Last year tested everyone in ways we didn't expect. For many in the nonprofit sector, 2025 felt relentless. Friends and colleagues faced similar upheaval alongside personal losses and mounting burnout. As members of the sandwich generation, we found ourselves managing multiple family members who needed more attention in different ways than they had before.

Watching people I care about struggle was trying. This year didn't require explanation to anyone who lived through it. Everyone deserved the grace to get through with as little damage as possible.

Here's what organizations forget during challenging times: your volunteers, board members, and donors are navigating all of this while choosing to support your mission. They're whole people with jobs, families, health challenges, and stress you'll never fully know about. How you treat them during both ordinary times and crisis moments determines whether they stay engaged or quietly step back.

When Organizations Get It Right: Volunteer Appreciation That Builds Long-Term Engagement

Two organizations taught me what genuine appreciation looks like in practice, and both lessons came more than a decade apart.

Over 20 years ago, I started volunteering with a healthcare access organization. Within my first few months, my grandfather and my ex's grandfather both died within weeks of each other. The organization sent condolence cards. They told me to take my time returning to the schedule. They checked in on me as a person, not because they needed me back for coverage.

I hadn't donated a penny yet. They simply saw me as human first, volunteer second.

The program leadership changed over the years, but that culture stayed consistent. I'm still volunteering with them because they recognize that the work demands emotional investment alongside time. The role involves navigating high-stress situations regularly and supporting people during vulnerable moments. I keep showing up because the organization demonstrates we're in this together. That's a relationship I've valued for over two decades, and it's shaped how I think about volunteer management ever since.

More recently, a giving circle I am considering joining told prospective members upfront: "You can be as involved as you want to be, and we expect that to change over time." That transparency is refreshing in a sector that often treats fluctuating capacity as a sign of commitment failure. This group acknowledges that life circumstances shift. They build flexibility into their model rather than demanding consistent participation regardless of what members are managing in their personal lives. That's one of many reasons I'll be getting more involved with them this year.

The Board Member Burden: Board Member Engagement and Volunteer Retention Strategies

Nonprofits need to think about flexibility when it comes to boards. Board members are volunteers who take on legal liability and governance responsibilities by choice. We've become rigid about ensuring board members deliver the seven T's: time, talent, treasure, ties, testimony, tenacity, and whatever seventh T you prefer. When organizations expect all of those consistently and simultaneously without acknowledging that board members are whole people with lives beyond your mission, the eighth T becomes "Take me away!" as that old Calgon commercial declared.

I've held volunteer programs at other nonprofits to that same standard ever since my early experience. It's probably too high a bar for most organizations. But that first organization understood something fundamental: volunteering wasn't just about donating hours. It was an emotional investment requiring support and genuine appreciation, not performative gratitude.

How We Can Do Better: Sustainable Nonprofit Volunteer and Board Management Practices

From an organizational perspective, building flexibility into volunteer and board structures is no longer optional. The sector faces unprecedented turnover as people leave nonprofit work entirely or move between organizations in search of better conditions. People are exhausted. Your volunteers and board members face the same pressures as your staff. They're managing caregiving responsibilities, job uncertainty, health challenges, and burnout while trying to show up for your mission.

Create explicit flexibility frameworks rather than treating capacity changes as failures. The giving circle model I mentioned works because expectations are transparent from the start. Tell board members and volunteers what you need, when engagement levels can flex, and how to communicate when life demands their attention elsewhere temporarily.

Leadership staff need to check in without asking for something. Those condolence cards mattered because they came with zero strings attached. Personal connection strengthens relationships more than constant requests for participation or contributions. When someone on your board or in your volunteer corps is managing a crisis, checking in as a human rather than as an organizational representative makes all the difference.

Board perspectives matter too. If you're serving on a board, feeling overwhelmed or confused by expectations, name that reality with your fellow board members and executive leadership. The organizations that retain engaged boards are the ones where honest conversations about capacity happen before people quietly resign.

For consultants and fractional professionals like me, this means building capacity awareness into every engagement. When I work with organizations on fundraising strategy or board development, we talk about sustainable practices given actual resources. Implementing systems that acknowledge humans have limits creates conditions where both staff and volunteers can succeed.

Why This Matters Now: Building Lasting Relationships with Nonprofit Volunteers and Donors

This year will bring challenges we can't predict. The nonprofits building lasting relationships with volunteers, board members, and donors will be the ones treating them as whole people navigating complex lives. Show genuine appreciation, not performative gratitude. Check in personally without an agenda. Build flexibility into expectations instead of treating temporary capacity shifts as failures. Recognize that everyone's engagement will ebb and flow based on circumstances beyond your organization's control.

When I think about peace, progress, and joy as values guiding my work in 2026, treating people as whole humans sits at the center of all three. Peace comes from sustainable relationships rather than transactional ones. Progress requires acknowledging that capacity changes over time. Joy emerges when people feel genuinely valued for who they are, not just what they contribute to your mission.

Let's be sure to show our volunteers, board members, and donors love and genuine appreciation. And if you're volunteering your time and expertise, extend that same grace to yourself. Love is peace. Love makes progress. Love brings joy.