Does your non-profit ask you to work overtime for no pay? Here’s what Canadian workers say

Taylor was excited to start working at a small, grassroots non-profit on Canada’s East Coast a few years ago, but it didn’t take long for a problematic pattern to take hold — the disability advocate was being asked to perform uncompensated labour on top of her regular work.

“My experience at this organization, in particular, kind of pushed at some of the legal limits,” she said. 

“They tried to explain it away by just saying this is how non-profits are, but the amount of unpaid work and work that you don’t get directly compensated for feels unethical.”

Taylor quit after a year of unpaid overtime and completing tasks outside her job description. 

However, the issue of uncompensated labour popped up again at her next non-profit position.

“There’s still that sort of message that, if you are actually dedicated to this work, you won’t care about working through your lunch break,” she said.

New data from Carleton University‘s Charity Insights Canada Project shows how common Taylor’s experience is at Canadian non-profits. 

More than 50 per cent of organizations that responded to a survey earlier this year said their staff regularly perform uncompensated labour, defined as work for which no salary or time in lieu is provided.

Only 39 per cent of respondents said employees did not provide uncompensated labour, while five per cent said they had no paid staff members.

Future of Good spoke to more than a dozen past and present non-profit employees about their experiences. 

While many — like Taylor — requested some level of anonymity to protect current and future employment opportunities, all believed the problem to be widespread.

Helen Krygsman said she was frequently expected to volunteer for the prominent non-profit service provider she spent more than two decades working for in Southwestern Ontario. 

Even though she enjoyed teaching, Krygsman left her role as program coordinator for education last spring and now works as a realtor and renovator.

“A lot of your time and effort was on a volunteer basis, so unpaid, and if you’re raising kids, and you need that income, that’s a high expectation to have,” she said. 

It wasn’t unusual for her to be expected to organize and execute fundraising events, something falling far outside of her job description. 

Future of Good heard about similar prohlems from individuals who had worked at the same non-profit and from other non-profits across Canada.

Another common complaint? Being asked to provide specialized knowledge or skills unrelated to one’s job, ranging from being called to compile organizational tax documents to sharing lived experiences with stakeholders.

A 20-something trans man working at an esteemed academic institution in Ontario described being repeatedly asked to share his expertise on gender identity issues with senior staff members and medical researchers, even though he’s employed as an office manager.

He said jumping into the consultant role took an emotional toll and increased his workload. The result? Working extra hours without being compensated.

“I’m making under 40k a year, but there’s a lot of pressure because of the power dynamic,” he said. 

“So regardless of whether I want to have the conversation or not, it feels like I need to do this unpaid work to stay in my job.”

Class and socioeconomic status also contribute to uncompensated work but are rarely recognized as contributing factors and, therefore, are not addressed in the non-profit sector.

“I think there’s an expectation of unpaid expertise from certain people in the non-profit sector … I don’t think that, if I was a person with a PhD sitting at that desk doing the same work, that I would be having the same conversations regardless of my gender or gender expression.” 

“I’m seen as a different person. Therefore, I’m seen as someone who doesn’t need to be paid for their labour.”

The ‘sickness’ around the globe

It’s a problem stretching far beyond Canada’s borders.

“It is a sickness of the NGOs across the globe. I don’t think I have found an NGO that doesn’t do that,” said Alejandro Ibarra from his home in Quito, Ecuador. 

“And I call it the sickness of the NGOs because, in the end, it’s something that lives inside you; it hurts, it affects you, but you have to carry on.”

Ibarra has been a project manager in the non-profit sector for nearly 15 years, working with Indigenous communities in the Amazon on building resilience while protecting biodiversity, as well as urban communities creating inclusive climate-resilient food systems.

His work is often funded by organizations in the Global North and frequently includes tasks and time he isn’t compensated for. 

Limited funding is a big part of the problem, Ibarra said.

“They can’t pay a lot for staff members, they can’t pay overtime, they can’t pay for certain things, but the work still needs to be done,” he said. 

“And we, as members of the NGOs, especially us working on humanitarian projects who tend to have our hearts in our jobs, we usually say, okay, we will do it because we are working for people.”

Blurred lines, gender and bargaining power

Tammy Schirle, an economics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, said there are “blurry lines” regarding uncompensated labour in the non-profit sector.

“Should your employment contract require you to do volunteer work? Well, no, not if you’re following basic employment standards,” she said. 

“But if you’re in a job where you don’t have a lot of negotiating power, and your employer’s expecting you to put in some volunteer hours, saying no might depend on what kind of bargaining power you have.”

Refusing uncompensated labour is likely more difficult for salaried workers, Schirle said, adding it can be easier for employees paid an hourly rate to establish boundaries because their schedules are well-defined.

It’s also reasonable to assume there’s a correlation between uncompensated labour and gender at charitable organizations, she said. 

About 77 per cent of all non-profit employees in Canada are also women, a demographic whose work has long been undervalued. 

“There are gendered expectations of caregiving … and I would expect that to play out in the not-for-profit sector,” Schirle said. 

“Women are just expected to take on these roles, and nobody questions it, so (organizations) often are quicker to ask women to take on this work without really thinking about it and expect a yes rather than a no.”

For Bruce MacDonald, CEO of Imagine Canada, the Charity Insights survey generates more questions than conclusions. 

He said a lack of benchmarking data makes it difficult to compare the non-profit sector to other sectors of the Canadian economy.

“It would be very interesting to understand if this is a long-held pattern,” he said. 

“Also, how does this compare to work in the private sector?”

MacDonald said tough questions should be asked if the issue disproportionately affects the non-profit sector. The average salary at a community non-profit is already almost $20,00 less than in the general economy, he noted.

“If, on top of that, there are expectations where organizations are not paying in a reasonable way, that calls into question our practice as employers,” he said. 

“And I think what’s really helpful about this is that it invites a further examination both as a sector and as individual organizations.”

According to Charity Insights data, senior managers who performed uncompensated labour averaged 35 unpaid hours per month.

Mid-level staff contributed 15 hours per month, while entry-level employees averaged seven hours.

Those who shared their experiences said performing uncompensated labour routinely led to chronic burnout, compassion fatigue, stress and exhaustion. In some cases, it also diminished the quality of the services a given organization provided.

One woman who contacted Future of Good described working through holidays to complete projects. She said the onslaught of uncompensated labour at an Ottawa-based non-profit “nearly destroyed” her. 

She ended up leaving the position.

“Some days are better than others, even now, and speaking about it brings me right back there,” she said. 

“People don’t understand how bad it can get.”

Like others in the sector, she described constantly negotiating with her employer over what additional tasks she would be assigned. 

She said refusing to do unpaid work resulted in lost opportunities for advancement.

“You will find the same exact things happening everywhere,” said Ibarra. “And that means people don’t stay in these jobs; organizations are left in a cycle of constantly recruiting and training, which ends up using more resources.” 

Rachel, a 30-something working at an American non-profit focused on early childhood development, recounted a similar cycle of stress and turnover as she took on unpaid tasks.

Current funding models, often rooted in an undervaluing of charitable work and an overvaluing of reporting mechanisms, are contributing to the issue of uncompensated labour, she said.

When she worked additional, uncompensated hours, it was usually to meet the reporting requirements of benefactors reticent to fund overhead costs adequately.

“I do think that there’s starting to be a shift in terms of culture, where non-profits just aren’t these recipients forever grovelling at a philanthropic donor, but it’s slow,” she said. 

“Non-profits also need to stand up for themselves and say, ‘Hey, we are deserving of this because we are providing a service to the community, the public, that’s badly needed.’”

Trust-based philanthropy could help reduce the amount of unpaid labour performed by staff at many non-profits by lessening the burden of reporting, she said, a sentiment echoed by Ibarra and others in the field.

Is more money the solution or government intervention?

When economists discuss charities, they often refer to the “free rider problem,” as Schirle put it. This is a particular kind of market failure in which people enjoy seeing charities’ work and benefit from it but expect someone else to pay for it. 

One solution could involve giving charities more tax dollars. Still, Schirle said bigger questions need to be asked when non-profits provide core services, like those needed by people living with disabilities.

“I think there’s a good argument that can be made to say that these services really need to be provided as government services with solid, dedicated funding,” she said. 

“We shouldn’t be relying on charities to raise the money for this because you’re going to see insufficient provision.” 

And when funding is inadequate, staff are often asked to do more, said Schirle.

According to Volunteer Canada, a volunteer shortage is contributing to greater demands being placed on non-profit staff. It found that as many as 65 per cent of non-profit organizations are currently experiencing volunteer shortages.

Data analyzed by the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations also determined that 28 per cent of Canadian non-profit employees are working additional hours to take on work previously done by volunteers. 

“It’s a very complicated subject, but I think that we have an understanding that non-profit workers are not being paid fairly,” said Taylor. 

She said funders and donors often work from the assumption that money spent on staff somehow detracts from programming and services rather than bolsters them.

“There’s sort of ideology that kind of runs through these non-profits, this idea that people in the non-profit industry have to sacrifice things in their life, to sacrifice good pay, stable health benefits and all of those sorts of things in order to contribute to a greater cause,” said Taylor. 

“So I do think it’s a societal issue that needs to be addressed.”