Is a lot of our work just creating work for other people to do?

During the first year of Covid, I was at home with my kids, who were aged 7 and 4 at the time. The days were long, and they constantly needed to be entertained. At one point, they discovered the vacuum and were fascinated by it. So when they weren’t looking I would intentionally drop cracker crumbs and assorted other debris on the floor. “Oh noOOooo, kids! Looks like this spot could use some vacuuming! Thank you for helping Daddy clean it up!”

Now, they could have been helpful if they had just put away their Legos like I had asked them to so, but no, they wanted to use the vacuum, while the Legos remained there for me to step on throughout the day and in the middle of the night.

This makes me think about one of the fundamental problems in our sector. Managing other people and their need to feel useful, productive, and engaged. I think a fourth or a third of nonprofit work is just making up tasks for other people and in the process ignoring ones that would be genuinely helpful. Think about it:

Boards of directors can be very useful when they’re focused on the right things. But so much of EDs' and staff’s work is just keeping them engaged by having various things for them to be involved in. So staff start creating board packages for them to read (or more likely ignore), committees for them to feel some sense of structure, and various tasks that staff could probably do a lot more efficiently.

Donors and potential donors also need to be “engaged,” so various events and activities are set up, such as meetings and site visits. Some of them want to contribute in unique ways, or fund specific things, so nonprofits end up spending time and sometimes resources trying to making up stuff for them to do. Some of it may be useful, but a lot of it is ego-driven nonsense.

Volunteers: I remember a time when we just needed volunteers to come in and sweep up the place, file stuff, stack chairs, toss out moldy old leftover event foods we had saved up and then completely forgot about. But some of the potential volunteers were “skilled” and needed more advanced work. One of them created a complex marketing plan that we never used, simply because we wanted to keep her engaged.

Funders, meanwhile, are notorious for needing to be unique snowflakes. And this means nonprofits are spending lots of time tailoring applications and reports and doing other things to give program officers stuff to read, review, give feedback on, and feel smart about.

Some of the busy work we create for others to do may serve a purpose, such as to build rapport, give a soft introduction to the organization, and be an entry point to more complex collaborations. But the pendulum often swings too far, causing all sorts of problems.

On Instagram, for example, someone wrote in the comment section of my latest video, where I talk about foundations each having their own unique processes and idiosyncrasies:

“[F]oundations are also nonprofits who have an obligation to allocate resources in alignment with their own missions. The ‘whims’ are often just oversight and due diligence to keep them in the good graces of the IRS, their donors, and their mission.”

OK, that sounds reasonable, on the surface. But how much of this “oversight and due diligence” is just foundations creating unnecessary work for themselves and pulling nonprofits into this delusion? As other colleagues have said, MacKenzie Scott has given away millions of dollars without all the hoops and paperwork, so why does a foundation giving out $10,000 grants need all that?

Burn out has been a huge problem for our sector. A lot of burnout is due to being forced to do work that is ultimately pointless. And even more pointless is creating pointless work for other people to do, so that everyone is wasting their time instead of doing things that could solve the societal problems we’re working on. So, let's try to reduce this type of busy work:

Understand some of the unconscious reasons behind all this: There are a bunch of hidden reasons why we get caught up in meaningless work. Besides the usual suspects like ego and power dynamics, capitalism-rooted toxic productivity culture is a culprit, this drive to constantly be busy, seen as busy, and keep others busy; it helps explain why so many people become depressed after they retire. There’s also the cognitive dissonance of being paid for this work or being given a lofty title like “board member” and needing to feel like we must “earn” our keep by constantly doing stuff, which includes creating stuff for other people to do. Then there might also be survivor’s guilt, where we feel guilty for not being as affected by injustice as the people we serve, so we must punish ourselves with work to alleviate the guilt.

Have some honest and open conversations: It would be helpful of staff and board members take time to analyze the unconscious reasons mentioned above and answer questions like “What are we doing that’s useful to our mission and our community, and what are we doing simply because that’s what we’ve always done or because people need to feel busy and useful?” We need to have a more critical lens for the work we’re doing, or else we will continue doing stuff because we’ve always done it that way.

Make plans to cut down on the busy work: Some nonprofits are cutting down on donor engagement activities or combining them into more meaningful ones. Other orgs are experimenting with “minimally viable boards,” where the board is small and does the bare legal minimum, maybe meeting once a year to approve the tax filings or whatever, and stepping in if there are crises, but otherwise not doing much. The cool foundations are just taking grant applications that have already been written and accepting annual reports instead of requiring bespoke program reports.

Avoid high-maintenance partnerships: Before teaming up with a potential board member, corporate sponsor, or other partners, assess how much time you org will have to spend creating work for them to do. If you’re going to partner, do the calculus to ensure the benefits outweigh the costs. I mean, is it worth the time and resources planning a “day of service” where hundreds of corporate employees descend on your nonprofit to paint murals or make peanut butter sandwiches or whatever?

If you’re a funder, donors, board member, or volunteer, be thoughtful: Assess how much time and energy the nonprofit you're trying to "help" is spending creating tasks to give you the illusion of being helpful and that your contribution is meaningful. Sometimes these organizations may not even realize they're doing it. Work with the staff to cut down on work that is not advancing the organization's work.

It was cute when my kids were developing and improving their vacuuming skills, and it was nice to see their enthusiasm for something new. But after a while, intentionally dirtying the house so they had something to do became a charade when there were way more important things we could have been engaged in.

Nonprofits' work is much more serious than vacuuming up some dust and crumbs. Lives are at stake. Let's cut down on creating busy work so others feel useful and get everyone focused on what would meaningfully advance our collective missions.

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