A moratorium on the Attitude of Gratitude

Hi everyone, there is an economic blackout from 11/28 to 12/5 in protest of fascism and corporate greed, so please avoid spending money on those days, as well as avoid streaming services, social media, and AI stuff as much as you can. If you need to buy something, support local small businesses and pay in cash if you can.

This week is Thanksgiving, a day full of misconceptions and steeped in anti-Indigeneity, even by well-meaning colleagues. I highly encourage everyone read this article “In a season of rampant anti-Indigeneity, here are some things you should and shouldn’t do to be pro-Indigenous” by Chris Talbot, and then donate to Indigenous organizations, movements, and individuals.

While we’re on the topic of gratitude, every once a while I hear about people preaching about the importance of having an “attitude of gratitude.” Fundraisers will talk about it in the context of always showing appreciation to donors and funders. Leaders will mention it in terms of staff happiness and retention. Self-care experts will tout it as a way to avoid burnout. Gratitude is great and an appreciative approach has been shown to be effective in all sorts of way, so what sort of ugly, no-good, two-bit, ornery curmudgeon would be against it?

That’s where I come in!

OK, fine, I’m not against gratitude necessarily. I like getting thank-you notes and texts, and I often write them to people, sometimes to thank them for the lovely thank-you note they sent me. And I like starting and ending my day thinking of things I'm thankful for.

But like with everything else, oftentimes people advocate for things (especially things that rhyme and are catchy), without really considering the dynamics around them. I don’t like the concept of attitude of gratitude because there’s all sorts of problems with it, including:

It is often one-sided. Who is expected to be grateful? In our sector, it’s usually the people who need money to do stuff being expected to constantly be appreciative of those who have money. Except for employers being encouraged to be grateful to their team, I rarely see encouragement of those who have more power and resources to be appreciative of those who have less.

It allows for injustice to be glossed over. Training some people to always be grateful and others to always expect to be thanked means we often pave over deeper and more uncomfortable conversations about wealth hoarding, tax avoidance, stolen Indigenous land, worker exploitation, colonization, slavery, genocide, and other forms of injustice that make our work necessary in the first place.  

It reinforces notions and feelings around “dependency.” We have a deeply embedded idea in the sector that nonprofits shouldn’t be “dependent” on funders and donors, manifesting in inane questions like “how will you sustain this program what this grant/donation runs out?” The attitude of gratitude just further entrenches this ridiculous idea.

It makes people complacent against systemic change: People joke about employers giving employees a pizza party instead of increasing wages or doing other things that would make a difference. Corporations often weaponize gratitude, for example by donating a fraction of what they should pay in taxes, and being thanked for it. Thanking people and feeling thanked may cause people to be placated instead of justifiably angry, which prevents them from addressing systemic issues more meaningfully.

It takes up time and energy we need to do other work: Decades of expecting nonprofit leaders to write handwritten thank-you notes, make thank-you calls and videos, and otherwise find creative and heartfelt ways to thank donors means we’re using tons of resources that could be used to in better ways. And donors have been trained to feel resentful if they don’t get thanked properly, when they could also channel that energy to better things.

For these and other reasons, I’m calling for a moratorium on the Attitude of Gratitude. Does this mean we should all be ungrateful or discourteous? Of course not. But maybe it means:

We expend sufficient energy and resources in thanking people, and no more. When I donate, I’m good with an automatic acknowledgement form letter that also thanks me. That’s all I need, because I know the nonprofit/movement/leader has more vital things to do. Nonprofits can thank people with form letters, and instead of individualizing gratitude, everyone should also be ok with communications and events where people are thanked as a collective.    

We trust that people mean it when they say, “thank you.” Let’s stop reinforcing the idea that gratitude is not valid unless it’s done repeatedly and in different formats. If you say “thank you” verbally, I’ll trust you mean it, and that’s all you need to do. Let’s encourage donors, hiring managers, and others to have the same grounding. A job candidate verbally said thank you after an interview? That should be good enough; don’t punish them for not sending you a thank-you note.  

We encourage mutual appreciation. It takes all of us to make meaningful change, so let’s foster a sense of mutual respect and appreciation. On LinkedIn, colleague Farra Trompeter shared an email from nonprofit Safe Horizon encouraging their community to click a button and send a small note of thanks to the staff. That's amazing. We need more thoughtful things like that. Donors and funders are thanked or expected to be thanked all the time; but it should be two-way.  

We have a more meaningful concept of gratitude. Gratitude, like pizza parties, is only meaningful when coupled with significant actions, such as fair and equitable compensation, paid family leave, and so on. Otherwise, it’s just hollow words and gestures. It should also be coupled with trust and respect, including inviting people to engage in deeper conversations and actions around systemic injustice.

Again, I don’t want people to think I hate gratitude and recommend we kick anyone in the face if they utter any expression of thanks. But we need to be aware of gratitude-fueled power imbalance, toxic positivity, and laundering of injustice we may be a party to, which is particularly not helpful during this moment when nonprofits need to focus.

With everything going on, I’m encouraging us all to move from an Attitude of Gratitude toward an "Attitude of Collective Righteous Anger." Or an “Attitude of Authentic Partnership to Fight Fascism, Save Democracy, and Create a Just World,” even though it doesn’t rhyme.