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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am confused. Is this nonprofit your source of income?

If not, is it accomplishing important things? Do others agree that these are important things?

If it is your source of income, but it is not generating enough income to run well...and you're looking for other people to support you for less than market wages, but they are unwilling?  Well, it seems like it is not a viable nonprofit business model.

If it is not your source of income, and you are doing it because you think the mission is important. ..... and you're looking for other people to support you for less than market wages , but they are unwilling?  Then it seems like it is not a viable nonprofit model either.

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This. If the non-profit is not generating enough income to pay professional staff, accomplish its mission, and function properly, then the business model is screwed up.

What is the source of funding? is the criticism coming from people/orgs funding your work? Do you worry they will pull funding? But also, if they are providing funding, do they sit on the board? If I were funding a nonprofit that I felt was making a lot of mistakes and had some dysfunction, I'd want to be involved in its operation. Or I'd pull my funding and put the money elsewhere. You need to keep donors happy and feeling confident in you, so if that's the source of the conflict, that's a really fundamental issue that must be addressed right away.

You mentioned "clients" are happy -- are these people/entities paying for services? Or just the recipients of your charitable efforts? If people are paying for services can you increase those costs? though I don't understand how this is a non-profit if that's the model.

Bottom line, you need a model that can afford to pay professional staff who hav the ability and knowledge to run this organization. It sounds like right now you don't have that, so I think it's hard to say this endeavor is successful. [/quote]

OP here. So, it's a small nonprofit. If you know much about small nonprofits (which make up most of the nonprofit sector), they rarely pay well. Also, y'all's framework doesn't make sense for a startup. Of course when you start something new you don't have a full team of professional staff...that's something you build up to.

I worked for free initially (though I always paid my staff). Now, I make a salary that I'm happy with -- it's enough to pay the bills, and the mix of flexibility/doing really engaging work makes up for the lower pay.

And I have mostly transitioned to a professional staff - my initial team was really part-time entry level people. Now I pay market-rate salaries (for small nonprofits). I've made peace with the fact that I'm not going to get the top candidates. At the very least, those will go to a large nonprofit with income security, or the government or private sector. Still, my team is solid and do their jobs well. But they are not CEOs and so they can't help me with big CEO-level decisions.

Because we're in a sector where there are no foundations or big funders, the donations come from thousands of individuals. There aren't a few big funders that want to sit on a board - it's a LOT of smaller donors. Generally they are happy, but sometimes some of them get annoyed. By definition, it's impossible to keep that many people happy, as they often want contradictory things. "Pulling funding" is not a concern since there are so many donors and they are all small. Overall each year we raise more than the rest.

By "clients" I meant our beneficiaries (i.e. people we help). Sorry for the confusion.

We aren't dysfunctional -- honestly, we're a lot more professional than most nonprofits of our size, and what we've done after 3 years is more than most orgs can do in 10. But still, my lack of leadership experience is holding us back, and I feel like there must be some way to get some support to help me become a better leader.

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