What Women Leaders in Nonprofits Need to Know
Episode 482 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Jenny Mitchell
How do you ensure you fulfill your ambition, passion, and retirement fund when you work for a nonprofit?
The nonprofit sector differs from the corporate world in a number of ways. The workforce is heavily dominated by women, for one thing, and lower pay is a long-accepted trade-off for the privilege of pursuing a cause-oriented career.
Despite these distinct differences, the Bossed Up episode library hasn’t delved too deeply into the nonprofit realm to date, but that’s about to change. Today, I share my enlightening conversation with Jenny Mitchell, the Chief Visionary Officer of Chavender, an organization that coaches mid-level leaders to senior executives to help them build leadership skills. Jenny focuses on women in the nonprofit sector in particular, and this focus inspired her first book, Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women to Step Out, Be Seen, & Lead, which came out earlier this year.
In this episode, we discuss what women need to know to thrive within the nonprofit arena.
The challenges facing women working for a nonprofit
The underrepresentation of women in senior positions is nothing new, but in nonprofits, the stats highlight this inequality even more acutely: women compose up to three-quarters of the workers, and yet only 62% of them occupy the C-suite (and fewer still in the largest corporations).
This is just one example of the gender leadership gap’s grip on the nonprofit sector. Jenny acknowledges that these organizations have a tendency to hire from the outside, always seeking more qualified candidates despite having a large selection of fervently dedicated (and mostly female) staff ripe for promotion. She notes that nearly everyone she works alongside in nonprofits is kind, passionate, and curious—it’s a pool of excellent contenders who often spend too long in their entry-level and intermediate roles.
That innate passion runs up against likeability double standards for women in nonprofits, too. Unlike some corporate structures, a nonprofit CEO doesn’t make all the decisions. Instead, they are at the mercy of funders and a board whose chair changes every two years and whose members all have different pet projects within the organization. We know that women leaders have to fight to strike a balance between assertiveness and niceness. Achieving this equilibrium within a slew of—often mostly male—overseers can be a huge challenge; those relationships and potential donor funds are what keep the mission and the aforementioned passionate staff afloat, not to mention the leader herself.
Manage up as a nonprofit professional
The dedication to the cause that is a staple of so many people drawn to the nonprofit sector comes with a few downsides. So often, these committed workers adhere to one of the five pillars in Jenny’s book: Embodied Roles. When someone feels deeply connected to the group she is serving, it becomes very difficult to stop working—the next phone call, text, or email could literally save a life. This achiever mindset, while still so often lauded, can lead to burnout. It also sets a bad example for a manager’s direct reports, leaving these similarly impassioned people feeling like they aren’t doing enough unless they’re doing it all, all the time.
Jenny also highlights another issue that often crops up in nonprofits: weak management. Because budgets are stretched thin and organizations are focused on keeping administrative costs low—both to appease donors and the board and to funnel as much money as possible into their mission—staff members tend to receive minimal management training compared to corporate entities.
Workers in these situations need to learn to manage up, Jenny says. By this, she means putting communication channels in place if you aren’t getting the one-on-ones you require. She suggests establishing regular communication—through the channel that works best for your manager—outlining where you are with your work and what you need from your supervisor to keep succeeding.
This, on top of advocating for raises and healthy boundaries, can go a long way to preventing the oft-seen two-year turnover.
Manage well as a nonprofit leader
As for the leaders of the organizations, Jenny stresses the importance of monitoring how much you’re contributing to a culture of overwork. “As a leader,” she says, “your job is to manage your energy and the wake of your energy.” This wake ripples out to every staff member around you, so if you are burning out or feeling hopeless about the battle, it’s only a matter of time until that feeling overtakes everyone else.
Jenny also advocates for making time to celebrate achievements, both with the rest of the team and personally. Scheduling active rewards for milestones met and goals completed goes a long way toward building morale, motivation for future work, and managing the looming sense of not-enoughness that can surface in any uphill battle for change in the face of systemic opposition.
In this episode, Jenny and I dive deep into all these topics, and we also explore the uniquely collaborative process she took to writing her book, Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women to Step Out, Be Seen, & Lead—a must-read for all women leading and aspiring to lead. Press play now to listen to the whole conversation.
Then, I want to hear from you. If you’re a woman working for a nonprofit, what issues are you seeing, and how have you navigated the various challenges of this kind of work? How are the women leaders in your orbit practicing the good management skills Jenny talks about? Stop by the Courage Community on Facebook or join us in our group on LinkedIn to share your experience, and let me know what other nonprofit topics you’d like me to bring to Bossed Up.
Related links from today’s episode:
Jenny’s book, Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women to Step Out, Be Seen, & Lead
Listen to Jenny’s Podcast The Underdog Leadership Podcast
“More Women Work in Nonprofits. So Why Do Men End Up Leading Them?” on HBR
Bossed Up Ep 421: The Top Struggles of High Achievers
LEVEL UP: a Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise
Learn to LEVEL UP your leadership at work:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 482. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today I'm so excited to be diving into a conversation about what women in the nonprofit sector need to know when it comes to advancing their careers, not succumbing to the martyrdom mindset, and generally like getting what they want out of their careers, whether it's more money or more impact, or maybe both.
Joining me to dive into this topic is Jenny Mitchell, the Chief Visionary Officer of Chavender, where she works closely with leaders to change the world one mission at a time. She's a dynamic speaker, executive coach, fundraising professional, and host of The Underdog Leadership Podcast. She's also the author of Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women To Step Out, Be Seen, And Lead, uniting twelve exceptional women leaders from across North America with a simple goal to share their leadership stories as a mentorship resource for the next generation of women leaders. Jenny, welcome to the Bossed Up podcast.
JENNY: I am totally pumped to be here. Thank you.
EMILIE: I'm delighted to sit down with you because this is, in my opinion, a long overdue conversation for our listeners here at Bossed Up. Tons of women who come through our doors from the nonprofit sector. And I never really thought about addressing the challenges and opportunities that exist for women in that sector in particular. So I'm so excited to dive into that topic with you today.
First, tell me a little bit about your background and how you became this women's advocate, and author, and speaker.
JENNY: I love that. So let me back up to I didn't think much about being a girl or a boy growing up. Like, it was just, it was right, Emilie? We didn't have these kind of, I don't know, barriers to ourselves. And I actually did a lot of studying in school. I was a hurdle jumper. I loved school. And I actually studied music, of all things, classical musician. And I turned 30 and had my first baby, and I ended up having two girls. And I think that was one of the things that I realized as my girls grew up, a lot of the things I thought we'd solved were not actually solved at all. They were just hidden under the rug.
So I started noticing patterns and habits and we're going to talk about the not for profit sector specifically. And I pivoted from my work as a musician because of my life with, as a mom, to be honest. And it was all evenings and weekends. My husband had a regular job. I was like, this is not going to work. And I also had other skills. I knew I had other skills.
So I got into fundraising, which was an absolute joy. Fundraising for pianos, ironically, it makes sense, right? We fall through these. These patterns, and I always kind of followed my curiosity. I raised money for pianos and became a fundraising consultant for over ten years. And I found the staff in the not for profit world were always the bright lights. They were passionate, they were curious, they were kind, and I felt that they were underserved. And if I could focus my energy on them, they could make the change that needed to happen.
So rather than writing reports that nobody read, I would focus on the coaching of them. And that's really how I got into executive coaching. And because so many women, and we're going to talk about this, gravitate to not for profit. Most of my clients have been women, and I've just decided to double down in that sphere.
EMILIE: I love that. That's amazing. And I think it's also such a real acknowledgement as someone who's on the cusp right now, as we're recording this, of my second maternity leave. This episode will come out when the baby's here. Hopefully, I'll be enjoying a peaceful maternity leave, as tranquil as one could be at that time. How much that impacts women's careers and realities in every way, shape, and form. So, definitely many a conversation have been had on this podcast about that. But it’s real.
JENNY: And in a positive way. Like, this is not a negative, this is truly a positive. And the choices we make. And fun fact, I remember going to a career fair when I had a six week old, because I knew something had to change. I was just really excited to be out of the house, if you want to know the truth. But there was two things I looked at, funnily enough. Graphic design. I always thought it was kind of a second career in graphic design and then fundraising. And the lady said to me, oh, you know, the great thing about fundraising is it can be very, you work part time. You can work contract, you can work on projects. I was like, sign me up.
EMILIE: Yeah, that's wonderful. I'm so glad to hear that. So over the years, you've worked with many women in the nonprofit sector as a coach, what are the key lessons that you think women in the nonprofit sector really need to know in order to unleash their full potential?
JENNY: Yeah. So let's just throw some stats in here. Cause I think it does kind of strengthen the argument because you might feel something, but when you look at the data, you know, 80% of the workforce is women. 80%. And yet, at the CEO level much less represented we're talking about. I don't know. I can't think of what the Forbes article that you and I sort of started this banter on.
EMILIE: It's 62% of CEO's are women in the nonprofit sector, which is in some ways great because that's more than 50%, as it should be. But this great article in the Harvard Business Review that I will absolutely link to in today's show notes shows that men are disproportionately represented in the nonprofit sector at the highest echelons, right, at the. At the most senior levels, compared to the sheer quantity of talented women who are already in the nonprofit sector.
JENNY: Yeah. And the propensity in the nonprofit sector to hire from outside that lot to hire someone that seems more qualified. And I couch that. But okay, a couple things to understand. Number one, I think not for profit just is different. You can't take the patterns and habits of the corporate world, which is very bottom line driven, which has a really clear metric of shareholder value, and just flop it over into the not for profit. It doesn't work, Emilie. And we are measuring impact in a different way.
Now, there's also, I would say, in the not for profit sector, a lot of bad behavior. I'm just going to call it out. You know, people that end up there because of a passion, but maybe don't have the skills, there's a lot of bad management. And one of the things I say to people when I'm trying to explain the not for profit sector is, okay, imagine you get this new job. You're the CEO of a new organization, and your boss changes. Your chair of your board changes every two years. There are nine people who all have influence over you that you must appease all nine of them. And they all have pet projects that directly impact you, the mission and your staff. And you're supposed to make that all work while smiling. And by the way, you need to pay for your salary and bring in your own money. It is very, very unique.
And I'll just put another rant in here, that there's so many of these not for profits that we should not have to be doing this kind of work. We should not have organizations that are helping people find food. That should be a basic human right. And then to have to justify your existence…
EMILIE: Over and over and over again.
JENNY: …exactly. It's just really messed up. And then the element of donor dollars, which also comes with it, this sort of kid gloves, fear of spending it element. So there you go. That's a couple things.
EMILIE: Yeah, well, I can see how, like, women's likability challenges would be so omnipresent in that context. Right? When you've got all of these stakeholders who you need to keep happy, and women have been conditioned to keep everyone happy around us all the time anyway, being unliked is, like, not an option for women. I can just imagine the gendered tripwires that must exist there.
JENNY: That's right. And also holding boundaries. That's another one. Right? One of the pillars of the research. And we're going to talk a little bit about my book. It's called embodied roles. So women had to over identify with the constituent groups they're representing. And what happens is that the lines become blurred. They're so consumed, and I'm sure you can think of a friend who gets into volunteering to something and kind of just gets taken over, which is beautiful. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I think you have to be buyer beware, eyes open, because it can fall on you, Emilie. But also, your staff's looking to you for direction on leadership and how you behave. And they're watching.
EMILIE: Right. So if you martyr yourself for the cause, you're making that the norm and the expectation implicitly, if not explicitly, for others. Okay, let's get into the book. So let's tell me about this new book. Congratulations. Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women To Step Out, Be Seen And Lead. What went into this new release?
JENNY: That’s so exciting, so super chuffed to be here talking about the book. I still say pinch me because, for your listeners, you know, this is not something that you birth in less than nine months like a baby. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and as an academic, I talked about having many degrees in piano performance. This was the pinnacle, having a book. But every time I got to thinking about writing the book by myself in a room, it just seemed really heavy. And to be honest, not a lot of fun.
So it sat on a shelf and I knew that it wasn't going to happen that way. And so I came back to it and asked myself, well, how would it look like fun? And immediately, Jenny, the collaborator, was like, well, if I had a whole bunch of women to do it with me and we could go to a nice hotel and we could, like, workshop it together. And so that's what we did. This is a collaborative book. We met, twelve women CEO's across North America, we met in a beautiful hotel in Toronto, Canada, and we workshopped these stories together. And the stories are first person.
So it's a moment in time in their leadership where they learned something, where they were elevated, challenged. And the most important part I asked each of them was, don't just give me your biography. Like, I don't care. Tell me the part that you learned and how it could be of value to the next generation. That was important.
EMILIE: That's beautiful. And as someone who found the book writing process to be very isolating and loves public speaking, because it's like this collaboration in real time of feeding off the energy of so many others in the room, I deeply relate to how you've navigated this process. So I'm taking notes over here for the next time around. That's wonderful.
JENNY: Well let me just finish, too. To say that as a collaborative book, one of the interesting uncharted territories was, you know, if we're truly going to be collaborative, which is a profile, which is an identity piece of leadership, what else does that look like? How do we make decisions?
So, it's my book, but I want the women to have feedback. I want the women to be involved. I want them to have some say on the cover. Like, it was a really interesting journey, which I think we navigated quite well. And keep in mind, these are all type A's. So the joke was on Saturday morning, ladies, I'm in charge of. I'm in charge.
[LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: That's so funny. Yeah. Well, I do think it's like, we talk a lot on this podcast about a collectivist alternative to this winner take all economy that was, like, defined by machismo for our current existence. And so this is a good demonstration of that in literature. What do you feel like stood out in terms of key pillars that women need to know about?
JENNY: Yeah, great point. So we anchored the book into the research of Dr. Meghan Rehbein, who is at Rutgers College. Douglas College is the women's college there. And the research was for her PhD, and there were five pillars that were identified. And if I could cherry pick, god, there's so many good ones. But I really like, I do really like the embodied roles because I know I've been lying in bed with my husband, with both of us, with our heads on the pillows, and he says, just care less, Jenny. And I'm like, I can't. Right?
EMILIE: I think that would resonate so deeply with people like me and who are listening to this podcast because we're here, because we care about our careers. And yet I'm also seeing a lot of trends in Gallup, in the Harvard Business Review, around decentering our careers from our identities, which is easier said than done, especially if you are a cause, mission driven, cause oriented career woman. Like, what does that mean? So tell me more about that embodied nature.
JENNY: Let me give you an example. Is a woman that has a close bout with cancer. She comes from the corporate world. She says, that's it. I'm not going to contribute as a marketing lead anymore. I'm going to run the Canadian Cancer Society or the American Society for Cancer Research. And she gets in there and she brings her expertise. It's a completely different world, right? Like, culturally, there's so many things that are different. Not for profit, it's a lot less resources. So we tend to be, like, five years behind with things, although, you know, where we are, AI is coming, all those things. But then she also brings her passion. She's literally every day, think about this, in every meeting, saving some woman who's just like her from a diagnosis.
EMILIE: Is there a downside to feeling that attached to your word?
JENNY: Hello!
[LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: I imagine there is. Yeah.
JENNY: Yeah. So never turning off, never feeling like you can let the cell phone go, because that one next text might save somebody from something. Right. And then the impact on the team also can be terribly toxic, because they don't get to be off. They don't get to be their own people. They're being measured against a stick that is constantly moving. Once we get to here, we move it up to here. That's a theme, actually. I find in women's leadership is I'll talk to these really aspiring. I tend to work with really ambitious and compassionate women, and they do this thing where they come up with a goalpost, they achieve the goal post, and they decide that wasn't enough, and they move it.
EMILIE: Yeah. And it's sort of like, that is in some ways like an achiever mindset. Like, you're always gonna be striving towards something. Fine. Personal development, sure. But if that's your management philosophy, that is really destructive. Right? Clear expectations for clear outcomes. And so I'm often frustrated by the poor management, like, 101 that I see in the nonprofit sector. What are women supposed to do to navigate that better?
JENNY: So I have a lot of hope, because I think I look at my kids, I look at the next generation, I look at the people that are coming in, they know who they are. They know where their lines are in the sand. That's creating a lot of challenges from an intergenerational. Because the older folks are saying, well, I did it. I don't see why you can't do it. Right? I did my evenings I didn't ask for in lieu pay. So there's a lot of adjusting. There's also some socioeconomic and some structural things in the not for profit sector, like the example of the old white philanthropy and the adjustment from donor centered fundraising to community centered fundraising, where the community decides what they need. So what can women do? I think that's an important one.
Number one, I think you have to have a good network of peers. I think when you start to feel, we know from the research that resilience comes from having someone to talk to and knowing that the sector is predisposed for some things and some real challenges, that having a good peer group is number one in my book.
Number two, I think that the sooner you can learn to manage up and manage up well is really important. I'm sure you guys talk about that as well in the corporate world, but so many of my young folks, I find they're kind of flying by the seat of their pants. They're doing all these things, but they're not actually getting recognized for any of them because they're not clearly articulating up.
EMILIE: Well, when you say manage up, what are you envisioning here? Because that sounds like advocating for your advancement and showcasing your work. Yeah?
JENNY: So that's part of it. But I also think that there's an element of when you are working in chaos, and this may relate to some other worlds, too. Just saying. There is a tendency for leadership to be spread too thin to actually properly manage you. And in which case, you have one of two choices. You accept it and you suffer the consequences of buyer beware, right, on your performance reviews and whatnot. Or you decide to take a proactive role with a managing style, which I get so mad when I hear about young people. Or not just young people, employees not having time with their bosses, full stop.
So what are your three core pillars for your work? What are the three? And having a regular communication up. That's documented. Here's where I'm at with these three things. These are the things I'm looking for, and this is what I'm looking for your help with that is the part I find. And it's proactive, Emilie. It's not just passive. That's what I mean by managing up.
EMILIE: I love that you're basically saying, here's the direction I need from you, here's the decision I need from you. Here's what I can offer you in terms of options. But tell me what success looks like, you know? And that expectation. Like, if you're not getting clear expectations from your manager, it's not the end of the story. You can demand them, you can offer them, you can request that clarity and then work with it.
JENNY: I love that. And because the podcast is Bossed Up, like, that just seems like a total Bossed Up thing to say. And don't accept, I think there's some complacency that kicks in. And I, you know, I often use coaching words like, when you're managing up, how do you like to be communicated to Mr. Boss? What's the best way for me? Like, proactively asking some of these questions so that you're not kind of lost in the dark, because the person that really does not benefit from that situation is you. You're the one that ends up holding the bag.
EMILIE: Totally. I love that question, too. So I hear kind of management advice here for those who are managing up, for those who are already in a very senior leader position and who are completely consumed by their work because it's so near and dear to their heart, they've completely martyred themselves for the cause, and they do so willingly, whether or not it's consciously right. How do they begin to attempt to do something differently? I mean, do they have to first care about doing it differently? Like, what if there's no problem as far as they're concerned about working all the time?
JENNY: So you'll see things like job turnovers, you'll see staff that rotates regularly every two years. That's the first thing you'll see. Then there's usually a health scare. I hate to be so blunt, but that's very common, right? Somebody has a health scare.
EMILIE: Chronic stress will add up whether you acknowledge it or not.
JENNY: Yeah, we didn't talk about the whole, like, you know, when you push, push, push with the goalposts, and then you don't get a chance to release the goalpost, to celebrate the goalposts to, I mean, in entrepreneurship, I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of time thinking about how I will celebrate, and it's hard because I think we all just kind of jump to the next file. But how will I celebrate this achievement? How will I acknowledge my contributions? And I think we need to have those releases so that we can get back into the fold.
And the other thing that happens in not for profit is we conflate our sense of not enoughness gets conflated with the not enoughness of the mission or not enoughness of helping, right? And then it's very hard to untangle the whole piece, and it's counterintuitive. We're not moving any faster when we're tired. We're not moving any faster when we're exhausted. Or we can't come up with any new ideas because we've been sitting at this d*** desk the whole time and watching the exact same screen. [EXASPERATED SIGH]
EMILIE: Well, let's talk about that not enough ness for a minute. Because you mentioned this earlier. I don't know if it was before we hit record or not, my pregnancy brain is in full swing right now. But when the world does feel like it's burning around you, when it does feel hopeless sometimes. Let's say you're working on affordable childcare, which is near and dear to my heart. So, thanks to everyone listening who's working on that issue, because I'm about to be put two kids in full time care is like a $50,000 endeavor here. Let's say you're trying to change that systemically. And every year, your metrics for success are going up in the. In the opposite direction that you want them to be going. And so if you're battling systemic oppression every day and the system is winning, it's like, how do you not fall into despair?
JENNY: Yeah. And I have coined this phrase because I came from the fundraising world. I used to call it fundraising mojo. You have to know when you're losing your mojo, and you have to step away, because your mojo is infectious. And the minute your mojo gets sucked into the team, then everybody's in despair. We know from the research, too, that for coaching, that we have mirror neurons in our brains. So you and I, we are totally jazzing out on the two of us right now, right? Like, we are picking up on each other's mirror neurons, and we're like, we're loving it, but it works the other way, too. It works the other way, too. So, as a leader, your job is to manage your energy, and I like to say, the wake of your energy.
EMILIE: The wake of your energy. So other people's perception.
JENNY: Like the boat. Yeah. Like, when you go by in a big speed boat, you have that massive wake that goes and has this ripple effect on everybody. It is your job to manage your own wake.
EMILIE: Yeah, I think that's so important. How do you celebrate? How do you manage your wake when it feels hard?
JENNY: Well, I love physical manifestations, so I will often buy a bottle of champagne. I will put a sticker on it that says, congratulations on your next hundred, you know, your $100,000 target for your year. or whatever. I've done it with teams. It works great for salespeople. A physical manifestation that you walk by every day.
I am a big believer in food, so I am always looking for the next new restaurant that I can go to to spend time with friends. I love having, you know, something special from Etsy that I'm going to buy. I actually think about this. I really do.
EMILIE: I'm taking notes over here because, first of all, this is such a fundraising thing, because my personal financial advisor, Chris Castillo, who's been a guest on this podcast before, I remember walking into her office and seeing these really cute, like, whiteboard coloring in bar charts of milestones and goals, and I'm like, my eye is always on the next goal, and I really don't, like, pat myself on the back enough. This is good. I need to do more of that visual and tangible connection of, like, rewards.
JENNY: Yeah. And they don't have to be big, right? Like, they don't have to cost a ton of money. You know, I'm not into cars, but there are little things that uplevel your life. Right? There might be a really lovely. I don't know about you, but I follow a couple of designers online that I just love their stuff. Right? And I wait, and I wait and I wait. And then I, when something good happens here, I get to reward myself here. And, you know, it could be as simple as taking a day off or a half day off and going to the spa. It could be a lot of things. But I really try and tie it to the accomplishment that I acknowledge myself.
EMILIE: Right, yeah, absolutely. And I've been saying that for years and not practicing it as diligently as I should. So that's a good reflection I wanted to ask you about. As we're talking about money, you're a fundraiser, right. Like, part of the challenge about the nonprofit sector is particularly for those at the entry level, it's so financially challenging to make it work, right?
So there's often this sort of, like, inherent martyrdom mindset there in that you're opting to make less to have a bigger impact that can kind of feed into this underlying exploitation of workers. And I just wonder, like, when women get to a certain age, like maybe childbearing years, and they have a childcare bill that they have to cover, or when they start feeling that burnout and that despair about the cause and is it even working, what we're doing? What would keep them in the nonprofit sector as opposed to bailing for a corporate job? You know? Like, if they can take their skills elsewhere, what's the benefit for women to stay in a nonprofit sector that continues to have this disproportionate gender, what they call the glass elevator in this HBR article for men, you know, where men are continuing to rise in the ranks at disproportionate levels. Why stay?
JENNY: Oof, you paint a dark picture, my friend.
EMILIE: [LAUGHTER] I do, yeah.
JENNY: So a couple things. I actually think that is a serious crisis that we are encountering, where our pipeline for future leaders is low. They are leaving our sector, and we are not retaining that talent. So I just want to call that out. That being said, there are other benefits to the not for profit sector that might not feel tangible. Let's use some examples. Sometimes there is more flexibility. So I do find that not for profit employers, I mean, everybody's now got that, but it used to be that we had a bit more flexibility. I think that there is a bit more around, connection to a certain kind of person, but that's a bit like, I think what you're trying to put your finger on is the judgment that we have.
So once you go into not for profit, you kind of have this chip on your shoulder, right? And the irony is that you have to work with the corporate people to get the money for your funding, which puts you in a very weird power dynamic, right? As I get older, I get madder that we even have to do this work. I've already talked about that. I would invite every young person, I'm like, what advice would I give to my girls, for example, if they were considering going into the not for profit sector? I'm trying to make this really real. I'd say, go in, advocate for yourself. Never wait for someone to magnanimously give you a raise, right, and challenge the status quo when it comes to salary expectations, and keep reminding, in a graceful way of them of your worth.
One thing I do think is professional development can be a great substitute for income. So if you are young, asking for professional development budgets that are healthy enough so that you can continue to grow, and if you are fortunate enough to be on the marketing or the fundraising side, those are two sides that you should be able, like sales, you should be able to pitch. We can't do it on amount raise, like percentages, because there's some rules around it, but you can do it on bonuses. So if I bring in 100,000 people, $100,000 extra this year, there's a bonus attached, so you can manage it that way.
And then I think the last thing I would say is know what your personal goals are and don't give up those personal goals for a professional goal. So if one of your personal goals is to have this big, beautiful house with the matching picket fence and you don't want to, like, give that up, don't give it up, find a way to transfer.
EMILIE: Yeah, I mean, I think you're right in, like, pushing back on the assumption that it has to be this way. And, like, if we refuse to accept that it has to be an underpaid lifestyle forever, then we will seek out opportunities to make an impact and make a good living. And there is money. I mean, the executive level in the nonprofit sector makes a really healthy paycheck. As they should.
JENNY: As they should.
EMILIE: Yeah. Yeah. And so I think it's important to just, you know, push back on that tacit acceptance, like you're saying.
JENNY: Well, and because I have a platform, I just want to say something out loud. We get a lot of people in the not for profit sector get raked over the coals for the salaries of the CEO's. And what I want to just say to my audience is, I think we're asking the wrong question. We shouldn't be asking what they get paid. I think we should be asking, what's the return on investment? How are they contributing? How do they contribute to the bottom line and the success of the organization? Because it's not a sum, sum zero, right. If I can spend $600 on ads for my book and make $1,200 on sales, that's a good investment.
So I think we get caught up on the wrong topics because you're in charity, you're not supposed to make a lot of money. I think that's really messed up, because don't we want the best people, to your point, don't advocate for the best people in the roles and not to be afraid of asking for a raise and be okay with a no. Or can we stagger this out.
EMILIE: And let's advocate for everyone to get paid more. Right? It's not like, let's take from her at the top, but pay everyone else. No, let's, like, let's make sure that grant funding allows for unrestricted funding. Right? Like overhead. Yeah. Let's pay for the people to actually deliver the goods, not just the goods themselves.
Well, we could talk, obviously, forever about this. I want to create some space. If there's anything final that you'd like to leave our listeners with before we move on to sort of our closing question here, but any final takeaways that you want women in the nonprofit sector to leave with.
JENNY: I feel if I was to go back and I partly I have this gift because my kids are kind of just hitting, beginning of the years, of working. I wish I had had more of a voice back then. I think I definitely sat on the sidelines more than I would have liked. And I definitely played the game. Oh, my god, the pleaser part. Please. Such a thing. And I encourage everybody to enjoy making those waves, to not be afraid to ask questions, to let go of the perfectionism and be your whole self sooner. It's a lot easier when you have more gray hair. Trust me. But I wish, I wish I'd done it earlier. It feels freaking amazing. And you know you and trust you.
EMILIE: I love that. It's beautiful. Thank you so much, Jenny, for sharing your insights and experience with our listeners today. Where can we learn more about you and your book, and your business, and all the great things that you're up to?
JENNY: Oh, amazing. So the book is on Amazon, so that's probably the best way. Embracing Ambition. You can google it. My website has all of my stuff, all my contact information. I am jenny@chavender.com. that's chavender like lavender, but with a ch at the beginning. Sidebar, Chavender's a fish that can survive in freshwater, salt water, murky water. I thought it was a great analogy of adaptability for leadership that might stick in your listeners ears.
EMILIE: I love it. I will drop all of those relevant links that we just talked about in today's show notes as well. Jenny, thanks again for being here.
JENNY: It's been a real pleasure. And I just might want to invite all of you listening. Go be great.
EMILIE: For links to everything Jenny and I just discussed, head to bossedup.org/episode482. That's bossedup.org/episode482. You’ll also find a full transcript, and a corresponding blog post highlighting Jenny's key points. That's really easy to read and share.
And now I want to hear from you. What did you make of today's conversation? Are you a woman in the nonprofit sector? What challenges and issues that we talked about resonated with you? What did we miss? Because I'm sure there are more to be discussed. I'm really curious, too, how you've navigated the gender realities or gender politics in the nonprofit sector yourself. Have you worked with men? Have you worked with a lot of women? I presume yes. Have you worked with women leaders? Have you seen good management in the nonprofit sector? What does that look like? How do we make that the norm. And how do we level the playing field so that the amazing sheer volume of qualified women in the nonprofit sector can rise in the ranks in equal numbers to their male counterparts?
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I would love to keep this conversation going, as always, in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook and the Bossed Up LinkedIn Group. And until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose. And together, let's lift as we climb.
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