Australia’s not-for-profit sector is built on purpose-driven work and people who care deeply about the communities they serve. But a growing body of data suggests the sector is facing a workforce challenge that goes beyond burnout, one that is beginning to affect organisations, staff and the services they provide.
In 2025, the Pro Bono Australia Salary Survey found that 29 per cent of people who left their jobs in the not-for-profit sector cited burnout as the main reason, a significant increase from 21 per cent in 2024.
For burnout recovery specialist Nick Orchard, the trend signals something more serious. Drawing on his experience as an executive in the Victorian Government and a near-fatal health crisis caused by extreme burnout, Orchard coined a new term to describe the pattern: burnover.
“Burnout is often framed as a personal resilience issue,” Orchard said. “But when people start walking out the door, it becomes an organisational risk.”
“That’s why I call it burnover. It affects budgets, culture, service delivery and ultimately the communities organisations exist to serve.”
The Toll
For not-for-profits already operating on razor-thin funding while navigating rising community demand, the financial impact of repeated burnover is crippling.
Data consistently shows a growing exodus of talent. Recent surveys from Pro Bono Australia highlight that nearly a third of people who leave their jobs in the NFP sector cite burnout as their primary reason for quitting—a figure that has been climbing year-on-year.
According to the Australian HR Institute, replacing an experienced team member can cost an organisation anywhere between 30 per cent and 200 per cent of that employee’s annual salary, once recruitment, onboarding and lost productivity are factored in.
“It’s not just as simple as replacing an employee,” Orchard said. “When experienced staff leave because they’re burnt out, they take their skills, expertise, and organisational knowledge with them.”
This loss of institutional memory places immediate strain on the remaining team members. The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) reports that almost half of CEOs and senior leaders believe their staff turnover is unsustainably high. In high-pressure areas like the housing and homelessness sector, nearly three-quarters of organisations report rising staff stress, which directly threatens service delivery.
“Even the best candidate cannot walk into a job and start operating at a high level. That knowledge takes time to build, which means existing staff tend to take more on, and morale suffers as a result. That pattern is how burnover becomes a cycle,” Orchard warned.
The Middle Management Trap
Middle leaders are frequently caught at the epicentre of this cycle. International research indicates that more than three-quarters of nonprofit middle managers receive no formal leadership training, while a staggering 75 per cent report experiencing high burnout.
With limited formal support and mounting expectations, Orchard notes it is little surprise that these leaders are often the first to fall.
“Middle leaders are often caught between high-level expectations and the challenges of managing a frontline team day-to-day,” Orchard said.
“Without clear systems, role clarity and decision-making support, the pressure builds until, eventually, something has to give. And too often, that ‘something’ is the job they once loved and the cause they believe in.”
Designing Against the Cycle
This highlights the tragic paradox at the heart of burnover in cause-driven sectors: it rarely happens because people don’t care. It happens because they care too much, for too long, without adequate structural support.
To break the cycle, leadership must move beyond superficial wellness initiatives. The solution, Orchard says, isn’t yoga or wellbeing days, but building robust organisational structures that prevent the problem from the ground up.
“We need to look at the systems around people,” he said. “What are we asking of them? Where are the bottlenecks? If burnover is predictable, we can design against it.”
For the not-for-profit sector, the stakes are uniquely high. Without addressing burnover meaningfully and structurally, these organisations risk undermining their own capacity to support the very communities that depend on them.
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