What if I told you that many nonprofit leaders, the ones running social programmes, advocacy groups, shelters, skills training centres, and youth development programs, go to bed at night worrying not just about funding, but about whether they’re doing enough, being enough, holding up too much.
The sector is stretched thin. Leaders are asked to be visionaries, fundraisers, social workers, policy analysts, HR managers, tech support, and often therapists by default. All while navigating bureaucracy, meeting reporting requirements, and responding to crises that were never theirs to solve in the first place.
This isn’t a pity party. It’s a reality check.
Because the nonprofit sector isn’t just a “nice to have.” It is infrastructure. Social & economic infrastructure. A lifeline. A stabilizing force holding together the frayed edges of systems that fail too many, too often.
But you'd never know that from how we’re treated, and funded. We're still expected to smile, be grateful, and keep the lights on… while proving our impact in three pages or less.
The Disconnect: What People Think vs. What’s Real
There’s a persistent myth about nonprofit work. That it’s driven by passion alone. That we’re all volunteers. That if we’re doing good, we don’t need to be paid well. That impact should come with sacrifice, and that funding, when it arrives, is a favor, not an investment.
But here’s the truth from the ground:
Nonprofits are economic actors. We create jobs. We drive local economies. We build resilience in ways that no GDP report can fully capture.
Our work is technical. We manage million-dollar budgets, navigate legal and policy frameworks, and deliver services grounded in data, trauma-informed practice, and strategic planning.
We carry public responsibility. Where the state pulls back and the market doesn’t reach, nonprofits step in often without the tools or support to do so.
And yet, we’re expected to operate with the polish of the private sector, the compassion of saints, and the frugality of monks.
As activist and entrepreneur Dan Pallotta famously said, “We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make money helping other people. Interesting that we don’t have a visceral reaction to the notion that people would make a lot of money not helping other people.”
Pallotta’s critique reveals the structural bias baked into how we treat the nonprofit sector: we celebrate sacrifice but penalize scale. We praise compassion but punish ambition. And we expect miracles but refuse to fund the infrastructure or human resources (often seen as overheads or administration) needed to deliver them.
Until we reconcile this double standard, the sector will remain trapped in a scarcity loop, unable to grow, innovate, or sustain impact.
The Sector’s Mirror: Who Leads, Who Labors, Who’s Protected?
There’s a bitter irony in how the nonprofit sector is structured.
Globally and in the Caribbean, women make up the majority of the nonprofit workforce, especially in frontline and programmatic roles. Yet senior leadership, particularly at board and executive levels, is still disproportionately held by men and those from wealthier or more privileged backgrounds.
This is a sector committed to justice, yet it often mirrors the same inequalities it seeks to address.
For instance, many nonprofit workers operate with few or no social protections: short-term contracts, limited benefits, and no real path to security or sustainability. Mental health supports, maternity leave, pensions, and decent wages are often the exception, not the rule.
Sarah Peck, in her thesis Never a Dull Day, documents how Caribbean NGO leaders often women, often Black, often from the communities they serve, carry immense responsibility while being structurally under-resourced, emotionally exhausted, and financially precarious.
If the work of care continues to rely on unpaid or underpaid labor, especially from women and marginalized communities, then the very systems we build will replicate the inequities we aim to solve.
The Core Challenge: Leading Through Contradiction
To lead a nonprofit today is to live in tension.
We’re expected to be nimble but structured, grassroots but polished, collaborative but competitive. We’re pushed to innovate but punished for ‘failing’. We’re told to “think big” but funded small, and usually with strings attached.
We face donors who demand transformation but restrict flexibility. Governments who praise our impact but rarely integrate us into policymaking. And boards who want miracles without fully understanding the daily grind.
Meanwhile, we carry our teams, our communities, and our own exhaustion.
For many of us, especially women, people of color, and those from marginalized communities, this work isn’t just professional. It’s deeply personal. We’re trying to heal systems we’ve survived. And the emotional toll is real.
This isn’t burnout. It’s structural neglect. And it’s time we name it.
The Sector in Numbers: A Global and Caribbean Snapshot
The nonprofit sector is not peripheral. It is foundational. Here are some brief numbers.
US: $1.4 trillion economic contribution; 12.8 million employed
Canada: 2.5 million employees — 14.5% of national jobs
UK: 978,000 employed with 53% in small charities
Europe: 5% of GDP in many countries; 10% of France’s workforce
Caribbean: Critical development player, but largely absent from national statistics
In the Caribbean, civil society organizations (CSOs) fill vital roles in health, education, economic inclusion, gender justice, and disaster preparedness. Yet their contributions remain invisible in budget frameworks, policy design, and employment data.
Sarah Peck notes that Caribbean nonprofits act as intermediaries between vulnerable communities and state structures, but they do so under fragile financial and legal conditions.
The Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) continues to advocate for systemic change:
Inclusion of the sector in national development plans
Legal and regulatory frameworks that support civil society
Funding models that value sustainability and trust
Why Reimagining the Sector Can’t Wait
Since 2020, the world has been shifting beneath our feet.
Geopolitical tensions are rising. International aid is shrinking. Climate emergencies are multiplying. Economic instability is deepening. Public institutions everywhere, from healthcare to education to social services are under pressure.
In this context, demand on the nonprofit sector is only increasing.
We are being asked to fill more gaps, absorb more shocks, and support more people often without structural investment or protection. As governments retract and global systems realign, nonprofits will be expected to hold even more.
As Edgar Villanueva writes in Decolonizing Wealth, “Money can be medicine if we choose to use it to heal, not to control.” His work exposes how traditional philanthropy often replicates colonial power dynamics, controlling resources while distancing itself from the communities most impacted.
This is especially true in the Caribbean and Global South, where funding flows rarely come with decision-making power. Grants are awarded, but rarely co-designed. Impact is demanded, but context is ignored. This isn’t partnership, it’s paternalism.
To decolonize funding is to trust those on the ground. It is to fund not just projects, but leadership. It is to acknowledge that the people closest to the pain are also closest to the solutions.
Reimagining the sector is no longer optional.
It is the only path to long-term resilience.
Reimagining the Sector: From Charity to Infrastructure
To reimagine the nonprofit sector is to reposition it from a safety net to a pillar of development.
That means:
Investing in core infrastructure (overheads), not just programming
Providing unrestricted, trust-based funding
Valuing lived experience as leadership
Ending the expectation that mission equals martyrdom
We cannot build equitable societies on the backs of under-resourced organizations and overburdened people. And we cannot keep asking nonprofits to fix the failures of systems they were never designed to replace.
We are not an afterthought. We are infrastructure.
A Call to Awareness and Respect
There’s no shortage of passion in this work. But passion alone doesn’t build systems or create change. People do.
To every funder, policymaker, government leader, and private sector partner: don’t just ask us for outputs. Ask us what we need to keep standing.
To every nonprofit leader quietly holding up your corner of the world: your work matters even when it goes unseen.
We don’t need saving.
We need solidarity.
We need supportive policies.
We need investment.
And we need to be part of designing the future we keep being asked to hold together.