The Nonprofit Insider Podcast · Swim Karim

Getting Fired From a Nonprofit

·37 min·2 clips

Jason says he was fired the day he returned from PTO, then replaced by the person he had trained.

1. The Nonprofit Insider Podcast episode on getting fired from a nonprofit opens with the host saying “Getting fired, it fucking sucks,” then citing a 2023 Harris poll that found 40% of Americans have been fired at least once. 2. The host frames the story around “Jason,” a compensated anonymous source, and says the episode matters because the nonprofit sector is known for turnover, vacancies, and hiring freezes. 3. The core question is how a mission-driven nonprofit can still produce a firing that feels sudden, personal, and avoidable. 4. Jason worked at a homeless nonprofit tied to veterans, and he says a family member’s suicide after three overseas tours pushed him toward veteran-related work. 5. He says he was doing six jobs at once, including social media manager, special events coordinator, volunteer manager, and in-kind donor manager. 6. Jason describes both a national office and a local office, and he says the national team and local team liked his work while direct management did not. 7. The first major conflict comes when Jason hears his director talking about him in the office and interrupts the conversation after announcing himself. 8. Jason says he and the director talked for about 60 minutes, but the trust issue never got repaired because the executive director never facilitated the meeting Jason requested. 9. He then says every event, volunteer action, and organizational document was scrutinized as a “complete failure,” even when the overall result was good. 10. Jason says he was working overtime without pay and had not used the organization’s generous 30-day, no-questions-asked PTO benefit. 11. The PTO fight escalated when management called his plan to take leave “very millennial,” even though he and his director were both millennials. 12. Jason says management finally approved only five days instead of the 15 days he and a coworker had mapped out. 13. He says the firing happened when he returned from that five-day leave, and the ED told him it was for reasons discussed in a June review. 14. Jason emphasizes that it was already October and that he had no further meetings, reviews, or warnings after June. 15. He says a veteran employee had been placed with the organization six weeks before his firing, and he spent that time training her. 16. Jason says the organization later promoted that same person into his role a month after he was let go and then hired a second person a month later. 17. The host says Jason was stunned, then explains that the timing left him exhausted, under financial pressure, and dealing with a wife who had medical needs. 18. Jason says two weeks of severance and health care were not enough, so he relied on COBRA and unemployment until he could get onto Obamacare in January. 19. The episode feels like a direct, conversational monologue with long stretches of host narration, quoted testimony, and repeated calls for listeners to share the show. 20. People who work in nonprofits, HR, or employee relations may find it useful, while listeners who want a short, apolitical episode probably will not.

As heard by us

A blunt look at getting fired in nonprofit work, with the fallout laid out plainly.

The story centers on being fired in nonprofit work and treats it like the hard, messy problem it is. It moves from the shock of losing a job to the practical friction around unpaid overtime, PTO, and management stalling on approval.

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Why you'd press play

A blunt nonprofit firing story, told without corporate polish.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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