u/Equal-Artichoke-1598

I am genuinely looking for perspective because I come from another country, and I am starting to wonder whether my expectations about workplace accountability and how you address a supervisor are different from what is normal in the US.

I have been a director at a small nonprofit for almost two years. My primary area is finance, although like many people in a small nonprofit, I do a lot outside of my official area.
We currently do not have an onsite manager, so I also end up overseeing operational controls. I verify orders, cash handling, inventory related information and other things happening onsite. Because of that structure, I am technically one of the people supervising the employee involved in this situation, even though I am not physically onsite every day.

He is a part time, nonmanagement employee who has been with the organization for years and works primarily onsite. We generally see each other once a week during our weekly team meeting.

I barely manage him on a day to day basis. Most of what I ask him for is very basic and connected to my responsibilities. For example, I might ask him to count the cash registers so I can do the books or verify something onsite.

There has been an ongoing issue with our POS system since January. I asked him to take care of it, gave him the resources to do so, and told him that if he needed help, we could look at it and figure it out together. I wasn’t expecting him to be an IT specialist. I expected him either to use the resources available to resolve it or come back to me so we could solve it together. He constantly avoided to respond to my emails about it or meet while we were both onsite to discussed it.

Months later, it still had not been done.
During our regular weekly team meeting, where we address organization events issues and what can be done to fix it, the issue came up again. He said that I had told him not to do it, when I had actually been asking him for months to take care of it.
That frustrated me, and in front of the team I firmly said something along the lines of, “This is unacceptable. I have been asking you to do this since January and it still hasn’t been done.”

I did not yell or insult him, but I was firm.
Afterward, I asked him to meet with me privately later so we could address what had happened.
His response was: “I don’t know if I want to meet with you.” In a very sharp tone.

That honestly shocked me.
We were both already at work. He is hourly, and any time spent in the meeting would be paid.
I responded: “As your superior, I am requesting a meeting. It is mandatory.”

This is where I made a wording mistake that I completely own and I apologized right away. English is not my first language. I meant “As your supervisor,” not “as your superior.”

He responded very sharply and in what I perceived as a mocking and confrontational way, essentially saying: “You are my supervisor. You are not superior to me. Don’t think you are superior to me.”

I agree with the literal point. My position obviously does not make me superior to him as a human being. That was never what I meant. I used the wrong English word while trying to explain that this was a required workplace conversation rather than an optional conversation between coworkers.

What bothered me is that his “I don’t know if I want to meet with you” came before I made the language mistake.

He then told me that I am “never here” and essentially said that if I wanted to meet with him, I needed to come in according to his schedule.
Again, we already have a regular day when we are both onsite. I wasn’t asking him to come in unpaid or on a day off. I was asking for a paid work meeting while we were both already there.
We eventually had a formal meeting with the Executive Director.

This is actually the part I am most conflicted about.

The employee said that I had hurt his feelings by saying in front of the team that he had not completed the task. The Executive Director told me that I should never address an employee’s performance that way in front of the team and asked me to apologize.

I did apologize. I can understand the principle that individual corrective feedback should be handled privately, even though the issue itself had come up during the team meeting.

The employee also apologized for being rude to me.

However, during the same conversation, the Executive Director compared the conflict between this employee and me to the disagreements that the Executive Director and I have with each other. He said that he and I “fight all the time.”
The disagreements between the Executive Director and me are generally financial or structural disagreements about how the organization should operate. We are both directors and members of the leadership team, so I have always viewed those disagreements as two senior people challenging each other on organizational decisions.

That is why the comparison bothered me.
This employee is not a director or a manager. Yet during this conversation I felt as though the situation was being framed almost like a disagreement between two peers rather than a conflict involving an employee and someone responsible for supervising his work.
At the same time, the Executive Director did tell the employee that he needs to step up, take greater responsibility and actually get things done. He specifically explained that the employee cannot move into a management position if he does not demonstrate that level of accountability.
So I left the meeting with mixed feelings.

On one hand, the Executive Director clearly acknowledged the underlying performance problem and told the employee that his lack of follow through is preventing him from becoming a manager.

On the other hand, I felt that the employee was somewhat protected from the seriousness of the situation. I was required to apologize for hurting his feelings, the conflict was compared to disagreements between two directors, and the conversation felt more like smoothing things over than establishing a clear distinction between a management disagreement and an employee resisting supervision.

Maybe the Executive Director was simply trying to deescalate the situation and preserve the working relationship. I can understand that possibility too.
But I am genuinely unsure whether this is normal.
I have never spoken to one of my own bosses the way this employee spoke to me. If my manager requested a paid work meeting while we were both already working, it would never have occurred to me to respond, “I don’t know if I want to meet with you.”

Maybe some of my reaction is cultural, which is why I am asking.
Is this normal in American workplaces, particularly small nonprofits?

Was I wrong to expect a nonmanagement employee to attend a required, paid work meeting while we were both already at work?

Was I wrong to firmly correct the record during the team meeting when he said I had told him not to complete something that I had actually been requesting for months?

I understand the argument that I should have waited and addressed his performance privately, and I apologized for that.

But was the way he addressed me and resisted the meeting within normal professional boundaries?

And for managers or HR people, does the Executive Director’s handling of the situation sound appropriate? Was asking me to apologize and comparing our interaction to disagreements between two directors a reasonable way to deescalate the situation, or does it blur the reporting structure too much?

I am genuinely trying to determine whether I need to adjust my expectations as a manager in an American nonprofit/even normal private sector company or whether my workplace has an unusually conflict avoidant approach to accountability.

This may be a basic question, but how do people actually end up serving on the board of a midsized or large nonprofit organization (roughly $200,000 to $800,000 in annual revenue and above)?
I’m curious about what the process usually looks like and how organizations recruit new members.

I have been working at an arts nonprofit for about a year and a half in a director level role that combines development, finance, operations, and administration. Previously have experiences with high profile art gallery (but not my thing anymore)

My concern is that I have not been able to focus exclusively on development because my responsibilities have expanded far beyond my original position. It is a problem because I enjoy development the most.

Over the past year and a half, I have worked at an executive level on fundraising campaigns, grants, sponsorships, memberships, budgeting, financial reporting, compliance, board reporting, cash flow management, insurance, events, and general operations. In the end I have helped address financial issues, improve processes, increase efficiency, launch new programs, and build systems from the ground up because many of them simply did not exist before.

At the same time, I wonder whether I have enough traditional development experience because I have had to divide my attention among so many different responsibilities rather than focusing entirely on donor cultivation and relationship management. I had some nice win but under 100k. And Sadly, my ED have been gatekeeping me from having conversations with previous sponsors or sponsors I found.

I need to move on due to my ED actions keeping us in the red financially and unwillingness to change, jeopardizing the organization longevity and keeping me in an underpaid overwhelming duty wise position.

For those of you working in nonprofit development, how would you view this kind of experience? Am I too green and wouldn’t be able to get anything?
Would you consider this breadth of experience to be an advantage or a disadvantage?

I would also be interested in hearing from people who moved into larger organizations or into the private sector.

I have been working at an arts nonprofit for about a year and a half in a role (director) that combines development, finance, operations, and administration.

My concern is that I have not been able to focus exclusively on development because my responsibilities have expanded far beyond my original position.

Over the past year and a half, I have worked on fundraising campaigns, grants, sponsorships, memberships, budgeting, financial reporting, compliance, board reporting, cash flow management, insurance, events, and general operations. I have helped solve long standing financial issues, improve processes, increase efficiency, launch new programs, and create systems that did not previously exist.

At the same time, I worry that I do not have enough traditional development experience because I have not been able to devote all my time to donor cultivation and relationship management.

For those of you working in nonprofit development, how would you position this kind of experience when applying for a new role? Also, how difficult is the job market right now, especially in arts organizations?
Would you emphasize the breadth of experience, or would employers see it as a disadvantage because I have not specialized more?

I accepted an underpaid director level position 2 year ago because I believed in the organization’s mission.I had previously held management positions but had never been given the opportunity to serve as a director, so I saw it as an opportunity to grow in my career.

Since then, I have ended up doing the work of several departments. I handle finance, including budgeting, bookkeeping, accounts payable, accounts receivable, pricing, benchmarking, and financial planning. I oversee HR, compliance, and risk management to make sure we stay legally compliant. I am also responsible for development, including memberships, grants, sponsorships, our gala, fundraising campaigns, and individual donors.

When I arrived, the organization was extremely disorganized and not real structure. Over the past year, I have helped bring things from complete chaos to something much more stable (everyday fixing a problem created years ago). I am essentially the Mary Poppins of the organization, stepping in to handle all the budgeting, paperwork, compliance, and administrative work that the other departments do not know how to do.

The problem is that the ED still do not seem to understand how important structure, processes, and long term planning are for a small organization.

On top of that, my financial advice is often ignored. I certainly do not claim to know everything, but I am the only person in the organization with a business degree and the person responsible for the organization’s finances. (If we fail, the board ask me why I failed)

Unfortunately, the team continue to make decisions that leave us in the same difficult financial position, which means we cannot raise salaries or hire additional staff.
Everyone is exhausted, but I feel as though I am carrying the greatest burden.

I have learned a tremendous amount during this past year, and I have realized that I genuinely enjoy development work. However, because I have been spread across so many different responsibilities, I do not feel that I have accumulated enough achievements in development alone to be a strong candidate for another development position.

Should I stay, or should I go? If I stay, how do I cope with the burnout?

I accepted an under market director of operation level position a year ago because I believed in the organization’s mission.I had previously held management positions but had never been given the opportunity to serve as a director, so I saw it as an opportunity to grow in my career.

Since then, I have ended up doing the work of several departments. I handle finance, including budgeting, bookkeeping, accounts payable, accounts receivable, pricing, benchmarking, and financial planning. I oversee HR, compliance, and risk management to make sure we stay legally compliant. I am also responsible for development, including memberships, grants, sponsorships, our gala, fundraising campaigns, and individual donors.

When I arrived, the organization was extremely disorganized and not real structure. Over the past year, I have helped bring things from complete chaos to something much more stable (everyday fixing a problem created years ago). I am essentially the Mary Poppins of the organization, stepping in to handle all the budgeting, paperwork, compliance, and administrative work that the other departments do not know how to do.

The problem is that the ED still do not seem to understand how important structure, processes, and long term planning are for a small organization.

On top of that, my financial advice is often ignored. I certainly do not claim to know everything, but I am the only person on the team (ed included) with a business degree and the person responsible for the organization’s finances. (If we fail, the board ask me why I failed)

Unfortunately, the team continue to make decisions that leave us in the same difficult financial position, which means we cannot raise salaries or hire additional staff.
Everyone is exhausted, but I feel as though I am carrying the greatest burden.

I have learned a tremendous amount during this past year, and I have realized that I genuinely enjoy development work. However, because I have been spread across so many different responsibilities, I do not feel that I have accumulated enough achievements in development alone to be a strong candidate for another development position.

Should I stay, or should I go? If I stay, how do I cope with the burnout?

I work as the Director of Development at a small nonprofit, but I also oversee finance, HR, and operations. We’re a team of four, so I wear a lot of hats.

One thing I’ve struggled with is that every fundraising strategy, sponsorship deck, and campaign I create is reviewed by the entire leadership team. The feedback is usually about the fundraising strategy itself, even though development is my responsibility. I often have to rewrite my work, or projects stall because no one agrees on the strategy, but no alternative is proposed.

Recently, my Executive Director has also started asking the Artistic Director to use my donor research, stewardship plans, sponsorship decks, and prospect lists to cultivate donors and sponsors instead of me. Last year I built an entire stewardship strategy for major donors, but just before implementation I was told those relationships would be handled by the Artistic Director instead.

Before I joined, there wasn’t much fundraising structure in place. I’ve since built sponsorship packages, campaign strategies, stewardship plans, and development systems from the ground up while also managing finance, HR, and operations.

What confuses me is that this doesn’t seem to apply across departments. I don’t review artistic programming, and I don’t have authority over marketing decisions once a campaign moves into design. If I make suggestions in those areas, they’re generally treated as belonging to those departments, which I completely understand. Yet development strategy seems to become everyone’s responsibility except mine.

I don’t mind collaboration. My concern is that I’m accountable to the board for fundraising results, but I don’t always have ownership over the strategy or donor relationships that determine those results.

Is this common in other nonprofits?
Do other department heads regularly review and change your fundraising strategy?
Who typically owns donor and corporate sponsor relationships?
Is this a normal structure for a Development Director, or am I overreacting?

I work as the Director of Development at a small nonprofit, but I also oversee finance, HR, and operations. We’re a team of four, so I wear a lot of hats.

One thing I’ve struggled with is that every fundraising strategy, sponsorship deck, and campaign I create is reviewed by the entire leadership team. The feedback is usually about the fundraising strategy itself, even though development is my responsibility. I often have to rewrite my work, or projects stall because no one agrees on the strategy, but no alternative is proposed.

Recently, my Executive Director has also started asking the Artistic Director to use my donor research, stewardship plans, sponsorship decks, and prospect lists to cultivate donors and sponsors instead of me. Last year I built an entire stewardship strategy for major donors, but just before implementation I was told those relationships would be handled by the Artistic Director instead.

Before I joined, there wasn’t much fundraising structure in place. I’ve since built sponsorship packages, campaign strategies, stewardship plans, and development systems from the ground up while also managing finance, HR, and operations.

What confuses me is that this doesn’t seem to apply across departments. I don’t review artistic programming, and I don’t have authority over marketing decisions once a campaign moves into design. If I make suggestions in those areas, they’re generally treated as belonging to those departments, which I completely understand. Yet development strategy seems to become everyone’s responsibility except mine.

I don’t mind collaboration. My concern is that I’m accountable to the board for fundraising results, but I don’t always have ownership over the strategy or donor relationships that determine those results.

Is this common in other nonprofits?
Do other department heads regularly review and change your fundraising strategy?
Who typically owns donor and corporate sponsor relationships?
Is this a normal structure for a Development Director, or am I overreacting?