Employee Retention in Nonprofits: Could Your Agency be Off Course?

Anyone who runs a nonprofit, either as a direct head or a member of the board of directors, knows how hard it can be to retain good employees. Low pay and burnout are the two usual suspects for low retention rates – and, unfortunately, easy solutions to those issues don’t exist.

But could you be losing valued employees due to a fault of your own making?

It’s called “mission drift” or “mission creep,” and it happens when nonprofits veer away from their core activities. Sometimes change is inevitable, but mission drift is most likely to go awry when an organization bows to social pressures or chases deep-pocket donors whose wishes don’t line up exactly with the nonprofit’s stated purpose.

When that happens, it can hurt employee retention efforts in several ways.

First, remember that a nonprofit’s most passionate workers aren’t there for the great pay or the easy duties. They sign on and work hard because they deeply believe in what an agency is trying to accomplish. When an agency goes in a different direction, its new purpose and the employee’s passion might no longer be aligned.

Mission drift can also undermine confidence in the agency’s leaders to stay on their stated course, or make workers wonder whether they’ll fit into the new plan. Both of these things can lead to demotivation and departures.

For more proven ways to keep your best workers, check out Inspiring Loyalty: The Secrets of Employee Retention

Finally, an especially drastic shift in direction can put off longtime donors for the same reasons. If donations drop significantly, stagnant wages or layoffs can make even the most committed employees head for the exits.

For nonprofit organizations, maintaining trust from all stakeholders – including your workers – is key. How can you go about remaining true to your mission?

Four ways to prevent mission drift – or mitigate its effects if you must change direction

1. Maintain the narrowest possible focus. Nonprofit agencies (including nonprofit educational institutions) struggle to keep workers and to do effective work when they try to do too much. Talk to your most valued workers, and you’ll likely find that they all share the same goal. That shared vision is where you should keep your focus to retain their commitment and use all resources most efficiently.
2. Keep agency leadership on track. If you’re the leader, resist the impulse to let outside pressures dictate a change in direction. If you’re on the board, provide consistent reminders of the agency’s stated course. If the agency is led too far astray, this might necessitate a change in leadership and a public restatement of the organization’s core mission to reassure stakeholders.
3. Conduct regular, thorough reviews of all plans and activities. Significant mission drift usually doesn’t happen overnight; it starts a degree at a time. Left unchecked, it can put your agency far off course. Board members, company leaders, significant donors and key staff should all be involved in these reviews.
4. Ensure that leaders maintain solid two-way communication with employees. It can be tempting to shift focus if someone dangles a big check in front of your organization, especially in uncertain economic times, or to overreact to social or regulatory changes. If events have you considering even a minor change to the agency’s mission, consult with your key employees to get their feedback. If a perceived drift is actually a course correction, in line with the company’s core vision, show them exactly how and why that’s true.

You’re involved in nonprofit work, as a leader or director, because you believe in that cause. Recognize that your workers are in it for the same reason. When everyone pulls together in the same direction, following the heading originally laid out at an agency’s founding, you’ll be more likely to keep your key people on that team.

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