Improving Morale in Non-Profit Organizations

Non-Profit organizations are a major mold in society in general, and they continue to help advance many of the social causes of our time. From the description, we know that employee and volunteer morale is quite low, and that is the fault of the senior management. In an organization, it is important that each individual knows that they are contributing to something larger than themselves. In many cases, employees seek to work somewhere where they can earn a living, but also where they can become a member of a team, and feel a sense of purpose. When they are not treated with respect or given the ability to make their own decisions, they lose engagement and become stagnant in their work. Volunteers look for much of the same thing; they are, after

What they do to an overarching mission is the best way to allow them to feel passionate about what they do, and it’s important to allow them to use their innovation towards the mission as well, which eventually leads to employee empowerment (Cao, 2015). Volunteers need to be given specific jobs so that they feel more needed—which they are. By giving them a specific job that they can do when they come in and volunteer, they feel more engaged because they are not standing around waiting for work to do, or just looking for the cumbersome tasks that no one else wants to do. I would take this even further, and assign volunteers to work with specific staff members so that there is no division between the staff and the volunteers, because staff can do what volunteers do and vice versa (Handy, 2008). This is important as they have to work together in many other outside projects such as community gardens, farmer’s markets, and educational events. If they cannot collaborate as a team, then they can’t be effective on any of the important projects that the organization

Employees need to be able to share their ideas and not feel like they will be punished for doing so (Edmondson, 1999). Obviously, individuals that work for non-profits do not usually do so because of the benefits or the compensation. However, I still think that it is important to make sure that we are serving our employees in the best way possible to make sure this is an environment that they would want to stay. This may entail looking at the compensation packages of the staff, and looking for ways to give small but meaningful benefits to volunteers. I believe that the single most important factors turnover is making sure that the individuals that serve the organization are well