Investing in Wellbeing: A Core Strategy for Lasting Impact in Philanthropy

Investing in Wellbeing Investing in Wellbeing:

A Core Strategy for Lasting Impact in Philanthropy

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The resilience and impact of the nonprofit sector hinge on the wellness of its people.

Once seen as a peripheral concern, wellbeing is now central to philanthropy—especially amid declining funding, shrinking civic space, and rising social and climate pressures. Even more, research shows that prioritising wellbeing has immense social, psychological and economic returns, including up to $11.7 trillion in global economic value, higher retention, improved productivity and a more resilient and adaptive workforce capable of navigating complex change.

At Laudes Foundation, we did not come to this conclusion alone. Our growing commitment to wellbeing was shaped by listening to philanthropic peers and especially our partners. This prompted us to pilot targeted initiatives aimed at strengthening wellbeing—and in doing so, to also reflect on our own internal culture and practices. We are learning alongside our partners and still have a long way to go.

This article explores three key insights drawn from that experience, and from emerging research, to offer a roadmap for how funders can more intentionally support nonprofit resilience through wellbeing.

1. Challenging Perfectionism and Efficiency as Dominant Values

In philanthropy, the pressure to demonstrate impact can lead to an overemphasis on delivering programmatic efficiency and perfection. While these values are often seen as benchmarks of success, they can unintentionally create unattainable standards that nonprofits feel pressured to meet.

When grant-making culture skews towards a “maximum output” mentality, burnout can become more than a risk—it can become systemic. Historian Jill Lepore’s work underscores this issue, framing burnout as not only a consequence of modern workplace demands but as a “badge of success” within performance-driven environments. In the nonprofit sector, the damage is compounded by the emotional burden of mission-driven work, often leading to moral distress—the gap between what one aspires to do and what limited resources make possible.

To shift this and embrace flexibility and care in how we fund, funders must examine their own expectations. Are we applying pressure through rigid KPIs, unrealistic timelines, or inflexible reporting demands? Are we inadvertently valuing deliverables over the people delivering them?

2. Philanthropy Should Fund Nonprofits to Win, Not Just Survive

A primary barrier to achieving nonprofit resilience lies in funders’ tendency toward transactional rather than transformational funding. This can manifest as rigid grant structures, burdensome reporting, or inflexible budgeting. Ultimately, this has created an internalised culture of scarcity among the nonprofit sector, where results, programmatic growth, and scale are prioritised often at the expense of the very individuals driving the work.

We must recognise that nonprofits are not all the same, and thus a culture of scarcity is also an issue of equity. They vary by size, geography, sector, and the lived experiences of their leadership and staff—all of which intersect to shape their access to power, funding, and influence. Smaller organisations—especially those led by women, youth, or people from marginalised communities—are often more deeply affected by power imbalances, underfunded operational costs, and donor-imposed constraints.

To be genuinely effective, best practice shows funders must move beyond “project funding” and instead provide multi-year, flexible grants that cover core costs, fair wages, staff retention, and leadership development, among others. It’s about investing in both what an organisation does and who it is. When nonprofits can budget for the time and wellbeing of their people—not just their outputs—they can build stronger, more adaptive teams and a culture of care that allows innovation and resilience to flourish.

3. What We Learned from Funding Wellbeing Initiatives

Supporting wellbeing initiatives as a funder sends a powerful message: we see the people behind the work and we care about their health, as well as the organisations’ broader culture and sustainability.

Our wellbeing support came from listening to what partners needed to thrive and thus connecting the benefits of wellbeing to our strategic goals. This became the starting point of our Wellbeing Pilot, which offered partners EUR 10,000 stipends alongside tailored advisory support from experts in mental health and psychological support to design and implement culturally relevant wellbeing initiatives over the course of one year.

The initiatives that emerged were as diverse as our partners—ranging from mental health support and team building exercises to improved workspaces, coaching, and activities to alleviate financial stress. While these grants were too modest in size to deeply transform organisations, they proved catalytic. For many partners, it was the first time they had engaged their boards, leadership, or teams in open conversations about wellbeing, and thus helped to normalise a topic that has long remained hidden behind mission-driven urgency.

As one partner noted, “I’ve never had a wellbeing budget from a funder before… the fact that we’ve got it means we can have discussions with the team about what to do with it. In the grand scheme of things, the amount of money we got isn’t much, but it’s a massive boost to the organisation and the team. It’s so forward-thinking, and I wish other funders did it too.”

Through this journey we learned that:

Wellbeing Is Context-Specific—and Should Be:

Partners defined wellbeing in diverse ways, from mental health and stress management to team cohesion, leadership development, and organisational clarity. This reflected differences in team size, sector and geography, and reinforced the need for flexible support – rather than one-size-fits-all solutions – to ensure relevance and respect.

Leadership Buy-In Is Crucial:

Where leaders championed wellbeing, teams were more engaged, and initiatives took deeper root. Where buy-in was limited, progress stalled or felt surface-level. This reminded us that wellbeing cannot be siloed but rather modelled from the top and embedded into leadership behaviour and organisational values.

Cultural Grounding of Wellbeing Is as Important as Financial Support:

Despite the support provided many partners faced hurdles, such as staff seeing wellbeing as “extra work,” unclear priorities, or lack of time. These barriers showed that wellbeing is not just a new initiative—it often requires a shift in organisational culture. Partners who succeeded made time for open dialogue, addressed team hesitations, and aligned wellbeing with mission and strategy.

Organisational Development (OD) and Wellbeing Are Deeply Connected:

Some partners used the funding to strengthen internal systems or strategy, while others prioritised team care. Rather than separate domains, we found OD and wellbeing reinforce one another: well-run organisations are more likely to sustain wellbeing, and wellbeing, in turn, strengthens team performance and cohesion.

Sustaining Wellbeing Requires Creativity and Continued Ecosystem Support:

Many partners are exploring ways to sustain wellbeing—such as budgeting a portion of grants toward it or integrating it into team planning. But not all have the same capacity or external support to do so. Partners flagged the need for additional non-financial support through peer learning, access to trusted consultants, and shared tools or case studies. These ecosystem-level investments can help ensure that wellbeing is not a one-off intervention but a long-term practice.

Reinforcing Philanthropy as a Force for Wellbeing

Ultimately, this pilot showed us that we can not build impact on the back of a burned-out workforce. Prioritising wellbeing is not a distraction from outcomes—it is how we unlock them.

It is time for philanthropy to prioritise people over outputs, actively funding, offering technical support and normalising conversations about wellbeing with partners. At Laudes, we are trying to walk this talk—not just externally with partners, but also internally reviewing policies and practices to ensure that wellbeing is embedded into our own culture and operations.

Disrupting perfectionism, scarcity mindsets, and transactional relationships is not easy, but it is necessary to build a sector that is not only more effective, but also more humane, just, and resilient. We hope these lessons encourage others to invest in people, organisations and the ecosystem not as a trend, but as a core pillar of how we build a healthier, more just philanthropic sector.

Sources:

1. Thriving workplaces: How employers can improve productivity and change lives, McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum, 2025.

2. Partners shared wellbeing was a growing area of support during the 2022 Partner Perception Report, which was reinforced during direct conversations and the 2023 Partner Retreat.

3. Burnout: Modern Affliction or Human Condition?, The New Yorker, 2021.

4. The Psychology of Burnout within International Development, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2023.

5. Breaking the Starvation Cycle, Humentum, 2022.

6. Project Grants Still Need Not Be the Enemy: An Equity-Oriented Update One Year Later, Centre for Effective Philanthropy, 2022.

7. To Ensure Nonprofit Well-Being, Invest in Wages, Workload, and Working Conditions, Centre for Effective Philanthropy, 2024.

Belén GiaquintaLaudes FoundationPhilanthropy x Wellbeing