What is it about?
Why do people who join nonprofits to make a difference end up thinking about leaving? We interviewed employees, managers, leaders and funders across India’s nonprofit sector. We found that passion for the mission keeps many people going, but it is often not enough on its own. Low pay, heavy workloads, short-term project funding and limited career growth slowly wear down their commitment. Pressure from family and society adds to this, with expectations of a secure, well-paid and “respectable” job, especially around marriage and family responsibilities. Because jobs across the development sector are easy to find, many employees end up treating nonprofit work as a stepping stone rather than a lifelong career. Based on these insights, we developed a process framework. It shows that the thought of leaving builds up over time, step by step, as personal, organisational, family and sector pressures combine. It is rarely a sudden, one-off decision.
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Why is it important?
Nonprofits in India do vital work in health, education, livelihoods and community development, but many of them struggle to keep skilled staff. When experienced people leave, programmes are disrupted, community relationships suffer, and scarce money goes into hiring and training replacements. Most research on employee turnover comes from corporate settings in Western countries, so it misses the realities of Indian nonprofits: project-based funding, a mission-driven workforce, strong family and social expectations, and a large development-sector job market. Our study is among the first to explain how these forces combine over time to shape employees’ thoughts of leaving. The process framework gives nonprofit leaders, HR professionals and funders practical insight into when and why employees start to disengage. It also points to where support can make a difference, such as fairer pay, more stable funding, career pathways and supportive supervision.
Perspectives
This study grew out of the interest in why passionate, mission-driven people leave the organisations they once chose with purpose. Many of the people I interviewed spoke openly about the tension between their commitment to the cause and the practical pressures of building a stable life for themselves and their families. Their stories showed me that leaving is rarely a sign of lost passion. More often, it reflects a system that makes staying difficult. I hope this work encourages nonprofit leaders and funders to see retaining staff as a shared responsibility, and to invest in the people who make social change possible.
Balaji Magendiran
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Motivation, work, and mobility: developing a process framework of employee turnover intentions in Indian nonprofits, Organizational Analysis, October 2026, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/ijoa-06-2026-7165.
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