Burnout and Self-Compassion in Fundraising

Karen Kendrick 

You know, throughout my line of work, I’m frequently asked about the biggest challenges that frontline fundraisers face. Over the last few years, I’ve given a simple answer: burnout. More and more, fundraisers are being overworked and underpaid. They’re frequently pulled in different directions and asked to accomplish tasks that don’t fall even under their domain, all without a solid support structure. It’s caused many to leave the sector entirely. I’m sure you’ve known some, and this is a major problem. Today, my colleague Karen Kendrick is taking over the podcast with special guest Megan Whitney for a conversation about burnout and best practices for managing stress and exhaustion during an increasingly busy time. Thanks for listening.

Recorded 

Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.

Karen Kendrick 

Welcome to today’s podcast. I’m Karen Kendrick, and I’m taking over the podcast today, along with a very special guest who I’ll introduce in just a moment. For years, it’s been clear that there is a major problem of burnout in fundraising. Fundraisers are often given way more than they can effectively manage, aren’t paid appropriately and aren’t supported in taking care of themselves. A few years ago, startling statistics showed that now this trend wasn’t just causing fundraisers to move jobs frequently, it was actually causing them to leave the sector entirely. There is so much important work to do in our world, and we need to take care of our people in order to solve these big problems, which is why I’ve invited Megan Whitney here today. Megan, why don’t you take a moment to introduce yourself.

Megan Whitney 

Thanks for having me. Karen. Excited to be here. My name is Megan Whitney, and I am based out of Chicago, Illinois. I am a mindfulness coach and a meditation teacher, and I run a mindfulness community for changemakers, which is on Insight Timer, a free, meditation, sleep, yoga, all kinds of amazing things on that free app. And I also work in non-profits, and have been a non-profiteer for the past 17 years. The past eight years, I have been in fundraising as a consultant and initially as a frontline fundraiser in corporate partnerships. And so in my business as a mindfulness coach, I really focus on helping changemakers with relieving stress and navigating burnout. I am all about offering the tools that helped me recover from burning out 10years ago and have sustained me to be able to stay in this work and avoid burning out again.

Karen Kendrick 

I love that non-profiteer. Is that what you said before? That’s so cool.

Megan Whitney 

Yes, I think it’s my friend Evan Wildstein, who had that phrase. I want to credit him with that.

Karen Kendrick 

Very fun. Well, I love the fact that that you’ve experienced it, you’ve learned to work through it, you’re developing these skills, not only that you utilize for your own journey, but can bring to others. And so it’s always exciting when you have someone to share ideas and resources and tools and approaches who has actually used them themselves and seen the benefits. So I’m excited to dive in. So Megan, we hear a lot about burnout, right? And we’ve all used that word, but let’s start with really, what is burnout? So what are we actually talking about here today?

Megan Whitney 

Yeah, I appreciate you asking what the definition of burnout is. We talk a lot in non-profits about how we may burn out, and I think that could mean a lot of things to different people, and it does. It manifests differently for everyone. The definition that I like to use to describe burnout is that it is a chronic state of physical and emotional exhaustion that is caused by prolonged stress. So it is not just being bored at your non-profit job and sick of it, although that is certainly part of it, as cynicism is part of the three characteristics of burnout. And I think boredom, cynicism, feeling a sense of depersonalization is one aspect of the three characteristics of burnout. The others are emotional and physical exhaustion, which I already mentioned, and a decreased sense of personal accomplishment.

Megan Whitney 

So you know, as I say that, I think about when I was going through this frustrating stretch of burnout about 10 years ago, because I felt so exhausted and I felt that I wasn’t getting the recognition from leadership for my team, and I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions and the stress that was coming up in my body. I kind of just checked out. I thought, like, well, if I just don’t care anymore, if I tell myself that it doesn’t matter, then I’ll be safe. And that’s probably me reflecting back on it with the information I know now. And I don’t think it was quite so conscious at the time. I was really doing my best to survive, and I’m sure many folks can relate to this feeling of being completely drained and having brain fog, feeling confused, or feeling just like you can’t think straight, let alone come up with creative strategies for solving homelessness in your area.

Megan Whitney 

So it’s very demoralizing when we blame ourselves for the experiences of burnout. And it makes sense when you can’t produce like you used to. And speaking for myself, you really tie your sense of enoughness with what you produce. If you’re so tired and you can’t produce them, of course, you’re going to feel a sense of decreased accomplishment. So those are the three aspects of burnout, and I I think it’s important as well to differentiate stress from burnout. Would it be helpful if I shared a little bit more about just how to identify stress as that’s really the cause of burnout.

Karen Kendrick 

Yes, please do, because I’ll just jump in really quickly before you do that, because I have an example of stress.

Megan Whitney 

Yeah, please share, yeah.

Karen Kendrick 

I live in Asheville, North Carolina, so just went through a hurricane, you know, lost electricity, internet, phone access, had a trickle of water. You had to boil the whole thing. And just getting gas was scary and long, figuring out how to get food, getting out of town, evacuated. So I noticed that following week, I could work for maybe focus for two hours or three hours, and then I was just exhausted, and I had to rest. But after a good massage and chiropractic and lots of rest, you know, I’m seeing myself come back, you know. I’m not quite back to normal, but after a week, I’m having more energy again. I’m able to focus a little longer and do a little more, and so what you’re talking about with burnout, is that no matter what you do, it seems you don’t come back in that sort of time span to more energy or more focus. It’s like this cycle of feeling exhausted, not accomplishing as much, feeling horrible about not accomplishing much, and having a cynicism about where you are and what you’re doing. So it feels like a really stuck place.

Megan Whitney 

A stuck place is an accurate way to describe it. Yeah, and thank you for sharing. I have been thinking about you a lot as you and your team have been dealing with the recovery from the hurricane, and I think that is really a prime example when you think about the stressors of the situation. So for you, it was the hurricane itself and all of the aftermath, the triggers, right, the things that were really outside of your control, correct? And when I was at my non-profit job going through burnout, looking back, what I wish I would have known is that it’s more helpful to focus on responding to the stress in my body than reacting to the stressors that are outside of myself.

Karen Kendrick 

Wow. That is so powerful right there. Say that one more time?

Megan Whitney 

Yeah, sure. I find it is much more helpful to focus on responding to the stress in my body than reacting, and I’ll add on autopilot, to the stressors outside of myself. I think I spent a lot of emotional and physical energy on loop blaming other people and my chaotic work environment and also blaming myself. I took a lot of the stress onto myself because it was happening inside me, so I thought it must be my fault if I don’t know how to feel better. And so the stressors themselves are different from the stress itself that’s in our body.

Megan Whitney 

And stressors can be real, like you experienced Karen with the hurricane. They can also be imagined. Our brain is designed to keep us safe and constantly searches for threats, which is a good thing in many cases, right? It keeps us safe. And our brain essentially thinks that it’s still in the stone age and needs to be constantly making up problems to keep us safe. And so at the time in my early 30s, I didn’t realize that that’s just our biology. So that’s one reason why I want folks to know that burnout is not your fault. Most of us never took a class in grade school about how to work our own brains and bodies.

Megan Whitney 

So anyway, to come back to the imagined part of stressors, though, so there’s the real ones, and then there’s the imagined ones, which is, I wonder if folks can relate to this. You get a ping from your boss and they say, “Hey, can we talk in 20 minutes?” They don’t tell you, like your brain literally thinks you’re going to die. This is called the amygdala hijack, and we cannot think straight. It feels like life or death. So even though it is a real thing that your boss pinged you and that that caused stress and sent you know, maybe that sweating in your hands, tightness in your neck and shoulders, you’re imagining and catastrophizing all these things.

Megan Whitney 

So with mindfulness, which is really about paying attention, you can pause, take a breath and notice what’s happening in my body right now, and name it to yourself. There is tightness in my chest. My heart is beating fast. So you are actually listening to your body, which has so much wisdom, and you can also name to yourself what emotions you’re experiencing. This is fear. Fear is often running the show for me and most people I find, so just recognizing rather than what I think most of us learned and were conditioned to do, which is just to push it down, just move on to the to-do list or Instagram or whatever coping mechanism helps you feel better. And I, again, I’m an anti-shame person here, so there’s nothing wrong with coping mechanisms. And when we go to the doing, instead of pausing and being, those moments add up and they compound and they worsen the stress and exhaustion.

Karen Kendrick 

So just to break that down, so my boss has said, “Can you talk in 20 minutes?” I’m having a reaction of fear, which is very normal, “Oh my gosh, did I do something wrong? What did I not get done?” My mind’s racing trying to figure out, problem solve. I’m going into fear. And if I do something to distract myself from that, it may help me feel a bit better in the moment. But all that tension that’s happening and the fear and the raised anxiety is kind of stuck in my system. It’s not getting a chance to sort of be seen or heard or be released. So that starts to add up, like, my shoulders are still tight from the hurricane, so it’s like I’m having to work on that over time, because it got so tight, because I kept having to do and go and move and not really be with what was happening in my body.

Megan Whitney 

Well said. I know you are very experienced in somatics, and appreciate how you explained that. Yeah, so the stress manifests as physical sensations in the body. That’s another thing I just didn’t get. I just thought, like I was very, and we are again, we learn to operate from the neck up and be in our heads, right? And so I think for me, it was a lot of being stuck in thoughts and not tending with compassion to the stuck tension and stress in the body. And I won’t go into all the details. If you’re interested in learning more, I would encourage folks to read the book Burnout by the Nagoski sisters, which talks about the secret to unlocking the stress response cycle. And what you touched on, Karen is that when we distract ourselves, whether that’s through rumination and worry in the mind or watching Netflix, which is my favorite distractor tool, and we’re not conscious of actually taking action, that stress builds up. And so we need to actually tell our bodies that we’re safe and consciously close the loop of the stress response cycle.

Megan Whitney 

So the start of the stress response cycle is flight, fight, freeze. Our body is going to continue to act like it needs to run away from a tiger, until we acknowledge, “Hey, I’m safe,” and we can do that with working with the body. So what I used to do was, I would get home from work at the end of a stressful day and I would say, “Okay, I’m home now. I can have a glass of wine with my husband and watch my favorite show and I’ll just get some sleep.” And that doesn’t work. To close the stress response cycle, because even when the stressor of work is behind you, your body still feels the stress. So you may be wondering, well, what the heck can I actually do to close the stress response cycle? And there’s many ways. Again, it involves being present with the body. So it could be laughter, meditation, deep breathing, movement is one of the best ways to close the stress response cycle, connecting with other people. You can gradually tense the muscles and release them. So there are so many ways to support yourself, and I hope this has been helpful so far. I get really nerdy about the science piece of it.

Karen Kendrick 

I love it. I love it. So, first being aware of what’s happening in my system and being aware that I can close that loop, which will help my whole body calm down and feel safe. I love that. And it’s so easy to just move into something to distract ourselves. I love, you know, Netflix, get on Facebook, and you know, I have stayed away from TikTok so far, but I’m sure if I had it, I would be all over TikTok, and yeah, because it just gives you that little endorphin fix, right? That gets you, it makes you feel better, but you don’t realize that whole thing is still cycling in your system. So I love that. To take a moment, so you would take a moment at the end of the day. Do you take a moment throughout the day? Like, let’s talk a little bit about fundraisers, and you’ve spent a lot of time in that sector. You’re a expert in that experience. So talk a little bit about, how do I apply this to my work as a fundraiser every day, where stressors are hitting me from all directions, and I would like to be able to not leave the work and be exhausted every day.

Megan Whitney 

Yes, I love that question, because I understand how overwhelming and stressful being a fundraiser is. And as you’re hearing me talk, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s folks saying, “I barely have time to brush my teeth, like, how do you expect me to go for a walk?” Right? And so I’m all about sharing these practices that can be done in the moment. As I’m talking to you, for example, so if you’re on a call with a donor, you might try some things like I’m doing right now.

Megan Whitney 

So one is, I am noticing the feeling of my feet on the ground. I’m taking some deep breaths as I talk and listen to Karen and just dropping into how does it feel to feel my feet on the ground. That is one thing you can do in the moment that tells your body that you’re safe. It gives you a sense of groundedness and helps you drop out of your head. And another tool that I like to use, that I mentioned, is name it to tame it. So for me right now, I’ll take a breath and I’ll name to myself in my mind. Although I have done this in actual presentations in front of teams, when I’m feeling sweaty palms, I will say, “I’m noticing my heart is beating fast. I’m noticing my hands are sweaty and I’m feeling nervous right now.” And even just saying that right now, Karen, I feel like, ah, a relief.

Karen Kendrick 

Yeah, yeah.

Megan Whitney 

So this is a way to acknowledge and not abandon yourself in the moment, to come into what is here right now with compassion. And compassion is this skill that I don’t think we talk about a lot, and it is all about helping us be with the stress in a more loving way. So it means being with the suffering. So we’re not trying to force ourselves to, like, put on a mask and charm it up with the donor. Like, pretend like I’m fine right now, and like, you know, I’m freaking out on the inside. So it’s also a key component of authenticity, when you can recognize, like with love, with kindness and curiosity. “Okay, what’s happening here?” All of that allows you to show up with greater presence.

Megan Whitney 

And my favorite definition of philanthropy is love of humankind.

Karen Kendrick 

Beautiful.

Megan Whitney 

So when we are centering relationships and truly demonstrating love of humankind. For me, that looks like attention. Attention is the purest form of love when we can give our bodies attention, when the body is whispering all these signs of stress, and we’re actually here for it, rather than running from it. And when we then, because we’re able to regulate our emotions and calm our nervous system, I know you talk about this a lot, Karen, I’d love to hear your perspective too, we then have the ability to give our full attention to the person in front of us. And they can feel that. They can feel, when you are really listening without an agenda, that you care about them as a human being and you’re not just trying to get to an outcome. And so for me, I’m thinking about how I, like many people, stumbled into fundraising, became a relationship manager, and even though I felt a lot of nerves and imposter syndrome, I think it was my mindfulness skills that allowed me to be a great fundraiser.

Karen Kendrick 

I love that. I love that. Yeah, I can remember thinking, what is it? What did you say? Your definition was, compassion for love for humankind. Is that what you said,

Megan Whitney 

Philanthropy is love of humankind.

Karen Kendrick 

Humankind. And how important it is; if I don’t start with myself, how I cannot love others, period. Because I can remember getting ready for donor meetings feeling tight, feeling nervous, and then beating myself up like, “Oh, get tough. You can do this. Quit being, you know, quit being this way.” And all that did was probably increase the stress in my system, which then brought me into a meeting where I’m in a heightened anxiety. So I’m not going to be connecting, I’m not going to be present, I’m not going to be fun, I’m not going to be funny, I’m not going to be all the things that make people like relax and feel like they can enjoy a human interaction with you as a fundraiser. So it’s so amazing that that self-love, of compassion, of just owning, identifying, being with whatever is happening in your body, then allows your body to relax.

Karen Kendrick 

It seems so counterintuitive in many ways. It’s like, “Oh, you shouldn’t pay attention to it. You’re going to make it bigger.” But actually, it’s just like listening to a kid that’s like, “Hey, hey,” and knocking or yanking on your dress or your shirt, like, “Hey, hey, hey,” and just say “Hey,” and give them some really close present attention, then they can calm down. So I love that. I love that whole definition that really helps me think about that differently.

Megan Whitney 

Yeah. I feel like you sharing about that little kid who’s nagging for your attention. I noticed, like the wee bit of tears like beginning to come to my eyes, because it’s so true. And I actually recently heard Dr. Kristin Neff, who is the preeminent researcher on self-compassion, talk about this idea of we hear that you can’t give what you don’t have. And I feel that that is true in many ways, and me learning how to be with my own emotions and stress with compassion has made me a much more compassionate and patient, loving person. And she also talks about how, if you think about it, we have learned, and I think especially as women, to give what we don’t have, right? We know how to care for our friends with kindness and to give them space. And so it’s turning that compassion inward. And there is, when we get burned out, that cup runs really dry, right? And so I think what’s helpful for me with compassion, and self-compassion in particular, is knowing, like we do have this skill. We’ve been taking care of everybody else, so it’s not a brand-new skill. We can learn to give it to ourselves, and then that does allow us to show up with greater light, with greater energy and presence. And that ripples out to everyone we encounter.

Karen Kendrick 

So just to kind of tie all this together. I love how you talked about focusing on my internal, my body’s reaction to stress that’s happening whether it’s made up in my head or real. And focusing there versus spinning in the external is where I can really shift and make changes. And so, in doing that, I’m preventing sort of that, because if I continue, basically you’re saying, if I continue in that high stress mode of fight and flight over days, months, that’s where I get that depleted burnout, because my body’s not able to rejuvenate, not able to recover, and there’s a lot of chemical things that happen along with that. So if, so, what I’m hearing from you is be practicing ways to get present, to allow, to listen, to be present, to what’s really happening for you, and then if I do feel burned out, like I’m in that place that you talked about being in, what advice would you give those that are really feeling close to or in that space in this moment, while they’re listening,

Megan Whitney 

I’m sending folks who are listening, who feel like they’re deep in burnout, a lot of empathy and compassion. And I would say you can check out information. There’s quizzes online. I’m about to put one out in a couple weeks of like, how to identify that you’re burned out. I do think if seeing a medical professional, therapist, a coach, if that’s available to you, I know it can be difficult to ask for help, and it’s really key to lean into community.

Megan Whitney 

And I would say practicing the three steps of self-compassion are really helpful. So the first is mindfulness, which Karen, you just talked about. You’re paying attention to your body, noticing how you’re feeling. And then the second aspect is common humanity. So that’s realizing that we all experience suffering and you are not alone in your experience. We all experience different systems of oppression in different ways, and so our experiences are not the same, and we all have these experiences of fear and exhaustion, right? So then the third piece is self-kindness. So saying what you might say to a friend and turning that inward. And I’m thinking back to myself 10 years ago, I would have totally cringed at me right now being like, what is this that you know, say loving things to yourself like, no, it only works to push yourself harder.

Karen Kendrick 

Wow, right?

Megan Whitney 

But that actually makes the stress worse. So saying to yourself like, this is hard right now. That’s not gas lighting yourself. That’s not succumbing to the culture of grindiness. I just made that up. You know? That is like recognizing and validating, like this is hard, and then saying, you know, I’m here for you. I’m listening.

Megan Whitney 

And so that’s the three steps of self-compassion. You can do that in 30 seconds. There are meditations that I offer that are 10 minutes. So it’s not any one thing. There’s no like magic pill solution. This is a journey, and it is a new way of relating to yourself, that as with anything it takes practice. I could go on and on, and welcome folks to reach out to me.

Megan Whitney 

I want to just offer one quick micro practice that you can do in one breath as just a way to really make it tangible. So what you can do when you notice that you’re about to reach for your phone and avoid feeling the sense of overwhelm, you might place the phone down and take a breath, take a deep breath in and say to yourself, breathing in, I do my best. And on the exhale, breathing out, I let go of the rest.

Karen Kendrick 

Love that. I do my best, I let go of the rest.

Megan Whitney 

Yeah, that’s a practice from a program called Search Inside Yourself that I teach, and it is a way to acknowledge all we can do is our best, and we can wake up in one conscious breath and yeah, there’s so many little practices like that that you could sprinkle into your day that offer these moments of release. And they’re truly life changing once you start practicing.

Karen Kendrick 

Wow. Megan, thank you so much for the science, for the personal experience, for all that you’ve shared and the tools. Thank you for joining me today, and I hope each of you listening found valuable tips to help address burnout and bring more self-compassion to yourself and to all your work that you’re doing.

Karen Kendrick 

And if you’d like to learn more about Megan’s work and check out some of the other resources she has on this topic, you can follow her on LinkedIn, so check the show notes for the link. And if you’d like to join a community of fundraisers who are working to approach fundraising differently, I’d love to invite you to be a part of the Veritus Community Hub. This is a free community with robust resources and active discussion spaces. You can find the link to join in the show notes as well. So thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Megan. Remember to breathe everyone, and we’ll see you next time.

Megan Whitney 

Thanks, Karen. Thanks for listening, friends.

Recorded 

Thank you for joining us for the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group. Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at veritusgroup.net. Please join us again next time.