You are exhausted, a next-level fatigue.

Your body is so tired, but your mind can’t stop. It pings from what is right in front of you — grant deadlines, board meetings and two staff members who have just given notice — to the larger issues. Polarization and inequities are dark clouds disrupting your news feed and the headlines replaying in your mind. Always there, even in your restless sleep. With your words, you rally, but your heart is racing.

You are overwhelmed and overworked. You need much more than friends suggest — a long weekend, a long nap, a healthy snack, an unhealthy snack. Your bones ache. You find yourself constantly among people but lonely. You know you need support, but you’re not sure who and how to ask. You wish you had time for a doctor or a therapist or any number of behavior changes that are too daunting to take on. Not now.

You have heard “put on your oxygen mask first” so many times. What you really want is not an oxygen mask but a steadier plane.

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Through CEP’s State of Nonprofits 2024 Report, nonprofit leaders tell us they and their teams are “burned out,” perhaps feeling some version of the description above. Though burnout is not classified as a medical diagnosis, it can both contribute to and be caused by depression and anxiety.

Nonprofit leaders are confirming what the mental health field, including the growing mental health philanthropy field, led by organizations like Mindful Philanthropy, already know: we are in a mental health crisis and a loneliness epidemic. According to the National Alliance for Mental Health, one in five people are experiencing a mental health challenge. The U.S. Surgeon General has called out loneliness as a public health crisis, stating that half of all Americans are experiencing loneliness and that this poses as much of a physical health risk as smoking.

This report has implications for philanthropy that challenge our current funding priorities, listening methods and mindset. Our funding strategies are only as strong as the collective well-being of our nonprofit partners, so let’s consider a new version of nonprofit capacity, one that considers the sustainability of nonprofit staff in their roles. This version of well-being includes not only a competitive wage and reasonable working hours but also supporting the mental health of nonprofit staff.

Read the full article about adopting a mental health mindset by Beth Brown at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.