assignments on staff that they don’t have the time.

We may be having time for ourselves, but not thinking about those who work for us.

Be more intentional of the work we give and to be more mindful of our workloads.

Take a nap

Divorcing ourselves from this construct of time

Will pointed out connection to capitalism due to and the need to produce constantly on a certain schedule.

Finding a new way of being

Exude joy

Being present in the moment

Being balanced

It may show up as a meditative moment. To sit, be quiet, and breathe and experience the moment instead of waiting for people to give us permission.

The value in flipping the formula, adjusting your schedule to work for you; Time away would help to identify what formula would help; I’ve worked for an org with a budget that includes rest and I feel the same I did without the budget because of the culture of the org

Spaciousness, operationalize roles in the organization and shared leadership

There needs to be a culture shift around strategy, and who determines who deserves rest; Rest and liberation should include funding, much of the urgency comes from lack of funding;

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What practices have helped you liberate yourself from burnout cultures?

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What practices have helped you liberate yourself from burnout cultures?

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Setting a schedule that gives me agency over my day

Holding firm on boundaries

Giving myself me time

Time for reflection

Reflecting on what went well about my day, what didn’t go so well and what could I do differently? This has helped me.

Awareness

Get a massage, hot yoga

Seek safe, resetting, mind-centering spaces.

Embodied experience.

Finding passion and joy in your work, reframing it to not just be an experience resulting in exhaustion and burnout.

Finding the joy in what I do again

Finding out what this balance is for me—not feeling guilty about how much time I produce and when I’m not 100% my best. Not feeling guilty about being a human.

Redefining what work really is—not just production time, but the emotions and time goes into thinking about it.

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Creative Interventions Workbook: A Practical Guide to End Violence

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Creative Interventions Workbook: A Practical Guide to End Violence

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Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence

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Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence

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Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

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Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

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Ejeris Dixon (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor)

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Afraid to call 911, but not sure what to do instead? Here are strategies for accountability beyond the criminal justice system.

Transformative justice seeks to solve the problem of violence at the grassroots level, without relying on punishment, incarceration, or policing. Community-based approaches to preventing crime and repairing its damage have existed for centuries. However, in the putative atmosphere of contemporary criminal justice systems, they are often marginalized and operate under the radar. Beyond Survival puts these strategies front and center as real alternatives to today's failed models of confinement and "correction."

In this collection, a diverse group of authors focuses on concrete and practical forms of redress and accountability, assessing existing practices and marking paths forward. They use a variety of forms-from toolkits to personal essays-to delve deeply into the "how to" of transformative justice, providing alternatives to calling the police, ways to support people having mental health crises, stories of community-based murder investigations, and much more. At the same time, they document the history of this radical movement, creating space for long-time organizers to reflect on victories, struggles, mistakes, and transformations.

Featuring writing, tools and interviews by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Kai Cheng Thom, Amita Swadhin, Audrey Huntley, Amanda Aguilar Shank, Janae E Bonsu of BYP100, Philly Stands Up (Esteban Kelly, Jenna Peters-Golden, Qui Dorian, Bench Ansfield and Beth Blum), Creative Interventions, Trans Lifeline, Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, Oakland Power Projects, SOS Collective/Audre Lorde Project, Icarus Project/ Fireweed Collective, Raquel Lavina, Chris Lymbertos, RJ Maccani, Nathan Shara, Staci Haines, Georgia Latino Alliance For Human Rights, MIJENTE, Monica Sehovic Bowen Forrester, Elene Lam, Chanelle Gallant, Elisabeth Marie Long, adrienne maree brown, Adrian Cole, Yalini Dream, Shira Hassan, Mariame Kaba and Mimi Kim.

Ejeris Dixon is an organizer, consultant, and political strategist with twenty years of experience organizing within racial justice, LGBTQ, transformative justice, anti-violence, and economic justice movements. She is the Founding Director of Vision Change Win Consulting where she partners with organizations to build their capacity and deepen the impact of their organizing strategies. Her essay, "Building Community Safety: Practical Steps Toward Liberatory Transformation," is featured in the anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is the Lambda Award winning author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home, Bodymap, Love Cake, Consensual Genocide and co-editor of The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities. A lead artist with the disability justice collective Sins Invalid, she is a longtime cultural worker, educator and organizer within disability and transformative justice communities.

Praise For Beyond Survival:

"Beyond Survival is a book for anyone yearning for transformation within themselves and across communities. If I had this book when I first began organizing, I would not have felt so alone and lost when seeking ways to confront conflict, harm and violence without policing and punishment. As our movements evolve, so must what we consider as essential reading - Beyond Survival is clearly essential reading." -Charlene A. Carruthers, author of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements

"Somewhere between a call to action, a love letter, and a prayer, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the TJ Moment is a gift to those of us working for justice. The voices in this collection are strong and compassionate, and their reflections are honest and open-hearted. Readers will feel challenged, inspired and held by this critically important book. It will surely inspire change." -Beth Richie, author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation

"I've been waiting for this book for so many years. Gritty, unsentimental, blunt, compassionate, and visionary, the wildly varied voices, insights, and experiences collected in this exceptional - and essential - anthology help chart new pathways through the harms of violence in its interrelated interpersonal, vigilante, and structural forms. Appearing at precisely the moment we need them most, these visions, questions, and practices will stir your imagination, fuel your own radical dreams, and open your heart to the possibility of transformed futures for us all." -Kay Whitlock, author of Considering Hate: Violence, Goodness, and Justice in American Culture and Politics

"Beyond Survival arrives just on time. Through the combined brilliance of Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha we are offered a beautiful invitation: away from any quick and easy solutions that don't ever do what they purport and towards a fundamental rethinking of what safety is, and a lifetime practice learning, relearning and creating it through community with all the messiness it entails. This book is truly making the road by dreaming and I'm so grateful for it." Tourmaline, filmmaker, Happy Birthday, Marsha and Atlantic Is a Sea of Bones

"Beyond Survival is full of grounded, practical wisdom based in brave, thoughtful, collaborative efforts. It will be immensely useful to people trying to respond to the real crises our communities are facing with creative solutions that actually build healing and safety. This is the collection that so many of us have been waiting for, capturing the knowledge generated by grassroots experiments undertaken by bold, imaginative activists working to respond to and prevent violence. We will be using this as a reference book for building community responses to harm and violence for decades to come." -Dean Spade, author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law

"If you're serious about toppling the pillars of white supremacy in the United States, start by reading Beyond Survival ... Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha have provided a blueprint, featuring some of the brightest minds making transformative justice a reality. While many articles and essays have highlighted the "why" of transformative justice, the question of "how" persists. Now, Beyond Survival boldly answers. Ejeris and Leah, along with the featured writers, have propelled transformative justice into today's stagnant policy discourse ... With interviews, stories of success, and unadulterated realness, Beyond Survival shows us how to keep going, how to keep pressing forward, how to survive until we are beyond the injustices of today." -Eric Ward, Executive Director of the Western States Center and Civil Rights Strategist

"A unique contribution to an ongoing discussion about emerging Transformative Justice processes for building safe and equitable communities, especially in the context of the 'defund the police' movement. While municipalities across America struggle to respond to incidents of police brutality, Beyond Survival offers writings from three dozen TJ practitioners as well as a plethora of principles and examples of community practices for responding to violence without relying on police." - Toward Freedom

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Beyond Survival Afraid to call 911, but not sure what to do instead? Here are strategies for accountability beyond the criminal justice system. Transformative justice seeks to solve the problem of violence at the grassroots level, without relying on puni

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A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators 

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A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators 

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Mariame Kaba (Author); Shira Hassan (Author)

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JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

Publisher: Project NIA/Just Practice
Format: Book
Binding: pb
Released: June 18, 2019
ISBN-13: 9781939202321

Fumbling Toward Repair is a workbook by Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan that includes reflection questions, skill assessments, facilitation tips, helpful definitions, activities, and hard-learned lessons intended to support people who have taken on the coordination and facilitation of formal community accountability processes to address interpersonal harm & violence.

Mariame Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Mariame is also a co-organizer of the Just Practice Collaborative, a training and mentoring group focused on sustaining a community of practitioners that provide community-based accountability and support structures for all parties involved with incidents and patterns of sexual, domestic, relationship, and intimate community violence. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including The Nation Magazine, The Guardian, The Washington Post, In These Times, Teen Vogue, The New Inquiry and more. Mariame uses her extensive experience with issues of racial, gender and transformative justice to catalyze various projects.

Shira Hassan is the former executive director of the Young Women's Empowerment Project, an organizing and grassroots movement building project led by and for young people of color that have current or former experience in the sex trade and street economies. A lifelong harm reductionist and prison abolitionist, Shira has been working on community accountability for nearly 25 years and has helped young people of color start their own organizing projects across the country. Shira's work has been discussed on National Public Radio, The New York Times, The Nation, In These Times, Bill Moyers, Scarleteen, Everyday Feminism, Bitch Media, TruthOut and Colorlines.

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A workbook that includes reflection questions, skill assessments, facilitation tips, helpful definitions, activities, and hard-learned lessons intended to support people who have taken on the coordination and facilitation of formal community accountability processes to address interpersonal harm and violence.

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RLI Focus Group Session 12.2.2021 - Google Jamboard

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RLI Focus Group Session 11.30.2021 - Google Jamboard

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The version of the browser you are using is no longer supported. Please upgrade to a supported browser. Dismiss

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RLI Focus Group Session #2 - Google Jamboard

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RLI Focus Group Session #1 - Google Jamboard

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2019 MILLER FELLOWS PROGRAM GUIDELINES and APPLICATION PROCESS.PDF

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Network-Focused Leadership Program for People of Color

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Network-Focused Leadership Program for People of Color

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Linking Leaders LitReview Phase 2 - FINAL _Eval_Networking.pdf

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Kara Loewentheil, J.D. | Master Certified Coach You believe deeply in women's empowerment...but you don't always feel empowered. You feel a nagging disconnect between your high-achieving life and the insecurity and anxiety...

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Therapist, NYT Bestselling Author, and Relationship Expert

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Therapist, NYT Bestselling Author, and Relationship Expert

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In this empowering guide, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers clear advice for identifying dysfunctional family patterns and choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and moving forward. Covering topics ranging from the trauma of emotional neglect to the legacy of addicted or absent parents, to mental health struggles in siblings and other relatives, and more, this clear and compassionate guide will help you take control of your own life-and honor the person you truly are.

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In this empowering guide, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers clear advice for identifying dysfunctional family patterns and choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and moving forward.

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10 Ways to Definitely Burn Out as a Nonprofit Employee

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Employee burnout in the nonprofit sector is a real issue in the best of times, let alone in the midst of a pandemic. Here’s are some things you might be doing that will inevitably lead to you burning out, and what to do instead.

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Do mission-driven organizations with tight budgets have any choice but to demand long, unpaid hours of their staffs?

Earlier this year, at the encouragement of President Obama, the Department of Labor finalized the most significant update to the federal rules on overtime in decades. The new rules will more than double the salary threshold for guaranteed overtime pay, from about $23,000 to $47,476. Once the rules go into effect this December, millions of employees who make less than that will be guaranteed overtime pay under the law when they work more than 40 hours a week.

Unsurprisingly, some business lobbies and conservatives disparaged the rule as unduly burdensome. But pushback also came from what might have been an unexpected source: a progressive nonprofit called the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). "Doubling the minimum salary to $47,476 is especially unrealistic for non-profit, cause-oriented organizations," U.S. PIRG said in a statement. "[T]o cover higher staffing costs forced upon us under the rule, we will be forced to hire fewer staff and limit the hours those staff can work-all while the well-funded special interests that we're up against will simply spend more."

Thoughmany nonprofits supported the new overtime rules, PIRG was not alone. (U.S. PIRG declined multiple interview requests for this article.) Over 290,000 comments were posted to Regulations.gov, many of them from nonprofits taking issue with the rule, including Habitat for Humanity, the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, and the YMCA of the USA.

These responses expose a gap between the values that many nonprofits hold and the way they treat their own staffs. There's no doubt that nonprofits today face serious financial difficulties and constraints, but do they have no choice but to demand long, unpaid hours of their employees? Putting questions of fairness aside, is their treatment of their workers limiting their effectiveness?

The answers have a lot to do with how nonprofits survive in an economy that's geared primarily toward profit. Many nonprofit organizations stare down a shared set of challenges:In a 2013 report, the Urban Institute surveyed over 4,000 nonprofits of a wide range of types and sizes across the continental U.S. It found that all kinds of nonprofits struggled with delays in payment for contracts, difficulty securing funding for the full cost of their services, and other financial issues.

Recent years have been especially hard for many nonprofits. Most have annual budgets of less than $1 million, and those budgets took a big hit from the recession, when federal, municipal, and philanthropic funding dried up. On top of that, because so many nonprofits depend on government money, policy changes can cause funding priorities to change, which in turn can put nonprofits in a bind.

Heather Iliff, the president and CEO of an association called Maryland Nonprofits, says that she has seen a number of funders suddenly shift the requirements of their funding in response to a new trend, leaving organizations scrambling to adapt. "On the one hand it's positive that the government is trying to look at what works and fund what works, but they tend to be categorical and abrupt in their shifts, without providing the necessary transitional supports," Iliff says.

Iliff has seen that scramble to meet funding demands lead to bizarre and unproductive decisions. An employee of one agency that serves adults with significant developmental disabilities told her that its funders recently ordered it to provide clients with a number of hours "in the community," as opposed to time spent on the in-house services it normally would have administered. But the funders did not provide guidance on how to do that, and the agency's best option was to bus disabled adults to a mall's food court just to satisfy the new requirement.

All of this is particularly difficult for human-services nonprofits that survive mostly on Medicaid funding. Homeless shelters, for example, don't charge for their services, and thus can't raise prices when their funding is cut. (These types of agencies have a longer period to adjust to the new overtime rules.) And when faced with funding cuts, many nonprofits have no place to turn but their own payrolls.

The pressure from funders to tighten budgets and cut costs can produce what researchers call the "nonprofit starvation cycle." The cycle starts with funders' unrealistic expectations about the costs of running a nonprofit. In response, nonprofits try to spend less on overhead (like salaries) and under-report expenses to try to meet those unrealistic expectations. That response then reinforces the unrealistic expectations that began the cycle. In this light, it's no surprise that so many nonprofits have come to rely on unpaid work.

Strangely, though nonprofits are increasingly expected to perform like businesses, they do not get the same leeway in funding that government-contracted businesses do. They don't have nearly the bargaining power of big corporations, or the ability to raise costs for their products and services, because of tight controls on grant funding. "D.C. is full of millionaires who contract with government in the defense field, and they make a killing, and yet if you're a nonprofit, chances are you aren't getting the full amount of funding to cover the cost of the services required," Iliff said. "Can you imagine Lockheed Martin or Boeing putting up with a government contract that didn't allow for overhead?"

When faced with dwindling funding, one response would be to cut a program or reduce the number of people an organization serves. But nonprofit leaders have shown themselves very reluctant to do that. Instead, many meet financial challenges by squeezing more work out of their staffs without a proportional increase in their pay: The Urban Institute report found that most nonprofits choose to cut salaries, benefits, and other costs long before scaling back their operations. "There is this feeling that the mission is so important that nothing should get in the way of it," Elizabeth Boris, one of the Urban Institute report's authors, says.

The nonprofits that opposed the new rules expressed as much in the comments they submitted on Regulations.gov. One nonprofit's human-resources director said the rule would result in "fewer services being effectively delivered to the population we serve, not to mention the deep financial impact that it will have on our agency to try to fund overtime at that level." Said another, "Any increase in funds that have to go to salaries will cause a decrease in funds available to assist the elderly, which will result in causing them additional hardships." "As a manager of a non-profit organization, this proposed rule would make it very clear in deciding whether it would be financially possible to find a way to stay in business," one comment on the rule read. "The answer is no."

These nonprofit employees are saying that their operations depend on large numbers of their lowest-paid staff working unpaid overtime hours. One way to get to that point would be to face a series of choices between increased productivity on the one hand and reduced hours, increased pay, or more hiring on the other, and to choose more productivity every time. That some nonprofits have done this speaks to a culture that can put the needs of staff behind mission-driven ambitions.

A number of forces much larger than any single nonprofit have allowed the present situation to take shape. In the 1970s, 62 percent of full-time, salaried workers qualified for mandatory overtime pay when they worked more than 40 hours in a week. Today, because the overtime rules have not had a major update since then (until this one), only 7 percent of workers are covered, whether they work in the nonprofit sector or elsewhere. In other words, U.S. organizations-nonprofit or otherwise-have been given the gift of a large pool of laborers who, as long as they clear a relatively low earnings threshold and do tasks that meet certain criteria, do not have to be paid overtime.

Unsurprisingly, many nonprofits have taken advantage of that pool of free work. (For-profit companies have too, but they also have the benefit of being more in control of their revenue streams.) Boris says that nonprofits like PIRG, for example, have a tradition of forcing employees to work long, unpaid hours-especially their youngest staff. "There's a culture that says, 'Young people are paying their dues. It's okay for them to be paid for fewer hours than they're actually working because it's in the effort of helping them grow up and contribute to something greater than they are,'" Boris says.

Mary Beth Hastings, who has more than 20 years of experience working in the world of global-health organizations, has witnessed this in a variety of workplaces throughout her career. "Too often, I have seen the passion for social change turned into a weapon against the very people who do much-if not most-of the hard work, and put in most of the hours," Hastings recently wrote on her blog. "Because they are highly motivated by passion, the reasoning goes, they don't need to be motivated by decent salaries or sustainable work hours or overtime pay."

But they probably do. A 2011 survey of more than 2,000 nonprofit employees by Opportunity Knocks, a human-resources organization that specializes in nonprofits, in partnership with Jessica Word, an associate professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found that half of employees in the nonprofit sector may be burned out or in danger of burnout. The survey had some methodological limitations-its sample wasn't as representative as the researchers would've hoped-but Word told me that she believes employees at nonprofits are uniquely stretched. "These are highly emotional and difficult jobs," she said, adding, "These organizations often have very high rates of employee turnover, which results from a combination of burnout and low compensation." Despite the dearth of research, Word's findings don't appear to be unusual: A more recent study of nonprofits in the U.S. and Canada found that turnover, one possible indicator of burnout, is higher in nonprofits than in the overall labor market.

Yet for all their hours and emotional labor, nonprofit employees generally don't make much money. A 2014 study by Third Sector New England, a resource center for nonprofits, found that 43 percent of nonprofit employees in New England were making less than $28,000 per year-far less than a living wage for families with children in most cities in the United States, and well below the national median income of between $40,000 and $50,000 per year. (For comparison, about a quarter of American workers earn less than $28,000 per year.) Until the new overtime rules kick in, many of those workers could be working extra hours without any extra pay.

Why would nonprofit workers be willing to stay in jobs where they are underpaid, or, in some cases, accept working conditions that violate the spirit of the labor laws that protect them? One plausible reason is that they are just as committed to the cause as their superiors, whose decision-making can prioritize an organization's values above all else. Another possible explanation is that because the job market is so difficult, they have no better options.

But it also might be that some nonprofits exploit gray areas in the law to cut costs. For instance, only workers who are labelled as managers are supposed to be exempt from overtime, but many employers stretch the definition of "manager" far beyond its original intent. Low-paid workers who do not have executive decision-making power and do not manage a staff, according to the Department of Labor's criteria, shouldn't be classified as exempt, but some employers put them in positions that are nominally managerial to escape overtime regulations.

And even regardless of these designations, the emotionally demanding work at many nonprofits is sometimes difficult to shoehorn into a tidy 40-hours-a-week schedule. Consider Elle Roberts, who was considered exempt from overtime restrictions and was told not to work more than 40 hours a week when, as a young college grad, she worked at a domestic-violence shelter in northwest Indiana. Doing everything from home visits to intake at the shelter, Roberts still ignored her employer's dictates and regularly worked well more than 40 hours a week providing relief for women in crisis. Yet she was not paid for that extra time.

Roberts once responded to a call from a woman who needed help escaping her apartment while her attacker was out. When Roberts arrived, the battered woman clung to her and asked her to listen to a recording of the sounds of fighting and of the woman screaming and crying. Roberts joined her in prayer, helped her move her things to a new apartment, went back to the agency, locked herself in the bathroom, and sobbed. On days like that, Roberts wanted to get therapy, but knew that she couldn't afford it. "If I had gotten paid for all the hours I was working, even at my base rate, I would have jumped at the opportunity to seek care to make sense of what I've experienced on the job," Roberts says. "But I wasn't making enough to pay for anything more than my basic needs."

When reached by phone, Roberts's former employer said that staff are not allowed to work overtime, but that they do work extra hours voluntarily without recording the time, such as for self-directed study on how to better serve clients. When hours run long due to travel or other circumstances, the employer said, staff can adjust their hours for the rest of the week to make up the difference. But according to Roberts, this would have meant asking for schedule changes almost every week, which would not have been acceptable in the organization's culture. "The unspoken expectation is that you do whatever it takes to get whatever it is done for the people that you're serving," she says. "And anything less than that, you're not quite doing enough."

It isn't clear how common Roberts's experience is. The Department of Labor bases its enforcement actions on complaints, which makes it hard to track violations, says Catherine Ruckelshaus, the general counsel of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy organization. With the difficulty of the job market, the decline of unions, and the culture of self-sacrifice in nonprofit work, very few employees are willing to come forward to file a complaint against their employer. This means that there's no way to know how many nonprofit employees are working long, unpaid overtime hours when they shouldn't be. Still, Ruckelshaus says, "Nonprofit workers have more protection than they think or than even perhaps their employers think. But because the law isn't crystal clear ... there's a gray area and that's been exploited by some of these nonprofits and that's created a culture where workers don't think they're covered."

It's certainly the case that nonprofits face considerable challenges, but it doesn't seem like every organization is making a good-faith effort to do right by their employees when they decide how to respond to those challenges. And, setting aside the issue of fair pay, many wonder whether getting the most work out of staff for the least possible cost is efficient or sustainable. Work-life balance is particularly relevant when employees' work is emotionally taxing and poorly rewarded, and turnover for any organization is notoriously costly. Nonprofits that don't take this seriously may be shooting themselves in the foot.

Mary Beth Hastings suggests that if nonprofits truly care about the well-being of their staffs, one easy place to start is simply to write higher salaries into budget proposals. Likewise, government and philanthropic funders could be a lot wiser in how they dole out money: Scarce public-service dollars can impose a state of financial stress on the people who put them to use.

Indeed, many nonprofits have come out in support of the new overtime rules, even while acknowledging the challenges of following them. Stuart Mitchell, the CEO of a human-services nonprofit called PathStone, wrote in an op-ed that "paying a livable wage is the right thing to do not only for our deeply committed employees, but also for the participants that rely on our services." And representatives of 150 social-justice organizations signed a letter stating their support for the new rules, writing, "It is time to revisit the idea that working for the public good should somehow mean requiring the lowest-paid among us to support these efforts by working long hours, many of which are unpaid." More broadly, the Human Services Council of New York argues that the sector should call on the government to expand funding for nonprofits to maintain their level of services with increased pay. However they do that, nonprofits would be better off if they could act with efficiency as a goal, but not the only one.

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The Plight of the Overworked Nonprofit Employee

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Do mission-driven organizations with tight budgets have any choice but to demand long, unpaid hours of their staffs? Earlier this year, at the encouragement of President Obama, the Department of Labor finalized the most significant update to the federal rules on overtime in decades.

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BEAM: Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective

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Imagine a world where there are no barriers to Black healing. Together, we can heal through education, training, and advocacy.

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Funders’ Guide to creating a Sabbatical Program

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Funders’ Guide to creating a Sabbatical Program

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Replenishment, Nourishing & Healing in Equity Work.pptx

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Creative Disruption to Systems Change Report

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Image reflects participant responses from the 2021 RLI Survey

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See Who Participated In The 2021 RLI Survey

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See Who Participated In The 2021 RLI Survey

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Survey Question (optional): Race/ Ethnicity (select all that apply)

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Image reflects the responses from 2021 RLI Survey   

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Question: Have you ever taken a sabbatical from work?

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Programs and resources used in RLI preliminary research include:

1. The California Wellness Foundation

2. Virginia G. Piper Trust

3.  Rasmuson Foundation

4.  Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation

5.  Meyer Foundation

6. The Durfee foundation

7. McGregor Fund -Miller Fellowship

8. Creative Disruption to Systems Change

9.  Sabbaticals for Capacity Building and Leadership      Development in the Nonprofit Sector

10. Do-It-Yourself Sabbatical Guide

11. Funders’ Guide to Creating a Sabbatical Program

12. Race to Lead revisited: Obstacles and Opportunities in Addressing the Nonprofit Racial Leadership Gap

What We Have Learned:

There are not many sabbatical programs specifically designed for nonprofit professionals locally or nationally

Most sabbatical programs require participants to complete an application and or undergo a selection process

Eligibility requirements for sabbatical programs differ based on the program/entity. Some requirements include:

Must be an executive director

Be a full-time employee

Have served at the organization for several years (in many cases 3yrs and up)

Have an operating budget over a certain threshold

Provide organizational work plan prior to sabbatical

Prepare a detailed report concluding sabbatical

The length of sabbatical programs vary, the average range is from 3 months - 1yr

Some sabbatical programs require the leave be taken consecutive whereas others allow for it to be divided into several smaller projects or programs

Salary and expenses are typically covered during sabbatical

Some sabbatical programs provide funding for interim leaders bonus and or the professional development of staff not on sabbatical

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Data below reflects participant response from the 2021 RLI Survey

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2021 RLI Survey Feedback: Managing Burnout

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2021 RLI Survey Feedback: Managing Burnout

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Survey Question: What type of programs, policies, support/ resources would be helpful in preventing burnout?

Some sort of burnout assessment “if your experiencing these things you may be experiencing burnout”.. perhaps anti-burnout accountability partner group?

More paid vacation, lower co-pays for worker therapy. Increased therapeutic intervention.

Mental health workshops

Mental health days. Mental health care support and encouragement.

Free therapy services for service providers (especially those working with trauma survivors); self-care stipends for employees; flexibility in work schedules; vacation/flex time; peer support groups for staff

Cultural competent coping mechanisms, healing circles, mentorship, and accountability partners.

Having time off from work to mourn or deal with grief.

Asking folks about their capacity, long deadlines, expectations around when you need rapid response, shorter work weeks.

Making certain employees take their vacation. So often, our culture rewards hard work and frowns upon taking vacations...changing the mindset regarding the power of time away and time to rest. Including mental health support as part of the benefits offered. Including a sabbatical opportunity to create an opportunity for extended rest and time away without being drawn into work while away. Ideally, vacations should do that yet they don't (unless you travel outside of the country or where there is minimal or no connectivity).

Support groups. I have found even being a part of a social media group has helped.

A constitutional convention. UBI for all. Paying people what they are worth-- https://communitycentricfundraising.org/2021/08/23/pay-equity-performative-or-palpable/. Having people do LESS. Divesting nonprofits from hierarchy and boards as the default structures that shape how we advance our mission. I don't have all the answers. I don't WANT to have all the answers.

Opportunities such as these will help. It helps to know that you are not the only one and it humanizes and normalizes rest at work.

Fair staffing and benefits/health/etc. Awareness and training of boards and executive leadership on burdens carried by staff of color to carry the torch. Sabbatical and generous PTO (with balanced expectations tied to it - not just time off, but time off without everything piled up to do 2-5X as fast upon return).

Learning that we can only do so much within a day. Having a mentor that help talk through some of the struggles that I might be having.

1. Stop expecting overtime work without overtime compensation 2. Ability to take mental health days without blame 3. Having more than one person learn a role. Therefore when I go on vacation, I am not coming back to work, with double to work. as well as having double the work to complete before vacation. 4. Work life balance

Places and things that support Black Bodies on all levels

Free therapy services for service providers (especially those working with trauma survivors); self-care stipends for employees; flexibility in work schedules; vacation/flex time; peer support groups for staff

*4 day work weeks *Anti-burnout challenges (something that gets at accountability) - could be done within an organization

Company vacation shutdowns or PTO minimums ( you have to take x amount of weeks off), no meeting days, minimal outside of work hours activities ( 2-3 monthly max)

Mandatory vacation time, quarterly shut-downs, video conferences without your camera, productive meetings that have an end goal, self-care stipends, organizational discounts at mental and physical health massage, yoga, roller-skating, exercise businesses.

I would like to see philanthropy fund paid sabbaticals for frontline practitioners and nonprofit leaders that have evidenced good practices and great community service. Honor that individual with extended time off with pay and the support to keep administrative task going.

I believe that overcoming the racial bias in philanthropic funding changes everything. Racial discrimination creeps into all parts of the philanthropic sector, especially the grantmaking process. Nonprofit organizations led by people of color receive less money than those shown by whites. As such, many institutions reinforce that which they claim they seek to change. In the meantime, building a sustainable team and multi-year financial support [at any level] would be helpful, along with helping organizations like ours attract rockstar board members and regular advisors. An organic community always knows what's best for their community and the households around them. The problem arises when communities are thrust into an unnatural state of scarcity. Lastly, anything that leads to: 1. Trusting honest partnerships among capacity builders, nonproﬁt leaders, and their staﬀ. 2. Organizational cultures that promote the creative power of their members and can take collective action to understand and address root causes of an issue in fulfilling their mission. 3. Nonprofits becoming specialists, not generalists. 4. Cultivating networks to generate power and change systems. 5. Investing in the inner well-being and growth of leaders. 6. Providing simultaneous, multilayered capacity-building opportunities. 7. Offering direct, flexible funding for transformative capacity building.

It would be helpful if companies could enact self-care weeks and provide funding for self-care time. I also think individuals should not have to share why they are using their sick days. Companies should also move to a more fluid work schedule.

Economic stability programs for low income individuals and families which include financial literacy training & therapy programming like Marcia Lee's, Healing By Choice Federal stimulus funding free, anonymous, local, mental health care rest & restore grants (select activities + room & board + travel) so staff & active board members can REST from at least 3 days (a weekend) to 3 weeks!!! (supported by Foundations currently funding nonprofits that haven't shut down with staff/boards that haven't gotten a break in 2021 so far)

Subsidies for personal care professionals

I think we can have all the resources in the world, but the term "culture eats strategy for breakfast" applies here. The organizational culture and policies need to be supportive of preventing burnout. I once had a boss who would email me at 3am and then expect a response by 8am. It was my first job and it felt like I had no option but to work on her same schedule, so I'd be up until 3am so I could check my emails. I wasn't in a position of power to push back. On the flip side, I've had bosses that have really prioritized family, taking self care days, flexible schedules and pushed back on us if she saw us reaching burnout. She would literally send people home to go take some personal time. This set the culture for our team and I've carried lessons from her forward in how I try to manage my own team. We also as organizations need to revisit sick leave / vacation policies. It would be great for more organizations to actually provide employees with time off for self care separate from sick leave and vacation. As a parent with a young child, I rely on those sick days and vacation days to care for my child when they are sick or when they are out of daycare. Additionally, maternity leave and paternity leave programs need to be revisited. 6 weeks is not enough to recover, process, and return to work at full capacity. Additionally, not everyone can afford to take unpaid leave or sacrifice vacation time to take additional leave. If we are walking the walk as organizations that seek to support women and families, we need to offer better family leave policies.

Cultural competent coping mechanisms, healing circles, mentorship, and accountability partners.

1.) Funding to hire more staff: Will allow each person to do their jobs more optimally and free them up to be able to innovate/improve how they are doing their work. We need downtime/space to be creative! 2.) More pay + benefits: Will provide resources to assist each person to manage their home lives more efficiently and effectively (ie paying for quality childcare, access to physical and mental health & wellbeing resources, purchasing healthier food). 3.) Normalizing mental health/personal days and more of them/or shortening the week/work hours -- this could only be achieved if there is more staffing, so the work is distributed in such a way that people don't feel like their plates are too full.

ArtisticApothecary.org has lots of resources and liberation meditations

More sabbaticals and fellowships, more vacation time, more breaks between meetings

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Image reflects participant responses from the 2021 RLI Survey

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Survey Question: How do you define liberation?

"The freedom to be my authentic self. In the context of my work, it is the freedom to be my authentic self; to be vulnerable without fear of adverse consequence; to get the rest I need without shame or guilt"

"Free any forms of imprisonment and systemic oppression yet feeling included having access to the resources I need to pursue my idea of happiness"

"To me, liberation is an extension of freedom... which includes being afforded the right to live and breathe without fear of harm and discrimination. Liberation is both internal and external...meaning the systems external to us need to support the rights of individuals to live in their truth and be free of harm and discrimination, but also include internal mindset and actions taken by the individual to engage in intentional work to live in one's truth. Liberation is a radical in nature (because of the climate we live in)"

"A huge sigh of relief from dominant cultures socialized norms and characteristics of white supremacy. Liberation is freedom in authenticity"

"Being allowed to truly express who you are"

"The ability to live freely as your authentic self"

"An internalization of self-respect, mastery, belonging and gratitude of life."

"I define liberation as the freedom of being your true self released from doubt fear and apprehension"

"Liberation to me is the ability to do everything needed to fully rest, when I need it, without feeling guilty or weighed down with work or commitments. It is the ability to vocalize what my body and mind need and take it without fear of reparations."

"Untethered to the systems of oppression that have continuously shaped society. Free to live a life of choice and consequence that is not marginalized or limited by others."

"I define liberation as "dancing to my own beat". Having conversations that moves the needle forward. Empowering residents to make changes in the community on their own"

"A place of true expression to rest and reside in what you are; being provided with the opportunities to explore yourself and stepping forward in that truth."

"Being free from whatever has one bound. Many women believe that cutting off there hair or wearing locks is liberating, because it frees you of the stress that doing hair can cause."

"Not being held accountable to or limited by other people's demands, expectations, judgements, and biases."

"I look at liberation through the lens of Blackness first and foremost. The liberation of Black Bodies against all forms of oppression with the end goal of acting out Black self-determination. Meaning Black Bodies are in a position after being liberated establishing their own nation-state."

"I define liberation as setting my own frequency, not allowing the frequency of the world around to run me into the ground. Liberation is honoring my body, heart and mind, letting them set the tone for how I navigate in the world, not the other way around."

"Freedom, whether its taken or given"

"Collectively. at least in the strongest sense. I may feel like I've been liberated from something, but if others are still oppressed by that same something, is anyone actually liberated? or I may notice that there are privileges I've had that have encouraged me to remain blind to some ways others are oppressed. once I learn of those, I learn even more of the need for collective action towards actual liberation."

"Being free"

"Opportunity"

"I define liberation as the freedom to live, move and be without constraint. The space to be your whole self and use your gifts without limitation."

"Unbridled but intentional freedom. I personally find that liberation is something that you create or actively worked towards."

"Freedom from demanding work hours. Freedom from overwhelming tasks and people. Freedom to do as I please without the constraints of others."

"Freedom from other people's thoughts or beliefs about me. The freedom to act without societal constraints and the freedom to just be."

"Bringing your authentic self to every place and space that you inhabit without fear or concern of what others may think and not being tied to the agendas of others."

"The freedom to build systems and processes that nurture a healthy, equitable, whole and well resourced community. Everyone has what they need and we are unapologetically committed to building a better work for us and our children."

"Liberation can be both collective and personal. Personal liberation is to believe in one's true worth as a human being and to not let our unjust systems dictate how we should lead our lives. This type of internal work, cannot be done alone. It must be achieved through systems of community and mutual aid. Liberation is not possible if one does not have access the basic resources of healthy food, water, air, housing, employment and education. Liberation work is a multi stakeholder effort that must put the communities most impacted by injustice, at the forefront of its solution-making efforts. I also think that Liberation cannot be achieved without rest and rejuvenation, which is something our colonial capitalist extractive economies try very hard to prevent."

"Liberation is an area I still strive to attain. To liberate myself from being the answer and strength for everyone else but me. Being liberated from feeling as though I have to fix and assist family, friends, lovers, husbands etc. and know that God gave them the same abilities to restore themselves. As a mom, former wife, and companion, they need the space to find their own liberation which in terms liberates me to trust the process, have faith in the divine and activate the freedom of my mind to enjoy more of Gods world."

"Liberation is freedom, it's a little bit tricky to define but it means that you are able to fully self-actualize and have a joyful existence without boundaries or barriers oppressing you."

"As a cure, peace, freedom Etc."

"The physical and emotional sense that I have accomplished the targeted separation."

"A state of freedom from expectations and limits on our actions and thoughts; an act of escaping from structures and paradigms designed to render us not human"

"The freedom to be my authentic self in every situation, without being weighed down by external burdens."

"Liberation: Separation from trauma or anxious emotions, feelings, and atmospheres, and the experience of extended states of optimal internal, physical, and chemical harmony. Homeostasis! 💪🏽"

"I think about liberation in terms of untethering, or liberating, myself from the systems that try to kill me everyday, and fail. This includes making a conscious effort to reduce, or eradicate when possible, any reliance on the interlocking systems of dominance, extraction, white supremacy, capitalism (and other forms of oppression) I've been born into. My liberation seeks to understand and respect and generate power. Transformative healing power. Grounded power. Power to create my/our own realities in ways that respect our interdependence with each other and the earth and the water and spirit and all living beings. We are so accustomed to witnessing people abuse power - for profit mostly or for the ability to wield power. And white supremacy capitalism has so twisted hearts and bodies and minds that we often abuse power and each other in a desperate attempt to feel in control of something, anything. My liberation is tied to surrounding the desire to control, it's tied to casting and creating new visions, and it's in solidarity with others in community care. Liberation allows me space to come undone, and know that I'll be held. We must become even more bold about our right to be righteously and rightfully powerful - in our own hearts, minds, and bodies and then collectively as we shape and become our governors, our government. We must demand that we use power well and thoughtfully in service of each and all of us."

"Freedom for me, my family and my people"

"Freedom from bias, oppression, and external control. The ability to build and create based on personal vision, goals and priorities. Liberation is not just an individual state but a group state and it cannot truly come at the expense of others."

"The freedom to choose a direction without barriers."

"A huge sigh of relief from dominant cultures socialized norms and characteristics of white supremacy. Liberation is freedom in authenticity"

"Liberation is the act of breaking the chains of oppression and moving in the world as an actor (protagonist) of history (as opposed to a subject or object of history)"

"Freedom. No restrictions or barriers. Free to be all of who I am."

"To make choices/decisions in collaboration with stakeholders/supporters that respected and trusted."

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How could sabbatical programs take shape in our current nonprofit culture?

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How could sabbatical programs take shape in our current nonprofit culture?

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What are some examples of people, organizations, and initiatives who are breaking these barriers?

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What are some examples of people, organizations, and initiatives who are breaking these barriers?

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What are the barriers to rest and liberation in your current work culture?

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What are the barriers to rest and liberation in your current work culture?

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The stress of perfectionism

Feel like BIPOC professionals have to prove themselves in a system or environment that wasn't intended for or supportive of them.

The goal of perfectionism can cause a lot of stress. You feel like everything you produce has to be perfect.

To free oneself, the shift in the culture and leadership has to be there to signal “It’s ok.”

That everything produced doesn’t have to come out perfect.

Without leadership telling you, may not be able to explore what that looks like.

Freeing yourself from the "You have to work twice as hard" to be equal mentality, that has been passed down generationally.

Working to not pass this or these expectations down to the next generation

The barrier of holding everything—feeling like every task of the org has to be reviewed, checked off, and done by me and not necessarily empowering people to move with a task in an autonomous way.

Giving others the permission to move with it and if there is a misstep or mistake, it will be ok.

“It is not mine to carry. It is ours to carry.” (Carrying organization)

Unlearning things on what it means to be an organizational leader.

Sharing the Work

Sharing a vision with the org, so when I’m away, things will carry on just fine without me.

I am so accustomed to getting up to work, work, work.

It showed up when I was a student, in my college life, etc.

“I didn’t practice sharing the work as much as I could have.”

Compassionate accountability or shared accountability where one person doesn’t have to shoulder the performance of an entire organization.

“If we’re trying to break away from perfectionism, how can we still feel good about our work?”

Recognize it’s ok

Getting rid of false urgency; the right a way, right now mentality both personally and professionally

How we internally build out our budget; what does it look like to budget in time to practice, stretch and recover; rethinking how we internally evaluate our time and resources

Learning through practice is a value. Learning to make mistakes at a good pace. What is it to learn a new thing without penalty; rethink program offerings and concentrate on fewer things (program(s) at a time

“We ain’t got the money”

"Work isn’t conducive to us. Self-finance: We can’t take the time off because we need it to pay the bills. That is what this culture imposed on us."

“You can be poor and be free.” We don’t have this luxury."

"Nonprofit sector is driven by what we think funders and residents are looking for and what they’ll support."

"We can reimagine how we will interact around those stakeholders. We can shift our mindsets so we can do this. We don’t always move beyond what we can do because of “control.”

Mindset of a leader will define what that organization will look like and that can be hard to disrupt.

Small steps: not working on Fridays in the summer or working ½ day.

Why does it just have to be in the summer? We can change that.

"How do we manage the balance of being a leader and being free or being a leader and pushing back against the systems we are working within? This reinforces this grind culture where we don’t believe we deserve rest and glorify always being on, always making it happen"

"Folks were being taught that Black people were built differently and are able to take on more pain, stress, and frustration without complaining about it."

Internalized oppression

"We can’t be our authentic selves without being radical."

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Image reflects participant responses from 2021 RLI Survey

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See what others would do if given the opportunity to take a sabbatical 

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See what others would do if given the opportunity to take a sabbatical 

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Survey Question: What would you want time to do on sabbatical if you had the opportunity to take one?

Probably chill for a week and then start writing a book that has been on my mind for awhile.

Travel

Take naps. Ponder about the future. Read and learn. Tend to my relationships with others

Rest from the ongoing work. Recharge on relationships with self and community. Explore other avenues of thinking, learning, working, and being creative. Write. Reflect. Visit new places

I would focus on leadership development, learn more about practices individuals of color in similar work use to mitigate vicarious trauma that I can share with staff, and develop a more sustainable self-care plan for myself

Personally, I'd like to do a spiritual retreat

Sleep, eat well, acupuncture, yoga, chill under trees with snacks, drinks, on a blanket, by the water in a neutral climate with lots of sunshine

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Image reflects participant responses from the 2021 RLI Survey

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See what others think the RLI should do to support BIPOC leaders outside of a sabbatical experience

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See what others think the RLI should do to support BIPOC leaders outside of a sabbatical experience

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Survey Question: What should the Rest & Liberation Initiative program do to support leaders of color in the nonprofit space, outside of a sabbatical  experience?

Flexible work schedules for life!

Overstanding Black Bodies that work is personal and political all at the same time"

Mental wellness

A peer discussion for others to express their challenges/vent.

Quick tips on how to sneak in rest and liberation when a sabbatical isn't possible

More Equitable Funding and we need a report card for philanthropy that’s getting it right.

Paid fellowships, paid self-care / self-care stipends

Talk about sex as part of regeneration and spiritual connection

I think there is an emphasis on self care that is colonial and doesn't fit in with Indigenous communities.

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What to Include in RLI Survey responses.PNG

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Rejuvenates nonprofit leaders

Increases organizational capacity—especially in strengthening the capacity of second-tier leadership or strengthening the bench

Enhances succession planning

Strengthens governance

Shifts a leader’s perspective from daily management to distributed leadership and generative thinking and activity

Creates a permanent shift in the culture of work/life balance for both the leader and organization staff

Acts as dry runs for eventual permanent transitions

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The Transforming Solidarity Collective is a group of regional intermediary nonprofits that seek to ensure Southeast Michigan’s nonprofits, especially those serving or from historically under-resourced communities, have access to resources and services that advance their missions while building network capacity to create significant systemic change, together. Since last year the Collective has worked on a joint COVID 19 response strategy that includes providing a network of resources to support front line nonprofits as they work to address immediate needs stemming from the crisis.

We have seen in the context of the crisis an exacerbation of the inequities we already knew existed within our ecosystem regarding access to resources, relationships and technical assistance, particularly for BIPOC-led nonprofit organizations. These inequities result from long-standing, systemic barriers within our ecosystem.

As such, the intent of the focus group will be to talk about your access or lack of access to opportunities for rest and recalibration.  The focus group will also discuss your experiences with traditional and nontraditional sabbatical programs and cultural norms in your organizations around taking time for yourself.