I left my job.
I’m still getting used to saying that out loud. After nearly two and a half years as the first Executive Director of a new provincial association, I stepped away. I stepped back from nonprofit leadership. Not because I stopped believing in the mission — but because I couldn’t keep doing the work in a way that felt out of sync with who I am.
The Why vs. The How
The truth is, I loved the why. Affordable housing. Community. Advocacy. I believed in it deeply — I still do. But the how started to wear on me. The way decisions got made. The way power moved through the room. The gap between what we said we valued and how we treated each other when things got hard.
It wasn’t one thing. It was a slow build-up. Moments where I felt the distance between my values and the organization’s practices growing wider. Times when I found myself needing to adapt to systems I didn’t believe in rather than pushing back. I started to wonder: Am I building something meaningful, or just managing something that was never meant to work the way I think it should?
A Decision That Came in Waves
This choice didn’t arrive in a single flash of clarity. It came in waves. Late nights wondering if it was supposed to feel this hard. Mornings where I had to remind myself why I was doing this. A growing sense that I was holding back parts of myself to fit into a role that wasn’t built for all of me.
Leaving felt scary. It still does, some days. I’m walking away from a steady paycheque, a title, a professional identity I’d worked hard to build. But I’m also walking toward something — alignment, freedom, and the chance to do this work on my own terms.
Privilege and Pressure
I want to be honest about the privilege in this choice. Not everyone gets to leap. I’m able to do this because of savings, support, and a network I’ve built over years. I hold that with gratitude and responsibility. But this also comes with pressure — I still need to replace my income.
And I want to be equally honest about the fear. I don’t have it all figured out. I’m building the plane while flying it, as they say. But for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m heading in a direction that’s mine.
What I’ve Witnessed in Nonprofit Leadership
The Impossible Job
Executive Directors carry vast responsibilities — especially, ironically, in smaller organizations. Rural nonprofits. New nonprofits. Very targeted nonprofits with specific mandates and limited funding. In these organizations, the ED almost always wears all the hats: reporting to the board, bookkeeping, grant writing, and often delivering front-line services themselves.
It’s an impossible job dressed up as a reasonable one.
Stretched Volunteers, Struggling Boards
Meanwhile, volunteers are stretched thin. It’s hard to recruit board directors who can meet the commitments needed to govern well — especially when organizational values include being accessible, inclusive, and anti-racist. Engaged boards take ownership of their responsibilities. That’s a lot of work. In an ideal world, there would be support for the board’s administrative work that doesn’t fall on the ED.
But even with that support, it’s still a lot of work. A lot of time. A lot of energy.
No True Peers
EDs are in an unusual position. There are no true peers inside the organization. The board is the body that recruits, supervises, and — ideally — supports the ED in the challenges that arise day to day. They also set the strategic direction and priorities, in collaboration with the ED.
But here’s the tension: it’s always a double-edged sword when employees go to their supervisor for support. How will this admission of struggle show up in the performance review? How honest can you really be with the people who decide whether you keep your job?
Most employees, when things get hard, can go up the chain — to a manager, to an ED, to a board. But for EDs? In nonprofit leadership, the board is the only option. There’s no next level. No neutral party. Just the people who hired you, evaluate you, and can let you go.
When Support Isn’t Supportive
When workload and competing priorities create challenges — when you’re drowning — while you’re also being criticized for not doing the impossible… you begin to question your abilities. You question the quality of your work. You lie awake at night wondering if everyone else can see what you’re starting to believe — that you’re not good enough.
I’ve watched colleagues burn out and leave the sector entirely. I did once too — and came back. I’ve had late-night conversations with other EDs who whisper the same question: Is it supposed to be this hard?
The answer, I’ve come to believe, is no. It’s not supposed to be this hard. The problem isn’t the people — it’s the structures we’ve inherited and rarely question.
A Different Vision: Decolonized, Collaborative Governance
Better Ways Exist
After working for so long with marginalized communities — and navigating patriarchal colonial systems as a woman — I believe there are better ways.
It’s time to rethink what the default looks like.
If we want to provide community resources that truly respond to community needs, we need to bring people in at every stage. Not as an afterthought. Not as a consultation checkbox. From the beginning.
The Case for Consensus
Decisions made by consensus often take longer. I won’t pretend otherwise. But when everyone has buy-in, the decisions stick. People follow through because they helped shape the direction — not because they were told what to do.
What Collaboration Actually Means
Collaborative governance is not handing something to the ED to be rubber-stamped or debated at the final draft stage. Collaboration doesn’t work when it only happens at the end.
In my experience, some version of this pattern shows up with every board. Sometimes it’s deliberate — boards consciously push work downward. Sometimes it’s unconscious — they simply don’t realize the work exists or that it belongs to them.
In nonprofit leadership true collaboration means boards and EDs working together as co-leaders. Boards are responsible for governance; EDs are accountable to them. That structure matters. But within it, there’s room for real partnership — where both bring expertise, both own their responsibilities, and both support each other in service of the mission.
Mutual Respect and Shared Power
It means mutual respect. It means EDs can ask for help without fear of it showing up in their performance review. It means boards take ownership of their own work (with support from the E.D. when and how that’s appropriate) — governance, fundraising, strategic thinking — rather than pushing everything downward and then wondering why the ED is overwhelmed.
It means decolonizing how we lead nonprofits. Questioning the structures we’ve inherited. Asking: Who designed this system, and who was it designed to serve?
I don’t have all the answers. But I know what I want to help build: organizations where the people doing the work are supported, where power is shared on purpose, and where the way we treat each other inside the organization reflects the values we claim to hold in our missions.
Why I Needed to Leave to Do This Work
Liberation
Once I made the decision, I felt liberated.
Those who know me know I have strong opinions. In my jobs — even after leaving government — I felt stifled. At times better, at times worse, but rarely have I had the freedom to speak from my heart without needing to temper it.
The Unwritten Rules
There are things you can’t say when you’re employed. Not because anyone tells you not to — though sometimes they do — but because you learn the boundaries. You learn which opinions are “too much.” You learn to soften your language, to wrap your beliefs in diplomatic neutrality, to represent the organization rather than yourself.
That neutrality doesn’t stay in its lane. I wanted to protect government funding for community housing — so I didn’t speak publicly about cuts to arts funding, or social services, or any of the other things I cared about. I was afraid one wrong word would damage the relationship. I made myself smaller in every direction, not just the one that was technically my job.
One Word
Case in point: I once commented “yay” on a friend’s post about an Member of Parliament (MP) crossing the floor. I confirmed that he is my MP and that he did in fact join the government caucus, “yay!” — and got an email from my board chair worried about future political fallout (if and when the opposition returns to power). One word. Commenting on my friend’s personal account from my personal account.
I edited my response to delete the “yay”.
The Cost of Staying Quiet
For years, I did that. I was “professional Trish” — measured, strategic, careful. And there’s value in that. I don’t regret learning how to navigate complex systems and relationships with care.
But there’s a cost, too.
The cost is the slow erosion of your own voice. The moments you stay quiet when you want to speak. The times you write the safe version instead of the real one. The gradual separation between who you are in a meeting and who you are at your kitchen table, talking with people you trust.
What Was I Protecting?
I held back knowing there were relationships that needed to be protected — for the organization’s sake, for the sector’s standing with government, for the people who depended on those connections. And now? Our government is beginning to dismantle that anyway. Budget cuts to community grants, arts funding, nonprofit supports — the very relationships I was careful not to damage are being severed from the other side.
So what was I protecting?
What I Actually Believe
I believe in housing justice — not as a policy position, but as a moral imperative. I believe the nonprofit sector is riddled with colonial structures we’ve inherited and rarely question. I believe too many Executive Directors are burning out. In many organizations, boards aren’t truly owning their governance work, often don’t understand how heavy the ED’s load already is — and yet the ED takes on even more in the name of “board support.” I believe we need to deconstruct how we lead, how we govern, and how we treat each other.
These aren’t neutral positions. And I got tired of pretending they were.
One Trish
Leaving my job means I get to say what I actually believe. I get to advocate openly — like signing my name to an open letter about budget cuts without wondering how it will affect my organization’s funding relationships. I get to align my work with my values — housing, women’s rights, equity, justice, dignity — without filtering myself through institutional caution.
It means I get to be one Trish. Not the professional version and the real version. Just me.
That’s not a small thing. For anyone who’s spent years code-switching, softening, or staying quiet to keep the peace — you know what I mean. Reclaiming your voice isn’t just about freedom. It’s about integrity. It’s about finally being whole.
What’s Next
Values Alignment
So what now?
I want to work with organizations whose values align with mine. If you care about social justice — if you believe it’s our responsibility as humans to care for one another, and that this can only happen when we engage, connect, and include those we’re trying to serve — I want to hear from you.
I’m excited about helping social purpose organizations become more sustainable while having greater impact. Not just surviving, but thriving — in ways that don’t burn out the people doing the work.
Speaking Up
And I’m excited to speak up, speak out, and speak for those without a voice. To have the freedom to be my authentic self in all aspects of life — not just when I’m sitting around the kitchen table with my most trusted people.
The Gen X Reality
Here’s the other truth: I’m Gen X. We’re the generation that thought we’d follow our parents into early-ish retirement. Instead, many of us wonder if we’ll ever retire at all. Our pensions aren’t enough. We’re mortgaged to the hilt. And many of us don’t see a clear way out. At the same time, we’re living longer, healthier lives — which means we need to keep working, but maybe not in the same ways.
Obviously, I’m generalizing here.
Freedom and Flexibility
For me, building a location-independent business means freedom. The freedom to travel. The freedom to keep earning a living on my own terms. The flexibility I need to work while living with chronic pain — something I don’t often talk about, but that shapes how I need to structure my life.
The Fear Is Real
I won’t pretend I have it all figured out. The fear is real — specifically, the fear of not earning enough. Of putting myself out there and hearing silence. Of wondering whether anyone will pay for what I’m offering, or whether I’ve overestimated my own value. That’s imposter syndrome talking, and I know it. But knowing it doesn’t make it quiet.
The Power of Choice
And yet — for the first time in a long time, I get to choose. I get to say yes to the work that aligns with my values and no to the work that doesn’t. I get to show up as myself.
This isn’t work that can be approached with a formula. It’s hard work that we all need to show up for. If you’re looking for someone to hand you a template and walk away, I’m not your person. But if you’re ready to dig in and do the work together, let’s talk.
Let’s Connect
If any of this resonates — if you’re leading a small nonprofit and you’re exhausted, or if you’re on a board wondering how to do this differently — or if you simple feel aligned with something I said and simply want to connect — I’d love to hear from you.
Connect with me on LinkedIn, check out my new website trishmccourt.com, or email me at consulting@trish.mccourt.com. I’m still figuring this out, but I’m figuring it out in public — and I’d rather do that in community than alone.
On Change
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that everything we experience changes us — especially when we allow ourselves to fully process the hard stuff. If we make it through and really sit with what we’ve experienced, we come out the other side changed for the better.
I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. But I do believe we can find a reason for everything.
The Work Ahead
That belief shapes how I work. I partner with social purpose organizations navigating their own hard stuff — growth, transition, systems that aren’t working, teams stretched too thin. This isn’t work that can be approached with a formula. It’s hard work that we all need to show up for — me as the consultant, and you as the Executive Director and Board.
I want to work with organizations whose values align with mine: a commitment to social justice, a belief that we’re responsible for caring for one another, and an understanding that real impact only happens when we engage, connect, and include those we’re trying to serve.
Building Something That Lasts
Strong organizations create strong communities. Let’s build something that lasts.
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