Mental health week for charity workers: is the sector making you ill?

We have a lot of issues with mental health in our sector. One of the things I find particularly sad about the quest for scale - and survival - at all costs in charities is the impact it has on people’s emotional wellbeing - from the 'bottom' to the 'top'. Burned out CEOs, I see you.

So many burned out leaders and stressed delivery people with low morale, trying to run on ever-evaporating fumes. CEOs getting the drive to get bigger and bigger and somehow remain 'sustainable' with three year funding cycles (which, let's be honest, we often drive ourselves - and we're one of the biggest causes of miserable, overworked staff); staff who know that the next funding bid will promise (yet) more for less, with a service stretched so thin it's going to go bad for your clients eventually too.

It always reminds me of what my partner, who has a way with words, once said: 'It's like saying if you can't fly it's because you're not flapping your arms fast enough'. In many cases, you can never flap your arms fast enough. He's certainly seen me in a flap once or twice. Big, sustainable, and sane, is rarely possible. To be that, you have to become something else.

My take: say no, more often. Say no sometimes for yourself. Say no sometimes for your charity. And I'm not going to make it an easy tripartite: I'm supposed to say 'say no for your clients,' aren't I?

What I would say instead is that, if we perpetuate the cycles of exploitation, underpay, overstress, burnout, and driving mental illness in our charities that this mentality creates, we're simply creating more clients. So just say no for yourselves for once - because we're just like everyone else, and aren't we here to make the world a better place?

If you help someone improve their wellbeing and end up with a breakdown, I would say that's a zero-sum game, wouldn't you? Look after yourself.

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