Need to Know
“I thought that I was putting the mission before myself and that was the right thing to do. But what I learned is I was actually less good at being a dad, less good at being a husband, and less good at being a fundraiser.”
— Colin Skehan, fundraiser
When an earthquake hit Syria and Turkey in 2023, Colin Skehan threw himself into his job as a fundraiser with an international relief group. His organization and the affected communities were counting on him to raise money to help.
At the time, Skehan was a new father and exhausted from lack of sleep. But he pressed on with what was often emotionally tough work, searching photos of children killed in the quake to create appeals. Pressure and stress led to panic attacks and what he later realized was a nervous breakdown
Skehan’s story appears in new research from Rogare, an international fundraising think tank. Like many other fundraisers, Skehan had worked to the point of burnout and beyond.
“I thought that I was putting the mission before myself and that was the right thing to do,” he says. “But what I learned is I was actually less good at being a dad, less good at being a husband, and less good at being a fundraiser.”
The report, “Caring Too Much,” highlights what leads to burnout and the costs to individuals and the organization. Many fundraisers who experience burnout leave, says Michelle Reynolds, author of the research.
“The turnover is really high, and as a result, it’s actually costing charities more,” she says. “All of that skill, expertise, experience, and in-house knowledge that you have when you’ve been with an organization for a period of time — you lose that.”
To replace talent, organizations must recruit and train new staff who often take time to get up to speed. “So it’s shortsighted for us not to pay more attention,” Reynolds says.
The report notes that fundraisers have four traits that can lead to burnout: “inherent empathy”; their tendency to put the interest of clients, colleagues, and others before their own; perceived or real pressure to achieve more for less; and an acute sense of responsibility for the organization while at the same time feeling “unseen.”
For more about the report and recommendations to reduce the likelihood of burnout, read the rest of my story.
Plus …
How Tariffs, Economy are Impacting Nonprofits, Fundraising. While President Trump backed off on wide-reaching tariffs, his trade war with China heated up, with the tariff on some Chinese imports rising to 145 percent, and China retaliating with tariffs on U.S. imports hiked to 125 percent.
The result is higher prices for nonprofits. “Nonprofits aren’t going to get added donations to cover the cost of things going up,” Rick Cohen, a spokesman for the National Council of Nonprofits, told my colleague Ben Gose. “Government contracts aren’t getting revised upward to reflect the increase in costs. These tariffs will just further stretch nonprofits that are already overstretched.”
Dayna Scott, executive director of Broomfield Fish, a Denver-area food pantry with a $5 million budget, fears that some of the charity’s bigger donors, who make annual gifts worth $5,000 or more, may pull back as a result of the declines and volatility in the stock market.
“All of that simultaneously is like a tidal wave coming at us,” Scott said. For more on tariffs, inflation, and fundraising, read the rest of Ben’s article.
