Surveying the Field: Interviewing Paul Yeghiayan & Zulakha Iqbal
Written by Victoria Shadle
As part of Surveying the Field I recently interviewed Paul Yeghiayan and Zulakha Iqbal, both nonprofit professionals based in the Washington DC Area. Paul has been a fundraising consultant for the past few years, and before that held leadership roles in development offices at nonprofits for over fifteen years and earned his master’s in nonprofit management. Zulakha is earlier in her career having graduated college in 2015, and is currently in a development and communications role at a health-related nonprofit and has worked in both the private and nonprofit sectors.
During my separate conversations with Paul and Zulakha I asked them each the same four questions I’m asking all guests in this series — keep reading to hear their thoughts on the nonprofit sector.
What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about the nonprofit sector?
Paul finds there is a misunderstanding from both inside and outside the sector on just how diverse nonprofit business models can be. People tend to think that nonprofits generate revenue solely from asking for charitable contributions, when in fact there is a wide range of funding models out there. Some organizations, especially nonprofit universities and hospitals, secure a majority of their revenue from fee-for-service charges, others are member services organizations that collect dues, and others have a separate business such as a thrift store or bakery that both ties to the mission of the organization and brings in additional money. Beyond that, some organizations have a particularly large endowment or are entirely funded by government grants and contracts.
Ultimately, Paul sees the nonprofit sector as more of a unifying tax status than a group of organizations bound together by other shared attributes.
Building off that, Paul also thinks the concept of judging all nonprofits by a single metric like the percentage of their budget going to operations is an issue. He sees a problem with comparing the “overhead” costs of a nonprofit hospital and homeless shelter when they’re entirely different organizations with different business models and funding structures.
“The idea that there is one metric [the percentage of expenses spent on operations] that needs to be met or you’re not running your organization well is really damaging to the sector.” — Paul
Furthermore, Paul has an issue with nonprofits being asked to spend as few funds as possible on administrative or operational expenses.
“The quality of the infrastructure [of a nonprofit] will be directly related to the impact you have on your beneficiaries so if overhead is too low, it just means the effectiveness of your operations is also likely low — the goal should be not to spend as little as possible on being effective, it should be to spend as much as needed to effectively to carry out the mission.” — Paul
Zulakha also sees a lot of misconceptions about the nonprofit sector, starting with the idea that staff are super altruistic, driven by a singular mission and working for free. Secondly, many people don’t realize how similar a lot of the work and operations are between nonprofits and corporations — having worked both in the nonprofit and in the for-profit world she’s seen both sides of it firsthand.
“You could be a marketer in the private sector or for a nonprofit, and at the end of the day you’re doing pretty much the same thing… folks think that we’re cold calling or something, but modern-day nonprofits operate just like corporations whether you’re looking at marketing, operations, or finance. The reality is it’s a lot more business-oriented than most people think.” — Zulakha
If you could tell nonprofit volunteers or board members one thing — what would it be?
In Paul’s work as a consultant, one of the top issues nonprofit leaders come to him with is challenges with their board of directors, and he sees a lot of blame for situations put on specific board members in particular. His initial response is to ask nonprofit leaders to look at the issue from the other side and question what the nonprofit is doing to contribute to the issue. He asks leaders, are you taking the board recruitment process seriously enough? Are you thinking deeply enough about what the organization needs in new board members?
Paul wants nonprofits to have detailed position descriptions for board members that clearly outline expectations and a well-thought-out onboarding process. He wants there to be a plan for who is going to train new board members and a budget for board management. Lastly, he cautions that just because someone is successful in business doesn’t necessarily translate to being a good board member.
“I think that there’s a lot of tension that exists within organizations and it fundamentally comes down to picking the wrong people [as board members] and not caring enough about the process.” — Paul
Lastly, Paul suggested potential board members look into the makeup of the current board to see how diverse it is. Boards should be diverse, that means ethnically and culturally diverse, but also there being a diversity in thought and professional background.
Zulakha talked about how she’s seen boards operate with wildly different levels of oversight and governance. She’s seen active boards where the organization heavily relies on them to drive the mission and revenue, and others where the board is more of a rubber stamp, attending one meeting a year and that’s it. She’s also seen an unsettling trend in the demographics of board members.
“Board members are typically of a certain generation, gender, and race, often mirroring what you’d find in corporate America… But right now there’s also a push to make your board look more like your organization and your mission, and those efforts are really great. Diversifying the board speaks volumes.” — Zulakha
In addition to diversifying membership, Zulakha would also challenge board members to be more comfortable with nonprofits leaning into current events and being vocal about supporting the racial justice movement. She’s seen some organizations hesitate to make a statement because of a fear that certain board members or major donors will find an issue with the organization speaking up and stop supporting their work. While acknowledging that statements can be a superficial way to show solidarity, she still believes that nonprofits should be speaking up to publicly say they support equal rights and social justice.
What do you believe people think about working in the nonprofit sector, and how has that aligned with or challenged what you’ve experienced?
Beyond the perception that nonprofit staff are grossly underpaid and don’t have benefits, Zulakha also finds people don’t understand that like any other job, at the end of the day it’s a job with positives and negatives. Employees are not volunteers, are not treated like volunteers, and ultimately people are not working for free out of the goodness of their hearts.
Zulakha has worked at nonprofits with various missions and while she’s happy to be working to further a mission she agrees with, she could also switch jobs and work for another mission if the particulars of the role were a better fit for her or her future goals. She finds some people think that it’s an ultimate devotion to one particular mission that drives all nonprofit employees, when there’s a lot more that goes into someone’s day-to-day happiness at a job and decisions about career moves.
Paul shared that coming from a fundraising background, his job was particularly alienating for people outside this world to understand. He joked that if you’re on a flight and want to make sure no one talks to you just tell them you’re a fundraiser!
While reactions vary, he has found a general sentiment from those outside the sector that believe nonprofit employees work in the sector because they couldn’t make it in the for-profit sector; that nonprofit workers are passionate but not logical. He also finds an assumption that nonprofit employees must be liberal, when actually there is much more diversity in political opinions.
What cultural or structural norms have you seen at individual nonprofits or the sector as a whole that you would like to see change?
Zulakha wants to see nonprofits embrace technology and use workflows common in the tech and business space like the agile framework, which she explained is simply an application that could be applied to pretty much any team’s work. She encourages nonprofits to embrace common marketing trends from the private sector like buying ads on social media and utilizing influencer marketing. Zulakha does see nonprofit marketers convening on platforms like Facebook to workshop ideas together and ask questions about newer mediums like podcasting, and loves to see that innovation. The more this happens the more the sector will be seen as effective and efficient like the corporate sector.
“We are at the forefront of adapting to changes in technology and media, like any other corporation. That’s great for nonprofits across the board, and I’d like to see more of that moving forward.” — Zulakha
Zulakha also sees this year as an interesting and tumultuous time for nonprofits between the pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement, and it being an election year. She sees the standard practices being less relevant this year as everything is upended.
Looking ahead, Zulakha has been asking people what is the next thing in marketing and the most common answer she’s getting is data mining.
“I ask what’s the next thing — it was email, then social media, then paid advertising — and now, the most common answer I get is data mining, it’s pretty much what everyone is investing in right now. It will predict behaviors… I’m interested to see how the next couple of years go, and how our industry will utilize it.” — Zulakha
Paul sees one major issue in fundraising being the massive turnover of fundraising staff. He believes turnover as bad for the organization, employees, donors, and beneficiaries. Acknowledging there are others who have studied this further, he believes causes of this turnover include unrealistic expectations from organizations and a lack of training and support for staff.
He sees people put into fundraising positions too hastily and without enough thought on if they have the right skill set for the position. Ultimately, there is also an issue on the part of the board and executive leadership about how much money can be raised and a lack of understanding that it takes a budget and a plan to raise money.
“I really do think this ongoing fundraising staff turnover is an enormous problem costing the industry a lot of money, both in unrealized revenue and in the cost of constantly hiring new folks. There is also an emotional cost for people who lose their positions often because of unrealistic expectations.” — Paul
The low pay many organizations offer is also a contributing factor to the turnover. Paul sees jobs posting where jobs requiring years of experience aren’t paying enough for the employee to live comfortably. While employees are passionate, they still need to pay rent, student loans, and all of the other daily expenses.
Paul believes there is a lot of opportunity for the sector to grow and improve and believes nonprofits are well positioned to address many of the pressing issues facing society today. Having said that, he adds it will difficult because addressing systemic racism, sexism, environmental concerns, and other entrenched issues takes a long-term approach that will require deep commitment and a strong strategic partnership with donors, business, and government. He believes thinking about these issues needs to evolve and wants to see the sector design better process for addressing these and many other challenges.
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Thank you to Paul and Zulakha for sharing your perspective on the nonprofit sector! Check out the article below to see how Meghan Freebeck, a nonprofit CEO from San Francisco, answered these questions. You can also learn more about The Nonprofit Collective Blog by reading this article and stay in the loop about what we’re up to by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
