By Chris Talbot-Heindl, communications professional

… give [your employees] a raise or a bonus — not a gift card that will sit in their wallets for the next five years (or until it expires).

Usually at the end of any given year, all throughout Facebook Nonprofit Group Land, white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled women in HR and director positions start numerous posts asking different variations of, “What end of the year gift should we be giving our employees to show our appreciation for their work?”

And the answer is always the same, from me, anyway — a raise or a bonus. Please don’t give people desk organizers (supplies should be provided by workplaces, not given as gifts) or gift cards to “nice” (read: expensive) restaurants.

(I still have an unused gift card from 2017, an end of the year gift from a job, because I can’t justify spending hard-earned cash to complete the cost of a meal that the gift card doesn’t cover, not to mention spending $3 on bus fare and giving up an hour on a bus in order to redeem this card when I could get ingredients for two meals at the grocery store just five blocks away.)

Bottom line: Unless you know your employees are financially secure, understand their history with money, and have their tastes down to a T, give them a raise or a bonus — not a gift card that will sit in their wallets for the next five years (or until it expires).

In 2020, the question changed a bit (I almost said “pivoted”; 2020 has changed me). The question became: “Should we be giving raises this year or can we get out of it since 2020 was a dumpster fire?” or some variation of that. One person I saw even added: “Is [giving raises] the wrong precedent to set when folks didn’t hit fundraising budgets for them to get a raise?”

First of all, really? You really expected people to hit fundraising budgets set months before a global pandemic shut down the economy and forced an unemployment rate of nearly 15%? And you’re planning on basing raises given on whether or not your fundraisers were able to meet this wholly unmeetable goal?

Beyond that, we need to look at the equity of this even further.

Personal history and identity shape how we weather financial turmoil

The problem that a lot of white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled HR representatives and directors don’t understand is that we don’t all have the same ability to weather these hits as they come, and a lot of that will have to do with our history, which, of course, has a lot to do with our intersections.

Confession time: I’m an extremely underpaid communications professional. (Really. Not just low for nonprofits — low beyond that. My rate doesn’t even show up on LinkedIn’s graph of communications manager salaries in my local region for an entry-level employee, and I’ve got 18 years experience.).

I’ve (unwillingly) foregone two cost-of-living increases in a row, in 2019 and 2020, (and did get one to start in 2021) because the organization I work at didn’t meet its financial goals in the previous years (though I well-exceeded mine — prior to 2020, that is).

What does foregoing a cost-of-living increase mean for people like me? And why should that matter to our employers?

It could mean receiving two rent payments less than if we had gotten cost-of-living increases.

As someone living just above the line where I would qualify for renter’s assistance, two rental payments is a pretty big deal. And as someone who’s been unhoused multiple times and who’s lived in poverty most of my adult life, this can also be emotionally and mentally triggering.

In 2019, my spouse and I had an unbelievably hard year — both emotionally and financially. His mother and oldest sister both lost their battles with cancer. When we came back from his sister’s funeral, our cat, Badashanren, had jaundice. Despite his hospitalization, he did not recover and he died as well. On top of the mental anguish of all of this death, we drained our meager savings. We were once again living paycheck to paycheck.

And then 2020 happened. My spouse was laid off for months and has worked part time since. For us, would two rent payments have made all the difference? Probably yes!

So again, why should our employers care?

Well, it’s really hard to shut off who we are when we go to work. Especially if who we are and who we’ve been includes housing and food insecurities. When we have insecurities like these ones, all of our brain power goes towards survival.

Let me say that again: All our brain power goes to survival. Because it needs to.

Employers: If you don’t care for your employees individually, care that their production will be lower and their attention divided if they have to worry about these things. (I mean, care about your employees individually, too. But if you absolutely can’t …)

The problem that a lot of white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled HR representatives and directors don’t understand is that we don’t all have the same ability to weather these hits as they come, and a lot of that will have to do with our history, which, of course, has a lot to do with our intersections.

Not to mention, surviving a global pandemic (so far) isn’t the only thing some of us are contending with. Others of us had other traumas this year.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died. But the deaths were not equal across the races, due to a disproportionate number of “essential” workers as well as centuries of environmental injustices enacted against marginalized communities. Compared to non-Hispanic white people, Indigenous Americans were 2.6x more likely to die from coronavirus; Black and Hispanic or Latinx people were 2.8x more likely.

Over the summer, in the midst of the pandemic, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services removed nondiscrimination protections for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersexual, Queer/Questioning, Asexual/Agender, Two Spirit, plus (LGBTIQA2+) Americans. Under the change, LGBTIQA2+ Americans could be denied care, even emergency care, if the hospital or doctor had a “moral or religious belief” that went counter to caring for that person.

2020 was one of the deadliest years for trans people and because the trans panic defense is still allowed in most states’ courts, their murderers are unlikely to be prosecuted.

Black people were murdered in broad daylight by unapologetic police officers and random white people with guns, who got away with it. Then white friends, acquaintances, and co-workers all debated the guilt or innocence of the Black people murdered, the validity of the Black Lives Matter movement, and so many more things they have no background in.

2020 has been one of the most traumatic years in modern U.S. history. And not everyone had the same resources going into this traumatic year, to help us weather it.

Passion exploitation can damage marginalized staffs’ long-term financial security

I once got in an argument with an HR representative who chastised me for asking for a performance review and raise because I was experiencing a financial hit. She said that if I wanted to be rolling in the cash, I should have picked the corporate sector. She basically said that “those of us” who choose to do nonprofit work should see our compensation in moving the needle forward in our respective movements, not in cash bonuses and good pay.

That, for me, was pretty ignorant. This white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled woman came from money. She had her education paid for, she could call her parents for help anytime she needed, and any financial burdens she experienced would be temporary — because she will inherit generational wealth.

Those of us without generational wealth — BIPOCs, LGBTIQA2+ folx, and disabled folx — are more likely to have extended periods of entry-level (read: low-paid) employment due to biases in hiring and career advancement. We don’t have the same safety nets as our white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled co-workers.

One of the times I was unhoused, I worked at an environmental nonprofit. I couch-surfed for a roof over my head.

In this sector, working as much as we do, we should not have to worry about where we sleep or how we would eat. In this sector, setting up a company culture of passion exploitation means that white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled people from middle-class-and-up upbringings are the only people who will be able to afford to work at nonprofits.

If organizations are not up front with your employees from marginalized backgrounds upon hiring — letting them know that you will balance the budget on their backs if you have a bad year — organizations can end up doing real damage to your staff’s long-term financial security.

When organizations decide not to give a cost-of-living increase to their employees, they are essentially forcing them to take a pay cut because inflation doesn’t stop and my landlord certainly doesn’t stop increasing my rent when the organization has a bad year (or three in a row).

So, what about performance increases?

Take into account the circumstances of employees. Who rents and who has experienced significant rent hikes? Who cares for many dependents who are unable to work? Who has always been struggling in your organization to pay their bills, even before 2020?

I personally think we should throw performance-based increases out the window. Everyone deserves an increase whether or not they showed impeccable performance. They stuck with the organization, did what they could, and they showed up. None of those things should be negated as “not performing” during a traumatic year. Remember: in times of insecurity, all your brain power goes to survival. The fact that any of your employees, especially those from marginalized communities, spared some of their brain power towards making sure the machinations of your organization kept going is performance.

And if you don’t have enough in reserves for across-the-board increases?

This is where the equity vs. equality debate needs to come into play.

Equality is when you theoretically give each person the same resources and opportunities. Equity is when you recognize that each person has different systemic privileges and allocate resources and opportunities based on this context.

I once was denied a payout I was owed for over three years until I basically begged for it. The idea was that if the payout couldn’t be paid to everyone who was owed one, then no one should get it.

I had asked for the payout when my printer broke (at this particular remote workplace, I was responsible for outfitting my own home office — not very equitable, by the way.). My request was denied.

I asked again a year later after an emergency trip to visit a family member in the hospital. I was denied.

I asked again, half a year later following bills from a family member’s hospital stay. I was again, initially denied, until I wrote out documentation of the inequity I was experiencing (through incurring interest on huge sums of money to balance the organization’s budget when that money was owed to me).

The excuse that it “wouldn’t be fair” to pay my payout and not others did not hold water for me. None of my coworkers were pushing for their own payout because none of them had the circumstances that I did. All of them owned homes and were financially stable.

How was it “fair” to make me incur huge debts and pay interest on those debts because I wasn’t being paid equitably?

Now is the time to scrutinize your budget to see if your employees from marginalized communities are being compensated fairly. Too often, BIPOC, disabled folx, and LGBTIQA2+ folx are paid less than their white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled counterparts. The excuses for this range from “that’s what they asked for” to “it was similar to previous compensation they’d received” to “they don’t have the formal education that non-marginalized employees have.” These excuses further inequities and ignore questions of accessibility and opportunity.

If these biases are at play in your compensation, fix them.

Take into account the circumstances of employees. Who rents and who has experienced significant rent hikes? Who cares for many dependents who are unable to work? Who has always been struggling in your organization to pay their bills, even before 2020? Who has spouses or partners who have been laid off or had their hours cut? Who has medical bills from either contracting or assisting someone who contracted coronavirus? Who had to pay for burials or funerals this year?

Give these folx raises.

Don’t be like that HR representative who assumed that her life, her resources, and the safety nets in place for her is the blueprint for all nonprofit workers. Think it through, and do the right thing. And always give a cost of living increase, especially after 2020!