The Weight We Carry

The true cost of not being real

“I feel a heavy cloak on me. And yet, I have to perform — because my livelihood depends on my ability to put it all aside and show up. The thing is, what I’m performing actually reflects my deepest values — the very thing I believe will lift the cloak. But I can’t do it fully. I feel… out of sync.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like that from a colleague. 

In quiet conversations with people I’ve been in relationship with over the years — program officers, executive directors, cultural organizers, community builders — I’ve been hearing different versions of the same thing. 

“I’m exhausted.” 

There is something that grinds you down when you have to perform. This is true on both sides of the funding equation. But we don’t often acknowledge the toll this takes on the people inside philanthropy. When you have to show up with full composure and a cool-headed analysis… but there is something more full-throated, raw, and human just underneath the surface. You want to scream, you want to hide, you want to escape - but you can’t. You have to bottle it all up inside. 

And then you’re expected to lead. To make coherent decisions in response to realities we never imagined would come. But the tools we’ve been trained to use — the language, the frameworks, the mental models — don’t match the moment we’re in. 

We believed the structures and systems we were building, reforming, and critiquing within and between the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors were permanent. And that institutional perpetuity and objectivity would somehow protect us. We were operating under the logic that the philanthropic–nonprofit industrial complex was a steely machine — one we could poke, prod, and tinker with forever. 

But it’s not a machine. We are an organism made up of messy, feeling human beings. And that discombobulated organism is now under serious threat. 

Crying for Courage

Across the field, there’s no shortage of calls for courage. Posts and panels demanding that philanthropy finally get it together — speak up, take risks, fund movements without strings.

“Philanthropy must be brave enough to take sides.”“You’ve had your statements. Where’s the money?”“We don’t need more white papers. We need courage. Now.”

It’s not just rhetoric — it’s rage. It’s heartbreak. It’s the sound of people watching their organizations unravel while waiting for an answer that may never come.

Nonprofits are laying off 60, 70, even 80% of their staff. Budgets are imploding. Programs are being cut midstream.

Funders who once checked in regularly have gone quiet. Meetings postponed. Emails unanswered. 

In the absence of communication, people are left to fill in the gaps. What many grantees hear in the silence is: You’re on your own. 

But what I’m hearing from my friends and colleagues in philanthropy is: 

“We don’t know what to say.”“We don’t have clarity yet.”“We want to be supportive, but we don’t want to promise something we can’t follow through on.”

I hear an authentic desire to be good stewards. To show up with clarity, not add to confusion. To show up with answers. Stability. Reassurance. Certainty.

But the inner life of the social change field — its beliefs, habits, mental models, and reward systems — makes the kind of raw honesty and presence this moment requires nearly impossible. 

Because beneath the white knuckles of tight control, the rules and processes and sanitized statements, there is grief. There is shame. There is fear. 

It’s not because people inside of philanthropy don’t care — but because we’re scared to be seen mid-process. Scared to be honest about the fact that - despite all the resources at our fingertips, the vantage points we hold, the power we possess - we haven’t been building ourselves up to show up for this moment we’re in. 

And so, ghosting becomes the default. And it’s happening when we need each other most. 

A Sector on Edge

We need courage. 

Courage doesn’t emerge when you’re fragmented, isolated, or stretched beyond your limits. It arises from an organism — a human, an organization, a network, a movement, a system composed of living, breathing, awake beings  — that has some degree of rhythm, alignment, and awareness of its own power. 

But you can’t be courageous when you’re disembodied and disoriented. You can’t analyze your way into boldness. And you can’t shame a nervous system into clarity.

Most of our institutions operate from a top-heavy, heady state, stiff, inflexible. We are unable to dance, unable to respond and move dynamically as part of an alive world.  

We build complex theories of change. We convene endless strategy sessions. We nitpick our words and agonize over how bold our bold public statements can be. We honestly think we can think our way through any challenge. 

We rarely ask:

How are we proactively practicing and making courage possible?

How are we supporting people and organizations — at every level, size, and scale — to stay grounded in an inner compass, accountable to real people’s lives, and free to boldly create, shift and evolve based on what’s really going on?

Most philanthropic and nonprofit institutions don’t have the musculature for that kind of work.

The emotional and relational stamina it takes to discern and act from a place of coherence is rarely cultivated, much less rewarded. 

The stamina to endure and move boldly requires alignment.

When I say alignment, I don’t mean complex systems mapped by a smart group of people in a room far removed from real consequences. I don’t mean tidy theories of change that promise control over volatility and uncertainty, with a few pretty powerpoint graphics and neatly packaged silver bullets. 

Alignment looks like people who have been having the right kind of conflict together over time— relationally, emotionally, structurally - across power and perspective differences. People who have been sharpened by trust, tension, and real accountability to real constituencies. People who know how to fight well with each other and for what matters, without breaking apart and without needing to predict the outcomes before we are willing to put skin in the game.  

This kind of alignment allows our full potency and energy to flow through. It’s what makes real courage possible in moments like this. 

A Different Kind of Power

When we move from that place, we gain a different kind of power. It’s a power that moves us beyond self-protection. Beyond critique and blame of ourselves and each other. 

It’s the kind of power that moves us to take total responsibility for this moment, together - and to own what comes next. 

We’ve been trained to lead with control, to stay polished, to manage risk. But that comes at a steep cost — to our people, our insight, and our capacity to respond to what this moment is actually asking of us.

But when we bottle up what we’re really feeling — grief, fear, doubt, insight — we don’t neutralize it. We just push it down deeper into our psyche. And it comes out somewhere else. In burnout. In cynicism. In avoidance. In giving up. In the repetition of solutions that no longer fit. In good people leaving right when we need them to dig in and build what matters for the future. 

It takes courage to stay and care as part of systems that weren’t built for it. And I see people all around me caring hard, trying to stay honest in systems that rarely reward it. People who choose straight-talk over performance, and sometimes get their hand slapped when they do. This kind of courage is not always dramatic. It can be a quiet no. An apology. A perhaps. The decision to pick up the phone when it would be easier not to. 

And those small moves matter. They begin to shift how we show up. They stitch little threads of trust into our relationships. They give us tiny glimmers of what might be. They loosen our joints. Let our circulation flow. 

Because courage is not a trait. It’s a practice. 

I don’t believe we’re going to get it right. In fact, we won’t. I also don’t know what comes next. I have more questions than answers. 

But if we want something different, we have to create the permission structures for people to practice courage every day. With presence. With honesty. With the willingness to move — even before we feel fully ready.

What I’m talking about is not a strategy. It’s not about how we’re going to fix broken things. 

It’s about setting down the weight we’re carrying, rolling our shoulders, breathing in and breathing out. It’s reaching out to the person next to us, and looking out at the horizon. 

Everything is changing. It always has. So let’s meet the world as it is.