National Nonprofit Day: What it Means to Work for a Nonprofit
I didn’t grow up with any real understanding of “charity.”
I grew up in a small town in British Columbia. My family was what would have been considered middle class back then. We didn’t attend church or donate to nonprofits. We didn’t volunteer at the local soup kitchen or drop off care packages to the elderly. Our local hospital didn’t (and still doesn’t) have a wing named after anyone.
But I did grow up with a strong sense of community and helping. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had a spare bedroom intermittently occupied by anyone in need. We never said it explicitly, but it was understood that if someone needed help, you helped.
It wasn’t until I moved across the country that I realized how important that sense of community and helping was. When I landed in Toronto I had no job, few friends, and no idea what I wanted to do with my life. In search of connection and purpose, I started volunteering with a non-profit dog rescue.
The thing about dog rescues is that most of them are entirely volunteer-run. There are plenty of good intentions but never enough money to keep up with costs. It didn’t take long to connect the dots: More money = more lives saved.
I teamed up with a fellow volunteer and we got to work planning a fundraiser. We didn’t know the first thing about how to ask for donations, effective fundraising strategy, or event return on investment (ROI) but in the end, we raised $2,500. We were so proud of ourselves!
Looking back, $2,500 seems like a drop in the bucket, but the sense of accomplishment – of making a difference – was exactly what I needed when I was feeling isolated and directionless. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if being a fundraiser was an actual job?”
It turns out that fundraising is a job and a critically important one. In human service organizations, frontline staff does the heavy lifting: counseling participants, coordinating services, and updating case notes. Some are funded through highly regulated government contracts, but many are not. That’s where fundraisers come in.
By the time I joined NPower Canada in 2023, I had over 10 years of experience working in the nonprofit industry as a professional fundraiser. The thing all the organizations I’ve worked for have in common is a strong sense of community.
Is being a fundraiser hard? Sometimes.
Can it be stressful? Yes.
Do I love what I do? Definitely.
These days, there’s no one staying in my guest room (I don’t have one), and I’m not spending my weekend helping anyone move (my backseat is full of car seats, there’s no room for boxes), but I am grateful to have found another way to help.
Ten years into working at a nonprofit, I can’t imagine doing anything else.
