I read an interesting article today about nonprofit employees being turned away from the nonprofit sector for various reasons.  If you want to read the article visit the Chronicle of Philanthropy. 

The article takes information from a survey conducted by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network.  The survey asked questions of their members, ages 20-40, about whether or not they planned on staying in the sector and the various reasons why or why not. 

The results of the survey are very interesting.  I was unaware that many young nonprofit workers were not planning on staying in the sector very long.  Key reasons stated in the article were "long hours and low pay", they also "cited burnout" as a big reason for not staying in the sector, as well as "pressure from board members, grant makers, and heavy work burdens that face executive directors."

The reality is that many of these problems are what a lot of nonprofit workers face and I am concerned that if these issues are not dealt with, the leadership deficit will continue to loom. 

Out of the 1,650 people that took the survey, less than 9 percent said they were most likely going to seek a top job in a nonprofit group.  All though the survey did not take a large sample of all young leaders in the nonprofit sector, there seems to be an over all jump towards this conclusion.  NP2020 will face this analysis head on.  Do you think that there is really less than 9 percent of nonprofit workers today not seeking executive director positions? 

From my experience, the answer may be YES.  In any organization I have worked for many employees are focused solely on their job, considering the fact that it takes a lot of time and effort to run a nonprofit at every level.  Do you all see this happening within organizations that you have worked with or for? 

Personally I do see an influx of young leaders that are focused on making the jump to the executive director level, but is it enough?

There are a lot of barriers young leaders have to face in the nonprofit sector, to be able to reach the top level of management.  In the article, Julia Beatty (program officer at the Twenty-First Century Foundation) states, "A lot of us have gone to work at organizations that might have a social-justice framework, but when we get there we find that racism and sexism are still alive and well, and the glass ceiling still exists."  Do you believe that this glass ceiling exists? 

How can we knock down all these barriers and push for the voice of young nonprofit leaders to be heard? 

As a young nonprofit leader myself, I believe that it is my job to push through these barriers and make it easier, not only for myself, but for other young people to make the nonprofit sector sustainable for years to come.