It’s Time to be Honest….and Loud.
Power and Distrust Create Silence
We see it all the time: a boss reacts negatively to honest and professional feedback, a grantor refuses to fund salaries, the board asks why the new development director hasn’t raised a million dollars in the first week. The nonprofit sector is filled with power imbalances that catastrophically disable its own ability to solve society’s most complex challenges.
These dynamics start where the power is held: the funders. They control the direction. They control the narrative. Nonprofits have to mold themselves to fit the application, and thus the facade is created. We become symbolic representations of what our mission actually is. We are forever grateful and rarely critical, because power is flowing in one direction and the imbalance is too large to comprehend.
This power stream continues on through the nonprofit itself. Those in power exert unto those below. Everyone’s an expert and no one is responsible. We don’t speak up. We just edit down. We sand off the edges of our experience to fit polite expectations. We strip the urgency from our messaging so we don’t “alarm the board.” We go back to our corners and rewrite the narrative in passive voice because being too loud—too honest—might jeopardize the next funding cycle.
And somewhere along the way, the mission gets diluted. The goals become vague. The work becomes less about community transformation and more about survival—of budgets, of egos, of reputations.
But here’s the thing: our silence doesn’t protect us. It protects the dysfunction.
Clock It, Name It, Burn It
It’s time to start naming what’s actually (been) happening:
- That leaders cannot expect loyalty or commitment from their employees if they are not willing to be engaged, transparent, and detailed about mission operations (Wang, 2021).
- That pressure from powerful stakeholders only creates positive feedback loops resulting in intentionally misleading reporting, something we were told almost 20 years ago.
- That when nonprofits silence urgency to appease those in power, they don’t safeguard the mission—they erode morale. This isn’t speculation: a 2024 study of 239 nonprofit staff found weak organizational communication was a major predictor of burnout—and stronger communication boosted job satisfaction (Tosto & Tcherni-Buzzeo, 2025).
We owe it to ourselves, and to the people we serve, to be honest. Not just in private venting sessions or anonymous surveys, but loudly, publicly, and together. Not because it’s trendy to be disruptive. Because it’s necessary to be truthful.
The Sector Needs A Little Heat
For a long time, I believed I needed to pass through each nonprofit role with as little disruption as possible. Enter quietly. Exit smoothly. Leave the organization “set up for success,” no matter what my own experience had been. Until a friend and colleague told me this:
“You are not responsible for the organization. It survived before you, and it will survive after.”
It was eye-opening. It was humbling. It was freeing.
So here’s something I never thought I’d say—especially not in public: It’s time to burn bridges.
Why do they need to burn, you ask? Because power does not transform without intentional action.
I’m not calling for anarchy…yet. But where do we begin? What bridges do we burn first?
1. Stop Chasing, Start Building:
Burn the bridges that cause you to keep chasing funders, trendy programs, and side-quests that dilute your mission. Stop contorting to fit the opportunity and start focusing on how the primary initiative actually delivers what your community (or your transparent self) needs, even if it means walking away. A bridge that is built along faults will only hold until the next earthquake.
Instead: Create with clarity for yourself, your program, and your organization. Be unapologetically you.
2. When the Relationship Hurts, LET GO:
Not every funder, partner, board member, or employer is worth the emotional, organizational, or cultural cost. If a relationship forces you to compromise your values, your staff’s wellbeing, or your community’s trust then it’s time to walk away…quickly. No opportunity is worth complicit harm.
Instead: Set boundaries and think about your exit strategy, especially when it feels premature. Communicate with grace and integrity – especially with your team.
3. Listen to Loudest Silence:
Pay close attention to those in power who speak up only when it benefits them—and fall silent when it matters most. Silence in moments of risk or controversy is not neutrality. It’s a choice.
This is why so many nonprofiteers bristle at the “be more like businesses” cliché: capitalism doesn’t stop at the third sector’s door. It drags in the same exploitative dynamics—where visibility is valued over vulnerability, and support disappears the moment things get hard. If funders and institutional partners can’t stand beside us when we’re under threat, they have no business profiting off our impact when we succeed.
Instead: Build with aligned partners, NOT just available ones. Prioritize relationships with those that share your risks, not just your wins.
4. Stop Performing, Just Deliver:
Let go of the pageantry relics. Set fire to the norms that require you to smile through the board meeting where they rip you apart. Drop a match on the donor meetings that leave you questioning your entire existence. Burn the culture of pretending everything is fine in your weekly all-hands meeting, when the world is really falling apart around you. You don’t owe anyone a performance, but we do owe our communities transparency.
Instead: Embrace transparency to a fault. Trust your community to see the entire picture, flaws and all.
Speak Up, Out, and to the Side
It’s easier said than done and a privilege to be able to say it at all. But now more than ever we need to build new systems, new cultures, new communities where transparency, authenticity, and realistic expectations aren’t the exception, they’re the norm.
Not everyone wants to build something from scratch, and that’s ok. But for those who are building, the rest of us need to turn toward them. We support, we amplify, we join because the real power isn’t in capital. It’s in numbers. Projects like The Nonprofit Hive, Crappy Funding Practices, Nonprofit AF, and the Social Impact Staff Retention Project are leading the way. These pioneers are building sustainable pathways to honest critique and truly transparent representations of the sector. We can at least help carry the load.
We need to rebuild connections, where power flows in both directions, where community voice holds equal weight to capital, where “collaboration” means something more than performative partnerships, and where nonprofits aren’t the only ones “pitching.”
We can’t keep waiting for someone to give us permission to tell the truth.
The house is already on fire. Our silence is just helping it burn quietly.
So let’s call it out, burn it down, and rebuild something better, together.
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Eric DePalma was born and raised in Southern California, and has always had an affinity for meaningful community building and connection. Originally a theatre kid, turned anthropologist, turned chronic nonprofit staffer, Eric has both a B.A. and M.A. in Evolutionary Anthropology. While primarily interested in primate behavior and group structures in graduate school, he has found himself refocusing his interests on that of the nonprofit sector. His current obsessions include community building, system processes, and organizational/leadership behavior.
He has worked for multiple small to midsize nonprofit organizations, spearheading the start of multiple development departments. In the last year he has been working with Haven Neighborhood Services, building a brand new initiative called the Partnership.LA Summit. This program is working to create accessible and equitable partnership opportunities for small to midsize nonprofit organizations working in the region.