Should You Hire Your Spouse To Fill An Open Position At Your Nonprofit?

A recent survey states that a large number of nonprofits have open positions that they cannot fill with qualified candidates.  As the Executive Director, could the answer be to recruit your spouse to fill one of those open positions?  What might be the pros and cons, when considering this possibility?  Listen in, as Tim and Nathan dive into this interesting possibility.

Transcript

Nathan Ruby: 0:02

Should you hire your spouse to work in the nonprofit you lead? Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules that you can apply to help make this decision, but there are some pros and cons you can use that might help you think it through. Let's talk about it.

Tim Barnes: 0:34

Welcome to the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership. I'm Tim Barnes.

Nathan Ruby: 0:38

And I'm Nathan Ruby. A 2023 survey from the National Council of Nonprofits says 75% of all nonprofits have open positions that they cannot fill with qualified candidates.

Tim Barnes: 0:54

Wow, 75%, that's a huge number. I figured it would be high, but maybe not that high, nathan.

Nathan Ruby: 1:02

Yeah, that is, that is a crazy number. I, you know, I, I just as I look at my own experience in trying to fill positions that we're looking for, yeah, I guess I see that. I mean it's it's getting harder and harder to find the right people to fill them, and you know, if that's the case, if it is hard to find people, and you know, we, we, we have these positions that are critical to the success of our organization. Well, heck, why not? Let's just hire our spouse and call it good, that should work, right, tim?

Tim Barnes: 1:36

Yeah, as long as you have a subscription to a marriage counseling, probably it could be helpful. It's a great question and you're going to talk about this. You and I have both seen organizations and churches and all kinds of different groups hire spouses and it can work well and sometimes it can get kind of interesting too, I think.

Nathan Ruby: 2:03

And sometimes it can get kind of interesting too. I think, yeah, there's some real potential advantages, but also some drawbacks to consider, so let's hop into it. So we are going to cover the pros, the positive side of hiring a spouse to work with you in an organization, and so we have three things to talk about today. Spouse to work with you in an organization and so we have three things to talk about today. And first is something that we're just going to call shared vision, and I think this comes out most when you're talking about founders and founders.

Nathan Ruby: 2:40

Often so many organizations that I've worked with and Tim, I think you probably experienced the same thing. You know, founders create organizations because they become aware of, or they experience some type of hardship or injustice Sometimes that's, you know, in their own backyard, sometimes it's clear across the country or even the world, and so they become aware of this injustice or this hardship, and you and they think, gosh, somebody should do something about this. And they look around and nobody's doing it, nobody's addressing this issue, and so a founder will end up they'll just do it themselves and they'll create something out of nothing. And that is what's so amazing about founders. And so in that type of scenario when a husband and wife are a married couple, are have seen or experienced this themselves, and they create this, this organization or this thing to address that. You know, it's a little bit easier to cater to both person's personal passions because they created it, they birthed it, so to speak, and so they experience this event or whatever is happening and together they come up with this thing to address it.

Nathan Ruby: 3:59

I think it's much harder to connect with a spouse's individual passion when you were already leading an organization. And just because you may be passionate about the organization, about the programs and the output and the outcomes that your organization creates, doesn't necessarily mean that your spouse has that same passion. And Tim and I, one of the things that connected us right off the bat when we met some 15 years ago or whatever it is now, maybe longer than that is our passion for international ministry and missions. It is something that has been a passion for both of ours and we've dedicated the vast majority of our lives to that. But that doesn't mean that our spouses are necessarily passionate about that same thing. And so her passion involves helping, you know, helping kids with special needs, and not only in their education but but loving them and and helping them to be the best possible version of themselves, and that's where her passion is. And, tim, I know you know your wife is an artist and she has different passions than you do.

Tim Barnes: 5:20

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, even when you're talking about the shared vision for starting something. I think when you are founding something, when you begin something, you can also bring your complementary skills and complementary sorry.

Tim Barnes: 5:42

It's easy for you to say I know, you know you help each other and I, you know, my wife started a business out of her passion of art. I became a co-owner of that business with her because I had skills she needed. My goal was to keep her out of jail. You know, as she put this business together, my goal is to keep her out of jail. You know, as she put this business together and so she was starting and it was easy for us to kind of share the vision. Obviously, she was the driver, I was supporting her and we've done the same thing in the work that I do as well. She's a great support. I think we may be, we might be able to work together, even though some of our focus areas are different. But yeah, sometimes, sometimes that works and sometimes it's. It's not if you have different, different passions or visions for things.

Nathan Ruby: 6:37

Yeah, so you know, having a spouse, or your spouse specifically, that is working within your organization, if you have the same vision, it can be very, very helpful to have that All right. So that was vision let's do enhanced communication and leading a nonprofit organization can be one of the most isolating positions there is. Decisions often are tough and as executive director, you have to make hard decisions that impact people and their families not only the people that your organization serves, but also the staff and volunteers that are connected with your organization, and this, over time, can be extremely stressful. And I know, tim, in the past you've been part of an organization actually a couple of different organizations that went through extremely difficult times and you were making decisions that impacted I don't know hundreds or thousands of people, and I walked through some of that with you and that was a hard, hard time.

Tim Barnes: 7:51

Yeah, I mean, and that's the challenge when you sit at a desk and you have those kind of responsibilities, you have to make decisions. I remember even this is interesting I remember at one point in the organization having to make a decision about our health insurance plan and I had to make the decision what was best for the organization, knowing that, actually, that it was going to make it more difficult for my own family as well as some of our staff. But you know, that's why you're there. That's what a leader does. A leader sits there and really tries to make the best decision they can, and sometimes it's hard to find someone to talk to, who can carry some of that, someone to talk about, who talk to, who can carry some of that, and sometimes having a wife, a spouse, a wife or spouse, someone who is there and can kind of handle some of that, is really good.

Nathan Ruby: 8:52

Yeah, and you know, part of the of the isolation is that nobody understands all of the facts. You know they are. They may know a piece of it If they're on the program side. They may have a deep understanding of programming and what happens, but they don't understand the finance side, or they don't understand the fundraising side, or they don't understand the marketing side. And even board members they don't understand everything that's happening, because it's even board members they don't. They don't understand everything that's happening because it's impossible for them to, because they have their own lives and their own jobs and their own families and all of the things that they're doing.

Nathan Ruby: 9:30

And so you end up out on this Island all by yourself and so having a spouse who can stand on that Island with you and help you make informed decisions I mean, everybody has an opinion, right?

Nathan Ruby: 9:47

Whether they have any clue what they're talking about or not, everybody has an opinion. Just go out on Twitter or X and you'll see that everybody has an opinion. Everybody has an opinion. But my wife is extremely insightful and she sees things that I don't, but it's difficult for her to really lean into what I'm doing at work and help me make decisions, because she doesn't understand the context and she can perceive some things and you know she may hear me on a phone call and she may have some things like that but to really understand it's it's kind of hard for her to do that because she's not in there in the day to day. So having somebody that can walk next to you and help you make those difficult decisions, because they understand all of the pieces to it Wow, that that would be. That would be really helpful, tim to to have that opportunity.

Tim Barnes: 10:46

So the point you're talking about, Nathan, is having a spouse as part of your organization could be helpful in talking through some of those things, right.

Nathan Ruby: 10:56

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely All right. A third pro is a I would say, greater dedication to the organization and, as we all know, if you're involved at any level at leading an organization, it is not a nine to five job. Um, yes, you, you can have some flexibility, but this is, this is not a clock in, clock out job, it just isn't. Um, and Tim, I know you do this too, but I am always thinking about FACO when I, when I mow the yard, when I'm watching TV, when I'm walking the dog, um, even at the dinner table, sometimes I am thinking about FACO and what needs to be done. And this is a conversation that always happens Well, not always, but often We'll say often happens with my wife and I. My wife says what are you thinking about? And I say work, and then she says oh, and that's the end of the conversation. And now I'm sure that that happens with people working in the for-profit world.

Nathan Ruby: 12:06

It's not just unique to nonprofit work, but that kind of happens a lot in my marriage, and so how would it be different if this conversation happened? So what are you thinking about? Trying to figure out how to better present the program expansion for the spring board meeting? Oh, where are you stuck? So now that leads to a whole nother ability to hey, my spouse isn't mad at me for thinking about work when she wants me to be thinking about something else. But it also brings in that sense of togetherness and I think there's definitely a synergy that takes place when you and your spouse are working for the same organization and it's there when you're working those 60 hours when it's needed, or you miss a family event because something bad happened at the office. It's just this shared sense of purpose and it allows you, I think, to have a little deeper, better focus at work when you're doing it together.

Tim Barnes: 13:13

So, nathan, I think maybe just to highlight the three points that we've talked about and the pros points that we've talked about and the pros would you agree that it's most positive in the early stages of an organization? So at the founding or when an organization is young, do you feel like it's easier to have your spouse walking alongside, then maybe bringing the spouse in when the organization is bigger? I mean, what do you think about that?

Nathan Ruby: 13:46

Yeah, totally, and we're going to talk about that here in a little bit when we get down to some of the cons. But I think the flatter the organization is, the easier it is to do that. Or the earlier, like you just said, the earlier in the process also to do that. Or the earlier, like you just said, the earlier in the process also. I think that the larger the organization gets, or the more mature and I'm going to use the word sophisticated, and sophisticated meaning okay, now all of a sudden we have HR policies and we have other policies, and now I think the more structured the organization gets, the harder it is to have a spouse involved.

Nathan Ruby: 14:27

And most organizations, if you talk about the founding of an organization, they typically start out as a ma and pa type organization and things are pretty loose and there's not a lot of structure and there's a lot of work that gets done, a lot of output, but we don't have a lot of structure. And then over time, as you grow and you get more sophisticated and this problem pops up and okay, well, now we need to have something that addresses that. Okay, this problem popped up, we have to have something that addresses that, and things just get more complex, and so I'm not saying it won't work, I'm just saying it's a little more complicated the more structured you get.

Tim Barnes: 15:04

Well, let's talk about that. So, and again, we're not saying you shouldn't do this, but we're saying here are things that here's the complexity that you're going to bring and you need to be ready to address it. So let's jump into some of that All right.

Nathan Ruby: 15:18

So here's a few cons. One is risk of favoritism, and I think the potential for favoritism, or even perceived favoritism, is a significant concern. And other staff members may feel that the spouse receives preferential treatment, which can easily lead to resentment and a decrease in morale or a decrease in the culture of your organization. And this is especially an issue if the spouse is in a leadership position, and I consulted once with an organization where the spouse was at the director level and the spouse was creating a massive negative culture in the organization, but nobody said anything. And so the executive director had no idea that it was even an issue and it just was festering under the surface. And the other directors, whether they were rightly or wrongly it doesn't make any difference if they were right or wrong it was their perception, but they were afraid of a reprisal if they spoke up. And so it just kept going and going and going and what it did was it was diminishing the overall outcomes of the organization. It was diminishing the overall outcomes of the organization, which means it was impacting their achieving their vision and mission because of this personnel issue that nobody would address. So that's an issue that comes up.

Nathan Ruby: 16:58

Another one is another example is annual reviews. Now, you know, nothing breeds more fear and angst and concern. And, uh, detestment. I don't know if detestment's a word, tim, but we're going to go with it detestment than an annual review. I mean, nobody likes annual reviews. I don't like annual reviews. I don't like giving annual reviews. I don't like receiving annual reviews. Nobody likes it. Um, well, now throw in that if you're a director and you get your review, but then your boss's spouse is also going to be getting their review, well, just at the surface, just right off the top, and I don't know, maybe people are better than I am, but if that's me, if I'm a director and the and the executive director spouse is also a director, I'm just going to assume that they're going to get preferential treatment. I don't know that that's just me. Maybe other people aren't that way, but it's. That's a tough one to get over If you are a level, a director, at the same level.

Tim Barnes: 18:03

For another show. But what if you have to give the annual review of your spouse?

Nathan Ruby: 18:10

Absolutely. I don't know.

Tim Barnes: 18:14

It's called sleeping on the couch.

Nathan Ruby: 18:17

I didn't even think about that, tim. I don't know how you would do that. Yeah, that would be. Yeah, you got me stumped there, tim. Okay.

Nathan Ruby: 18:40

So, and again, we just talked about this this can be, know, smaller organizations where it's just the executive director and then you know everybody else is. You know, there's some paid staff, there's some volunteers and there's no, not the practice of nonprofit management, because leadership and management are different. But if there's no other leadership in place, this kind of minimizes that. So the more levels of leadership you have and the more bureaucracy you have, the more likely this is going to come up. All right, let's go to number two.

Nathan Ruby: 19:20

Second con, difficulty in maintaining professional boundaries, and I think this is an issue as well. And let's just say that when you have a spouse, there are times where, maybe when you get ready to leave for work for the day, maybe when you get ready to leave for work for the day, um, that things aren't like a hundred percent happy. Let's just say that maybe once in a while, you have an argument or you have a disagreement, uh, with your spouse right before you leave for work. Uh, like, maybe once a year that happens in my house, tim, I don't know about yours, uh, but if your spouse is working at, at, if you're working together, and now you you end up, you know you get in the car. If you, if you have a business office, or, uh, you know, if you're in different rooms in the house and you're on a zoom meeting, you know you have this, this thing that happens between you. And then 10 minutes later, or 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later, you're sitting in a meeting together and now, magically, you have to put on your smiley face and pretend like that didn't happen. And you know, bringing your personal problems to work, that's not, that's not just a spouse is working together thing, because that could be anybody. Anybody can bring their, their marital issues. You know their kids just got called into the principal's office, or you caught your kid sneaking out last night. Whatever the case may be, we all bring family issues to work sometime or other. But you also when you come to work. That is a point where you can kind of escape that for a little bit. But if your spouse is sitting there across the table from you, it's a little hard to escape that. So it just again, I'm not saying it can't be done, it's just a little more difficult to do.

Nathan Ruby: 21:11

I think another issue with professional boundaries can be confidentiality. Let's say that your spouse overhears something in the hallway and reports it to you as the executive director. Well, okay, you know, maybe if you're in a mandatory reporting situation, okay, you don't really have a choice there, but also nobody likes a tattletale. So you know, maybe there's there's a there's a confidentiality issue with staff and then you know your spouse gets isolated because they assume that everything they say to you is going to end up at the executive director level and that hurts team culture. So that confidentiality from that perspective can be an issue.

Nathan Ruby: 21:58

The other way of that is it may actually negatively impact communication with your spouse because things are happening at work and your spouse knows that it's happened but you can't talk about it because it really involves another staff person. And I don't know about you, tim. But sometimes there is a confidentiality within a marriage where you say, well, you're not supposed to tell anybody, but this has happened and that's part of that relationship with a spouse that is important. But you can't really do that if it involves another staff person. That becomes an HR issue. So it'd be really difficult to manage those professional boundaries if you're working with your spouse in an organization.

Tim Barnes: 22:49

It's hard even when they're not part of the organization, because there's things that you carry that you'd like to be able to share, but you just can't. And that raises the level if you actually are in the same organization as well. So it's a challenge.

Nathan Ruby: 23:02

Yeah, exactly. And then, third for Anakan, is blurred lines of authority, and this is probably more of an issue. If your spouse is at a director level or a leadership level, and you know you have to be careful that you're on the same page at all times, you know, if you have probably more so than any of the other directors in the organization, because if your spouse is leading their team in one direction and then you come in and you take it in a different direction, oh my gosh, that just it causes confusion. And if someone, if a staff person, is confused, what will happen is they won't do anything, they will cease to be productive, they will cease to be productive, they will cease to be innovative, they will cease to take risk to move forward, because in their mind they're saying well, am I supposed to listen to my direct supervisor, or am I supposed to listen to their spouse? What am I supposed to do here? And it just creates a tension within staff that really shouldn't be there.

Tim Barnes: 24:16

So blurred lines of authority, really, really, if your spouse is working there, you've really got to be careful that you manage that well know if we've talked about the pros, we've talked about the cons, but just kind of, as we wrap up, there are some situations where you've seen it work, nathan, and maybe you could just hit on those real quick.

Nathan Ruby: 24:38

Yeah, three situations where it could work and work fairly well. One we already talked about founders. I think if you are putting an organization together from a founding position, putting an organization together from a founding position, that's probably where it works best. And you know, as far as I know, there are no legal issues for hiring a spouse in your organization. At least I'm not aware of any, and you know, as you know, tim and I are not attorneys, so check with your own state, check with your own legal counsel on that. But this is hiring a spouse. Or even if it's not a spouse, it can also be a family member, a child, a niece or a nephew, any family connection. It's less of a legal issue and more of a perception issue. How is staff, volunteers, donors, how are they going to view this dual role or this husband-wife or this spouse connection within the organization? And I think in a founder situation it's much more accepted as common that you are going to have a married couple doing this together.

Tim Barnes: 25:57

We also talked before we started recording too. It's actually something that needs to be declared on your annual 990. There is part of it that talks about you have family relationships. Is there a connection there too? So you need to declare that.

Nathan Ruby: 26:14

Yeah, and it's not a big deal you just list it what it is.

Nathan Ruby: 26:17

It's only a big deal if you don't list it. That's when you get yourself in trouble. Okay, so founders is one. I think another area where it works really well is if your spouse's specific skills match up with the organization's vision and mission, and so this is like a perfect scenario. But let's say, you're leading an organization and your marketing communications position is open, the lead position for all of your marketing communications work and it just so happens that your spouse has a degree in marketing, used to write online content as a side hustle, and they make work for a nonprofit in college. Well, okay, I think it makes pretty much sense that you know you should give your spouse a really good opportunity to be in that position because they have the skill that it takes to lead that communication and marketing department. And I think it's even more so the fact that if whatever skill they have and whatever area they're going to be working in or leading in is something that you lack, and I think that just would make it easier within your own relationship. So, because, if your skills are another area, you hire them, you know, give them the you know, put them in the position and then basically hand it to them and let them do their job without you micromanaging it. I think you could have some issues with a spouse if you hire them and then micromanage them and tell them how to do their job. That's less of an organizational thing, more of a relationship thing with your spouse. So try to avoid that.

Nathan Ruby: 28:04

And then, thirdly, is non-leadership positions. I think it's a lot of things that we're talking about are minimized if they're not in a leadership position. If your nonprofit has a front desk, a reception area that has to be covered let's just say first shift and second shift and the building's closed for third shift, but first and second shift it's open seven days a week. That's a lot of shifts to cover. And if your spouse is of the right mindset and of the right personality that they could do well at the front desk, well then, yeah, I don't see a big deal with that, and so that would just be an example. So if it's in a non-leadership position, I think that just makes things a lot easier all the way around.

Nathan Ruby: 28:52

And as a side note to that point, I am not a believer in just assuming that the executive director spouse will work for free just because they're executive director spouse. You're an organization, you're a business. You need to be treated as a business. And, yes, there's a role for volunteers and I'm not saying that the spouse can't volunteer. If that's what they would like to do, that's okay. But let's not just assume that the executive director spouse is going to volunteer just because they're a spouse. They should have an opportunity to be paid just like anybody else would.

Tim Barnes: 29:31

And I think maybe just one quick point, nathan we're not again. We're talking about what's easier, what works better, but we're not saying if you're, you know, if your spouse has leadership abilities and capabilities and skills, by all means that may be the best person to hire, but you need to understand the challenges that they come. They come with that yeah, absolutely we're.

Nathan Ruby: 29:55

We're not. You know that this, uh, this podcast episode, we're not tim and I are not telling you yes or no, you should or you shouldn't. Uh, only you know that. But uh, because there are there. I've seen situations where you know it's a, it's an executive director and a director or an associate director and it's worked out flawlessly. But you have to work at it and you have to follow some of the things that we talked about today. So, should you hire your spouse for a position in your organization? Like a lot of decisions you make as an executive director, we're not really sure there's a hard and fast rule you can follow that will automatically answer that question for you. Have we seen instances where the executive director's spouse working in the same organization has worked flawlessly? Yeah, absolutely Plenty of times. Have we seen situations where a spouse was working at an organization and it created absolute havoc? Yes, plenty of times. So our biggest guidance on this is, when you consider this as an option is to remember that it is mostly about optics and culture, not necessarily legal.

Tim Barnes: 31:09

Thank you for listening today. If you'd like to get in touch with us, our contact information can be found in the show notes. If you have questions about the episode, reach out to us. We'd love to talk with you, answer any questions you might have. That's all for today, until next time.