How to nurture our staff who do paid and volunteer work for our school?

April 22, 2023 9:14 PM

I am helping to run a non-profit theatre school. I am a volunteer Board member but for now also volunteering as the general manager. We hire about a half a dozen part-time facilitators to teach our courses. They are lovely people and we pay them above average rates (hourly basis) but...

some also volunteer their time to help with some of the school's administration work. I feel it is great they share this passion for what we do, and they're willing to give back. However, our sector is also infamous for not paying their people well.

I want to pay people fairly for their work but at the same time I'm a little worried about losing that love. That the work that was previously volunteered becomes more transactional. The facilitators all have different jobs, and some are better compensated than others in their jobs outside of our school. But is my reluctance just an unconscious fear that we don't have a lot of financial leg-room even though we are making a reasonable profit? I know I have a bias towards being financially frugal.

What are some ways to think about this? Any other general advice much appreciated.

posted by storybored to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Can you frame it in terms of what the students deserve? So like, they deserve committed teachers and staff who are highly skilled, who are able to stay at their jobs long-term to create a stable school environment, and who are able to commit their time and skills in ways that may not be possible if they're not paid fairly and are needing to take on other work to be able to live on their income.
posted by augustimagination at 11:59 PM on April 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm also not sure how Canada's labor law applies to the nonprofit sector, but in the US even nonprofits aren't typically allowed to use volunteers to do tasks that would normally be paid work. So depending on how versed you are in labor law, you might want to look at the legality of your volunteer structure to make sure it's in line with local & federal regulations.
posted by augustimagination at 12:02 AM on April 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

One of the places I work tracks volunteer hours the same as paid ones, and there's always the option to be paid right there next to each line, just waiting to be selected. I don't know how it works legally, but I've always liked the vibe, and it provides useful data on how much effort actually goes into everything. Folks who are all-volunteer occasionally need to be prodded to actually enter their hours but it doesn't seem like there's any resentment over the process, just acknowledgement that if they didn't volunteer, the hours would still have to happen. I would imagine that one could also then generate reports for individuals so they can view their own volunteer time and decide if it's in keeping with their intentions, and generally make sure nobody is working truly excessive hours overall.
posted by teremala at 4:39 AM on April 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Regardless of if the volunteer asks, a volunteer who is doing paid-grade work/hours either should be paid or should step aside for a qualified someone else to take the role at pay. Consider developing a policy in which X hours or Y job are paid regardless of a volunteer's ability or wishes. I think this is similar to discussions here on this topic anbot the boundaries of volunteer work.
posted by beaning at 11:12 AM on April 23, 2023

I am neither a lawyer nor (especially) an Ontario lawyer, but my reading of the Ontario Employment Standards act is that a person can be classified as an employee or classified as a volunteer, and there is some wiggle room there.

However, once a person is classified as an employee, they can no longer "volunteer". They have to be paid at least minimum wage. (See page 8 here, "Minimum Wage".) Also note that overtime rates may apply (see p. 18) as well as limits on how many hours may be worked daily and weekly, and agreements etc etc required if the normal limits are exceeded (see p. 14).

Once a person is classified as an employee, all of those things would apply - as near as I can see.

However, details of all this are, obviously, very important. So it would be good to discuss this in detail with someone who is really familiar with your local laws and such - such as an employment lawyer.

In addition to that, I am pretty sure that everyone will be happier and better off - including the organization as a whole - if all work hours are paid in a regular manner. If you want extra free help then solicit volunteer help from your parents, community members, and such. Maybe some of them would be willing to volunteer to do some of those admin tasks in the interest of keeping school tuition low or whatever. But if someone is an employee then they simply can't "volunteer". Any additional work they take on is regular, paid work.

Details are important here, though. Just for example, maybe the employees are paid for an eight hour work day. Some of that time is in-class contact hours and some of the time is allowed for preparation, research, and other activities. So if some of the employees want to "volunteer" to use some of their normal prep time to instead do admin activities, that is one thing. They are not really unpaid volunteers in this case - they are paid employees who have the skills and are willing to use some of their paid hours on admin work rather than teaching work.
posted by flug at 3:08 PM on April 24, 2023

I'm going to speak to the spirit of your question and not the letter of the law, since I don't know anything about Canada's structures. In the US, it is not legal to allow someone in a nonprofit to volunteer for some tasks while being a paid employee for other tasks.

You're worried that
the work that was previously volunteered becomes more transactional.

Another way to think of it is: the work becomes more professional, providing meaningful support for people who want to make this an important part of their career and life's work. In my life in nonprofits, I haven't run into the problem of a lack of passion, mission, or commitment. Quite the opposite.

I get that you might be at the point where the org is moving from a "let's put on a show, kids" grassroots level to requiring a more professional operation, and that brings culture change with it. But this is a sign of success, not of failure. In today's world, few things can get by entirely on volunteer spirit - partly because the work requires enough hours that few people can do it without it being a job, partly because there is just more work in terms of compliance, paperwork, and transparency for the orgs than there used to be. Your organization deserves meaningful support and paid staff provide that consistency, dedicated time and energy.

It also sounds like the instructors are filling in for admin work. That's not the work they were drawn in for. It's great that they love your org, but they clearly are people whose passion is teaching theatre. Don't you want them doing what they truly love, and not risking burnout and dull-out by doing administrative minutiae? That work is very easy to fill with paid staff, doesn't require the same rare-ish talents, and yet is highly satisfying for people who like to be in a creative environment but aren't artists themselves.

In short, maybe rethink the way you're thinking about labor vs. value. It doesn't cheapen your value as an organization, or anyone's participation, to pay appropriately for labor. Nurture, and honoring work, works the same way for both paid and volunteer workers. Praise them, celebrate them, provide them an organized and professional workplace, honor their accomplishments, notice them. Paying doesn't take any of that away.
posted by Miko at 4:01 PM on April 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

But is my reluctance just an unconscious fear that we don't have a lot of financial leg-room even though we are making a reasonable profit?

Oh, also - this speaks to the need to budget for what your needs are. You're clearing your break-even point right now. You can be investing the additional cash into a cash reserve to increase your financial security. But if you are finding that you are afraid you can't pay for needed work, then you need to grow the budget - establish one or more new revenue streams, or increase your fundraising effort.
posted by Miko at 4:03 PM on April 24, 2023