Committed to doing work that aligns with her social justice values, Claire Lipson is beginning to carve out a career in the nonprofit sector. Though the twenty-something works for two Toronto-based organizations, as a site animator and program staff at Evergreen Brick Works and as an urban program instructor at Outward Bound Canada, Lipson struggles to make up a full-time workload between them as Outward Bound’s programs are seasonal, and neither organization can provide consistent hours.

“I’m really at the beginning of my career in the nonprofit environment, so I expect it will change.”

While optimistic about progressing in the sector, she is prepared for the possibility that job instability could be an ongoing reality.

Jessica Wishart, 25, is currently working toward a master’s degree in social work in Toronto. Before returning to school, however, she worked for two Halifax nonprofits at the same time.

A part-time position with an organization that engaged young people on international issues lead to a second role at a partner organization, whose mandate was engaging at-risk youth. After the first group lost its funding, Wishart replaced it with part-time work at a mental health organization.

“I feel that I was really fortunate in being able to have all three roles, because it allowed me to expand my understanding of the opportunities available in the nonprofit world, as well as the limitations.”

Nonetheless, the burdensome nature of managing multiple jobs spurred Wishart’s decision that, should she return to the nonprofit sector, she will seek a single — and stable — position.

“I don’t think I would want to play the juggling game anymore. I would want a position with a contract, benefits, set hours and a set office.”

Both Lipson and Wishart’s experiences with moonlighting reflects an increasingly prevalent sector phenomenon.

Though the term evokes images of an employee waiting tables to supplement a day job, the practice of working at multiple nonprofits simultaneously or over a short period of time — identified as “job hopping” by the Nova Scotia Nonprofit Labour Force Study — is a growing reality, particularly, it finds, for workers under the age of 35.

In its 2008 Labour Force Study, the HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector reported that 22.6% of full-time staff and 46.9% of part-time staff hold more than one nonprofit position at once.

Why moonlight?

“When I was starting out, my dad said to be careful how many jobs you got on your resume,” muses Veronica McNeil, executive director of Halifax-based Federation of Community Organizations (FOCO), which co-published the Nova Scotia Labour Force Study in 2010.

“That’s shifting. We’re not looking at a future where people graduate, choose a charity and work there for 30 years.”

She attributes this to the transient nature of project funding. Indeed, the provincial study found that of 200 employees surveyed, roughly 30% were working under contract with a fixed end date.

Michelle Joseph is executive director at the Toronto-based, Queen West Community Health Centre. She says about 30% of her staff are part-time, and are commonly employed elsewhere doing work like overnight shifts at a shelter.

Joseph contends that, while less experienced staff sometimes moonlight to bolster their resume or ascertain which component of the sector interests them, predominantly it is to “to support low-paying jobs.”

Monique Auffrey, executive director of Family Service of Support Association (SOS) in Halifax recalls moonlighting early in her career, having worked as coordinator at a women’s organization and as crisis team staff at a children’s hospital. She says she did so both to increase her limited income and access clinical experience not available in her primary job.

For Lipson, who started at Outward Bound last March and was subsequently offered additional part-time work at Evergreen and temporary community outreach work for a city councillor, the chance to broaden her professional repertoire was too good to pass up. Consequently, she spent the summer working nonstop.

“I thought, if I have this source of income and people who want me to work for them…it’s worth it. And now I [realize] it was worth it, I don’t have very much income [now], and I’m sort of waiting for the next opportunity.”

Wishart says her reason for moonlighting was primarily financial, but it also allowed her develop a diverse skill-set, including research, youth engagement and liaising with professionals. She echoes Lipson’s sentiment that because finding a job in the sector is so difficult, “When an opportunity is presented to you, it’s hard to pass up.”

She adds that because so much of acquiring a job in the sector depends on one’s contacts, establishing connections with multiple directors can help create a contingency plan.

“I saw two out of my last three positions end early because of situations beyond the organizations’ control. It’s precarious working in the nonprofit world, so that’s one advantage to working in more than one position in the sector.”

A balancing act: Sidestepping conflicts of interest

Lipson is fortunate in that Outward Bound and Evergreen Brick Works share a site and certain resources.

“I think that’s desirable for them, that they can share someone who knows the site really well…my ability to take on the role with Outward Bound, which is very different from my role with Evergreen, showed Evergreen I was capable of being a good program staff. So it’s been beneficial for me to work for both organizations.”

As for accommodation around scheduling, Lipson has not encountered problems from her directors.

“We’re very sensitive around each other’s needs. They know I’m always looking for more work. I think they appreciate that but can’t always accommodate it. So if I ever did find [additional] work, I think they’d be understanding.”

Wishart says the directors at the organizations she worked for were aware of her dual roles.

“Knowing they weren’t able to provide me with what I was looking for in terms of hours and stability…they were generally flexible.”

Acknowledging the sector’s instability, the consensus among directors seems to be that moonlighting is necessary for many staff and, presuming the clients’ needs are protected foremost, they must be sensitive to the that fact.

At Family SOS, staff intervention workers offer in-home supports to families in crisis. Overseeing a staff of about ten full and part-time workers, Auffrey says working outside the agency is common, and is not discouraged, but, to ensure clients are supported within Family SOS’s mandate of keeping children in the home, there is an official policy mandating approval for alternate employment.

Auffrey is wary, then, of her staff working at a social service organization like a group home, juvenile detention centre or child protection agency.

“Our mandate is to keep kids safe and within their own home. A competing interest would be an organization that supports kids being removed from their home…they have a different lens through which to view families and their issues.”

Queen West has no moonlighting policy, but Joseph says issues arise if a staff person plays a different role at the centre than they do at say, a shelter. Clients encountering the employee at both locations may develop mistaken expectations, and general policies about staff-client boundary setting must be reviewed.

“For [the client], they’re just seeing the same face, they’re not necessarily differentiating. Even though people may have relationships with clients in other contexts, they need to make clear what they’re able to provide in this context [at Queen West].”

Challenges and assets

In addition to the challenge of self-structuring her time at both organizations throughout the week, Wishart says frequently traveling between the two offices both time-consuming and often isolating.

“It was difficult when people at a particular office would be eating lunch together, and I would have to sit by myself working on duties for my second job.”

The aspect she found hardest still was staying focused on a task at hand, when issues from her secondary position spontaneously arose.

“If I was in the office for one job and my boss from the other job called, it was hard to put her off in order to focus on what I had in front of me, especially if the task [for the nonprofit I was physically working at] wasn’t urgent and the other matter was.”

While managing multiple jobs can evidently be stressful for an individual, but for directors too, who often struggle to ensure their employees maintain work-life balance, moonlighting may lend additional strain.

Auffrey posits that as her staff are constantly exposed to client suffering, she guarantees workers take vacation time and don’t overwork. Having staff work elsewhere immediately poses a challenge.

“It becomes really difficult to manage if staff are working outside your parameters, where you can’t ensure their health and safety.”

Bolstering the sector through moonlighting

For McNeil, the term moonlighting negatively connotes secrecy. In contrast, she maintains that working at multiple nonprofits is often beneficial to the agencies and sector at large.

“What needs to change in people’s minds is that you may work for ten employers over a period of time, but you’re still working in the field you like…if staff are at one agency and the project ends, they [can] go to another. It’s a very positive draw if the sector positions itself like that.”

From an employer’s perspective, she says, an individual already working at another organization could be considered an asset — a candidate more desirable than someone not employed in the sector.

“One person is able to bridge two or more organizations and bring a bit of unity or capacity building, to share resources that way. For people to move around and have more than just one experience with one agency…it makes them a better employee.”

McNeil ultimately acknowledges that, despite many advantages, a person working two part-time jobs is often at a loss in the sense they lack job security and the ability to transfer employee benefits from one position to the next.

Joseph agrees that underlying the moonlighting trend is the fact that many staff are struggling to piece together a living, but emphasizes the importance of diverse experience.

“Often, when you have people who’ve worked at one place for a very long time, they don’t know what’s happening in other agencies — they start to become very insular.”

Kernels of wisdom for the prospective moonlighter

Wishart says working for more than one organization is possible only if one has flexible supervisors and a rigorous schedule — be it self-imposed or given — that is not subject to change.

She also recommends asking one or both of the organizations to provide funding for your cell phone.

“Going in between offices all the time, often I’d have to be available on my phone during the day, which ended up being quite costly.”

She warns that even when working under the most accommodating of supervisors, there tends to be an assumption in the sector that, regardless of the amount of work allotted on paper, there is always additional — and potentially unpaid — work to be done.

Final thoughts

The phenomenon of professional moonlighting is increasingly prevalent in the nonprofit sector. Many argue it is an essential reflection of a harsh financial reality that people entering the nonprofit sphere, and perhaps the workforce generally, must face.

Moonlighting unquestionably poses challenges to employees and organizations. But through directors’ sensitivity and awareness and staff’s adaptability discretion the advantages of employees gaining broad experience and advancing laterally in the sector instead of upwards within a single organization may outweigh the potential hardships of overwork and instability.

As McNeil, in her positive view of the phenomenon asserts:

“We can’t [as individual organizations] match the salaries in our sector being offered in other sectors, but we can offer interesting work. And, we can offer you the salary, if more than one agency makes it up together.”

Jodie Shupac is a Toronto-based freelance writer. She contributes to a range of publications, covering culture, urban issues, health and the environment.