Five Structures a Growing Nonprofit Can Build to Keep Its Staff

Surveys of nonprofit workers point to workload, limited growth, unsupportive management and pay as the main reasons they leave, and to flexibility, mission and a supportive environment as reasons they stay. Five structures answer those reasons: published pay bands, visible growth paths, trained managers, workload limits and flexibility rules. No study I found proves that any one of them cuts turnover, so treat them as sound practice and test them in your own data.

I am Mac Malbrough. I hold a J.D. and an MS-HRM, I am not an attorney, and I write for nonprofit leaders who are growing faster than their HR systems. I also cannot give you a nonprofit turnover rate to benchmark against, because the sources I trust do not publish one. The numbers below describe what workers say, and I label each source’s limits.

What do nonprofit workers say makes them leave?

Too much work with too little support leads the list. In the fall 2023 and fall 2024 waves of Candid’s Social Impact Staff Retention survey, reported in an October 2025 Candid analysis, respondents who planned to leave cited these reasons:

• Too much work and too little support: 59 percent.
• Limited growth opportunities: 54 percent.
• Unsupportive management: 52 percent.
• Inadequate pay and benefits: 50 percent.

The same survey found 67 percent of respondents were looking for a new job or expected to within a year in fall 2024. The sample was self-selected, so it describes the workers who answered and not every nonprofit. A later Candid piece reported that the Urban Institute found burnout as the top concern doubled from 4 to 8 percent of respondents. The figures are small, and the direction is the point.

What do they say keeps them?

Flexibility, mission and a supportive environment. The Candid survey listed flexibility at 82 percent, mission at 74 percent and a supportive environment at 71 percent, with pay and benefits at 63 percent. That pattern matters for budget-limited organizations, because three of the top reasons to stay cost little cash. It does not mean pay can be ignored, since half of leavers named it.

Is pay the whole story?

No, but it is a real part. The National Council of Nonprofits’ 2023 workforce survey, fielded in April 2023 among more than 1,600 nonprofits, reported that 74.6 percent had vacancies and 51.7 percent had more vacancies than before the pandemic. Employers named salary competition at 72.2 percent, budget constraints at 66.3 percent and stress and burnout at 50.2 percent as reasons, per its press release. The sample was not random, so use it as a signal.

Which five structures should you build?

The five below answer the reasons workers give. I list them in the order I would build them in a small organization.

1. Pay bands. Publish a range for every role, tied to a written method, and place each person in their band. Payscale data reported by SHRM found pay transparency cut intent to quit by 30 percent, though that is vendor data about intent, not actual quits. My guide to setting a pay range shows how.
2. Growth paths. Write two or three steps for each role family, with the skills and time that move a person up. Limited growth was the second most common reason to leave, and a path costs little to draw.
3. Manager training. Gallup reported in its turnover research that 42 percent of voluntary leavers said their manager or organization could have prevented their departure. My piece on why a great manager is a retention strategy expands this.
4. Workload limits. Set caseload or project caps, name who decides when a role is overloaded, and review it each quarter. The top reason to leave was too much work with too little support.
5. Flexibility rules. Write down what is allowed, such as remote days, flexible hours or compressed schedules, and apply it evenly.

What does the evidence not show?

It does not show that these five work, and I want you to hear that clearly. I found no study that isolates career ladders, stay interviews or manager training and shows a drop in nonprofit turnover. The closest strong evidence is outside the sector. A 2024 Stanford-led study published in Nature found hybrid work cut resignations by about one-third among non-managers at one company, Trip.com.

The official quit data does not isolate nonprofits either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ JOLTS release for August 2026 put the quits rate for health care and social assistance at 2.0 percent, but that sector includes for-profit employers. Measure your own turnover, by role and manager, before you decide where to spend.

How do you start with no extra budget?

Start with the structures that cost time and not money. Writing growth paths, setting workload caps and publishing flexibility rules take a few weeks of leadership attention, and they answer three of the four top reasons people give for leaving. Pay bands cost more if they reveal gaps, so build them next and phase any adjustments over a budget cycle.

Put the board in the loop early. A board that sees a one-page turnover sheet and a five-item plan can approve the next step in a single meeting, and it gives the board a concrete plan to cite when a grant renewal or budget discussion turns to staffing costs. A specific retention plan is easier to defend than a general statement about burnout.

Review the result every six months, and share what you find with the staff. If turnover in one team stays high after the structures are in place, look at that team’s manager and workload first, since those two levers sit closest to a worker’s day.

Where does the law shape these choices?

In two places that surprise leaders. First, pay: California’s exempt salary floor rises to $72,384 in 2027, per DIR, and it applies to California employers generally. My guide to the 2027 exempt salary threshold shows who is affected. Second, volunteers: the line between a volunteer and an employee deserves care in California, so ask counsel before you ask anyone to do staff work unpaid. My nonprofit HR compliance guide covers both.

When there is no promotion path, building a career lattice without promotions offers another route.

What should you do this week?

Pull your last 24 months of departures into one sheet: role, manager, tenure and the reason given at exit. Count by manager and by role. The pattern tells you which of the five structures to build first, and it gives your board a number that no survey can.

If you want help building the structures, my fractional HR service works with nonprofit teams of this size. For the legal baseline, start with the nonprofit compliance guide linked above.

A low-cost retention habit for any size team is how to run stay interviews.

Sources

• Candid, nonprofit employees survey data, October 21, 2025, read October 29, 2026
• Candid, nonprofit staff burnout, April 14, 2026, read October 29, 2026
• National Council of Nonprofits, 2023 workforce survey, read October 29, 2026
• Gallup, employee turnover is preventable, read October 29, 2026
• BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, read October 29, 2026

McKinley holds a J.D. but is not a licensed attorney. Articles here are general information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, talk with an employment attorney.