Why ‘collective rest’ must be a philanthropic priority

By: Josh Feldman &. Rachel Zieleniec

After four years of supporting rest-based practices for hundreds of workplaces, we’ve seen that investment in strategic collective rest is one of the most powerful tools we have to supercharge results. Want the organization you care about to be the most effective it can be? You need to care about their organizational rest practices. Want your grantees to strengthen and sustain their bench of talented leaders in order to accomplish their goals? You need to prioritize collective, synchronous rest (such as BREAKWEEK).

We know that as our world is facing crisis after crisis, investing in rest based practices might seem a bit…unexpected. However, the deeply ingrained hustle culture in our country has led to detrimental impacts for workers. The nonprofit sector’s greatest asset - our talented workforce - needs different and new support, urgently. Workers have burned the candle on both ends. They’re exhausted. Their work and workload is unsustainable. And, at the same time, they remain deeply committed to the mission and care wholeheartedly about their work.

So, what exactly is a collective rest based practice? It is a policy and set of organizational actions that takes seriously the need for workers to sustain and regenerate so they have energy and inspiration to do their critical work - not only today, but in the months to come. A collective rest policy is a guardrail that shifts the burden of responsibility for talent rejuvenation to the organization, and away from the individual. Rest-based practices are *not* band aids. They are *not* reactive measures meant to placate your team for a short period of time until the next wave of exhaustion. They are proactive investments that will immensely support your organization’s cycle of work, year after year. 

A staff team who experienced collective rest for the first time shared with us that, “as nonprofit employees, we don't get a lot of recognition for the emotionally heavy and time-consuming work we do. Our collective break felt like both a needed repose and a recognition of that work - a signal from leadership that we are valued, that we deserve this rest. Knowing that no one was working, organization-wide, helped us actually fully disconnect from work. We didn't return to an inbox full of internal time-sensitive tasks, and this effect is not something an individual PTO experience could ever do. We truly needed this rest to be able to continue doing our work to the best of our ability.”

The word ‘rest’ in relation to work can often be misunderstood, or worse, completely dismissed. If you’re reading this and feel the word rest doesn’t belong in this conversation, we’ll translate it. Rest policies are human capital policies. They are talent retention strategies, leadership development investments, organizational infrastructure, and have incredible ROI. Collective rest helps everyone on your team (including you!) and is likely one of, if not the only, fully equitable benefit and policy in an organization’s handbook.

Collective rest isn’t an argument for napping during work - although we love that too - and it’s definitely not one against work sprints. Rather, it’s about organizations and funders investing in practices that help nonprofit workers sprint when it matters most, and then recover their minds and bodies in between. If we want resilient organizational systems, we must care for the people who hold them up.

If you’re reading this and wondering what to do next: 

Photo from Unsplash

• For funders – review your foundation’s philanthropic values. If you believe in funding strong, effective organizations – especially after conducting proper due diligence to figure out who those organizations are - then you also need to prioritize worker sustainability. They go hand-in-hand. Think hard about the investment strategies you are already deploying. Is there room to add additional dollars to each grant you give out in order to support organization and worker wellbeing?  

• For board members - ask your leaders questions about what type of capacity-related support they need. Is the organization’s work manageable? Harvard Business Review’s excellent thinking here is that a good goal is for every workers’ portfolio to be 85% full, creating room for stretch projects, experiments and following emerging trends. Ask your leadership how they relate to rest in the workplace. Can the board do more to support them in exploring this for themselves and their team? 

• For organization leaders - examine your existing practices. You may already be investing in collective rest – do you close up shop between Christmas & New Years? If you do, you’re already taking a BREAKWEEK. Are you extending org-wide time off around federal holidays? If so, you’re already prioritizing collective rest. High fives! Now ask yourself: Are you doing it well? Does your team feel rested by those investments you’re making in their wellbeing? Are you measuring it? If you can’t answer those questions, then it’s a good time re-evaluate *how* your collective rest practices are being implemented and where there’s room to make them even stronger. Collective rest is an investment - both financially and operationally - and the better you do it, the better results for all.  

Bottom line? Don’t fall into the trap of generic organizational practices where workers are expendable, and extracting from them is an acceptable cost. Decades of research have proven that everything is downstream of worker wellbeing. The next five years will show us all what happens when organizations that invest in forward-thinking infrastructure, especially rest based practices, outperform everyone else. Rest isn't the opposite of work, it’s the perfect complement.  

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Josh is the CEO of R&R: The Rest Of Our Lives. His book, focused on peer-to-peer transformation, will be out in 2027  with Brandylane Press. 

Rachel is the Chief Program Officer of R&R: The Rest Of Our Lives. She’s passionate about illuminating the way for a more rest-focused future of work for the nonprofit sector.