Working in the nonprofit, help-people, protect-the-planet world, you discover a lot of cool organizations working parallel to yours. And you learn from each other and evolve in tandem, because, we’re all ultimately working towards the same big picture. Love. Justice. Sustainability.
About a month ago, some stuff came out about an org I really looked up to. Some not-good stuff, about a toxic workplace and harmful leadership. And part of what was so jarring was that the organization’s messaging was always so good, but what was going on behind the scenes was totally out of sync.
It was surprising, but at the same time, this keeps happening. I feel like a couple times each year I learn of a couple more respected organizations losing trust, and it’s the same thing over and over: toxic leadership/culture or abusive behavior from a founder. And this exists in a lot of other places than the nonprofit world. But why? Especially when the culpable parties are so good at saying the right thing, you’d think they’d know better?
I still find it puzzling, but I think the observation I keep coming back to is that ego tanks charity. Not just charity as in charity organization, but charity as in love.
Do a good thing long enough, and you might get noticed. You become the face of a movement. And if you’re not careful, it can be difficult to separate a threat to justice from a threat to your ego. That’s not good.
I don’t think having a public presence always needs to lead to this, but I don’t want to pretend I’m immune. I absolutely love what I get to do, and I think it matters. But the past couple years have to not let that be a stand in for my identity. Sometimes it’s harder to have that healthy boundary when you really do love what you do.
I’ve been working on those boundaries and funny enough I’ve been loving the work more as a result. I’ve tried to break the American habit of using my profession to introduce myself. I make sure I talk about a balance of things. I’ve tried making sure my pursuits of justice and sustainability aren’t limited to the working hours.
You matter. Your work matters. And they both matter too much to mistake one for the other.