Image provided by @kattyukawa.

As part of the 15th Anniversary celebration for Natetheworld.com, I am hosting a 24-hour writing challenge. Starting in January 2024, readers began submitting essay prompts. My goal is to tackle as many of these prompts as possible in a 24-hour period.

In February 2011, I began my first day at Kent Youth and Family Services. Prior to this fateful day, I worked in higher education, but I had spent considerable time volunteering in my community. Little did I know then, but my entire life was about to change.

Since then, I have had the privilege of earning a master’s degree in Nonprofit Leadership from Seattle University. I have also worked at Skid Row Housing Trust, The Center in Hollywood, The Senior Center of West Seattle, and now at Mercy Housing Northwest. I have also had the distinct honor of serving as the leader of several volunteer organizations, including President of the Rotary Club of Kent/South King County, Board Chair for the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network – Los Angeles, Co-Chair for Gay for Good Seattle, Chapter Advisor for the Beta Beta Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha at the University of Washington, Co-Chair for Nonprofit Leadership Alumni Council at Seattle University, Board Member for the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, and a few more that are escaping me at the moment. I have also been a volunteer for countless organizations, giving back nearly 100 hours of volunteer service to my community annually. I am also a donor supporting countless causes and institutions near and dear to my heart. Finally, I have been an advocate protesting, writing, and pressuring elected officials to change policy.

I say all this not to brag, but to establish a small amount of credibility. My life is the nonprofit sector. It courses through every vein in my body. I have happily given it every ounce of myself, and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

In all this time, I have learned some fundamental truths. To do this work, you must be built differently than those driven by profit and maximizing income. There are countless qualities that must be ingrained in your essence, and there are many more that can only be learned by doing the work. As I reflect on these qualities and look at my own career, there are five qualities that bubble up to the top for me. I am positive your list will be different. That’s more than fine. A multitude of values and approaches to the work of service are one of the things that make this field so vibrant and dynamic.

Empathy

I am guessing you began thinking about working in the nonprofit field, because you witnessed an injustice in the world and thought, “Someone should do something about that!” Then, you probably took a long look in the mirror. You chose to walk in the shoes of someone else. You thought of more prosperous days for our planet. You decided to stand up for animals. Or, you decided the arts are the center of a rich culture. Empathy brought you here, and on the hardest days empathy will sustain you, but it is the heartbeat of our work. It is the undercurrent moving us all forward, and it is how big and small problems alike find solutions.

Patience

Solving complex societal challenges requires patience. Advocacy takes patience. Changing the hearts and minds of people about how we collectively treat each other, the planet, those species we share this world with, and how we express ourselves takes time. The individual challenges facing each of us in the work we do did not happen overnight. They will not be solved overnight or, for some, in the span of lifetime, but you must believe they can be solved.

Since 2011, at least some part of my career has existed in the housing justice space. From transitional housing to permanent supportive housing, to affordable housing, I have seen firsthand the impacts an economic system, coupled with systemic racism, policy failures, and many other preexisting conditions, has had on people’s ability to access safe and affordable housing. I have stood in the epicenter of homelessness in America. I have had my heart broken more times than I count. There have been days when overcoming the challenge of ending homelessness in America seemed impossible. But then, I remembered patience.

Patience allows me to recognize small victories, which lead to major wins. It allows me to see public consciousness shifting toward solutions. It allows me to see policy victories and an economic system bending toward housing everyone. Without some patience, I am not sure I could do this work anymore.

Self-Care

When you first begin this work, you can deeply feel the heartbreak of every client, resident, or person you encounter. Empathy has an evil cousin, and his name is emotional burnout. I don’t want you to lose your empathy. I want it to be a driving force in your pursuit of solutions, but I also want you to take care of yourself. I want you to unplug, exercise, meditate, travel, laugh, and take care of your financial needs. A sacrificed and burned-out nonprofit employee will not help us in the long run.

Self-Advocacy

The pay in this sector is often not great. If you choose to do this work, you might find yourself sitting across from friends working in the for-profit space with envy. You will see their new homes, new cars, and expensive travels around the world with a sense of jealousy. I am here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way. All of us in the nonprofit sector must do a better job of advocating for ourselves. We deserve to end poverty without finding ourselves in poverty. We deserve the security of a home, cars that can safely get from point A to B, and we deserve to unplug, rejuvenate, and return to work with our cups filled to the brim with everything we need.

To get these things, we must advocate for ourselves. We must demand nonprofits, government agencies, and funders provide resources that make a livable and prosperous wage possible. We must make this work attractive enough for the best and brightest that our society has to offer to consider helping us solve these complex challenges.

Love

The final quality I look for in fellow nonprofit employees and in myself is love. You must love what you do and who you get to do it with. There will be days that test your resolve. There will be days filled with mundane tasks. There will be days filled with so much needless red tape that solutions seem an ocean away. During these moments, I urge you to remember love. Love for yourself. Love for those you serve, and love for those who have decided to join you in this fight. Let love guide your empathy. Let love steer your patience. Let love center your self-care and self-advocacy. Let love be the guiding force as you pursue to overcome those injustices that first drew you to this work.

Be good to each other,

Nathan