506. 9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: Retention is an Inside Job. - Jon McCoy, Becky Endicott, Evan Wildstein and Michelle Flores Vryn
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2024 Nonprofit Trends That Matter
This episode is part of our 2024 Nonprofit Trends That Matter Series.
Overview
Welcome back to week three of our 9️⃣ Nonprofit Trends that Matter in 2024 Series! It’s time to name the elephant in the room: Retention. But we aren’t just talking about retaining our donors - the greatest retention issue that isn’t talked about enough is the retention of our nonprofit staff. For a sector built on relationships, we have to build a culture that creates retention from the inside out. After all, if our staff isn’t compelled to stay, why should our donors? 🤔Joining us to delve into this critical trend are two seasoned in-house nonprofit leaders, Evan Wilstein and Michelle Flores Vryn, CFRE. Together they conducted a comprehensive survey on staff retention—exploring the reasons people leave and, conversely, what motivates them to stay. The survey results, though disheartening, shed light on the reality we face. Join us to find out more about the reality of retention and where we go from here🧭
💡Learn in this series
Trends that’ll grow and elevate your mission
Pro tips for success
Case studies of who's already doing it well in the sector (because let's replicate what's working!💪)
Ways to infuse joy into your work 😊
“I think the questions to move us forward are less about deciding what to do and more about deciding who we want to be.”
Episode Transcript
Download Full Episode Transcript Here
Episode Highlights
Retention is an Inside Job Takeaways (2:00)
Retention Playlist + Who’s doing it well? (4:55)
Reflections from the We Are For Good Community (5:20)
Introducing Evan + Michelle (8:45)
What Evan + Michelle are seeing (11:25)
Nonprofit survey results (18:10)
What organizations can do moving forward (27:45)
What surprised Evan + Michelle from the survey results (33:10)
Evan’s One Good Thing: Listen and listen again. (37:10)
Michelle’s One Good Thing: Moving the sector from survival to abundance. (40:00)
How to connect with Evan + Michelle (42:55)
Impactful Quotes
"I think we're feeling that people used to fit their life around work, and now they're fitting their work around life and that makes us act differently." - Michelle
“82% of people said, if they're happy where they're working, it's because they have flexibility with remote/hybrid.” -Evan
“Capacity building starts with giving your people actual money and compensation benefits and seeing them as human beings.” -Becky
“If we can actually pay our people, give them leverage, give them joy of coming to work, support, psychological safety, I think everything changes when that happens.” -Becky
“When we have collective attention placed on something, the amount of change we can enact is radical.” -Michelle
“I think the questions to move us forward are less about deciding what to do and more about deciding who we want to be.” -Michelle
“If you are in a position of authority, and that's like if you've got colleagues in your orbit who listen to you, if you are blessed enough to be a manager, I think it's one of the best jobs in the world. Listen to your people and listen, again, make that an active part.” -Evan
"Movements are born of critical connection, not critical mass." -Grace Lee Boggs, as quoted by Michelle
"If you don't think about it at that system's level, then you're just talking about singular issues like retention donor, you know, donor attrition like, and it's more than that, you have to look at the whole connected piece of it." -Michelle
