Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
Finding Balance When Your Calling Demands Everything
What does it take to build a lasting ministry without burning out? Eric Anderson, Director of Performing Arts at Urban Impact Foundation, shares lessons from 17 years of youth ministry in Pittsburgh’s North Side. In this powerful episode, Eric unpacks the simple but transformative priority framework that’s sustained him—God, spouse, children, ministry, personal recreation—and explains how faithfulness, not outcomes, is the true measure of success. With honest reflections on burnout, healthy boundaries, and the realities of nonprofit work, this installment of our Nonprofit 101 series is a must-listen for anyone seeking a ministry built to last.
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Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, and along with me today is my longtime friend, eric Anderson. Super excited to dig into a conversation with him as we continue this series on Nonprofit 101 about what it looks like to start well and make sure that you're not burning out in nonprofit and ministry work, because that is real and it is such a struggle. So I know Eric has long been in the ministry space and so he's got a lot of wisdom to share on that, so I'm super excited to dig in, eric. Welcome in.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great. So tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Full disclosure. Eric works for an, so tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Full disclosure. Eric works for an organization that I am a big fan of and have been a volunteer with, and a donor with for a very long time now, so I'm excited for him to share some of that expertise. But tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your background in ministry and the organization that you're with.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, my name, like you said, is Eric Anderson. I am the Director of Performing Arts at Urban Impact Foundation, and Urban Impact is a nonprofit youth ministry that works in community and development on the north side of Pittsburgh students, the youth and their families and to be able to disciple them in christ so that they can become the man or the woman that god created and desired and designed them to be, and so that's what I get to do in the arts, and whether that's dance, theater, instrumental, vocal or construction trades or technical arts, or musical theater or musical theater.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I can't. We have a tremendous musical theater coach.
Speaker 2:I hear she's pretty great.
Speaker 3:She's pretty great, Really really wonderful. Her tap dancing is great.
Speaker 2:Oh, fantastic that's actually. I've been doing this podcast for a year and a half now and strangely, my tap dancing skills have never come up yet, so I'm really glad that you brought that to the forefront.
Speaker 3:Yes, you'll have to do that just for a whole podcast, just but yeah, so it's really wonderful. We just are in the arts. We're about redeeming the arts for Christ. We want people to be able to use their gifts to glorify God the way that he intended them to. So it's it's wonderful. I've been doing this since 2008. And in some ways it seems like wow, that's a long time ago, but really I love what I do and it's been wonderful just to be able to do this for the past 17 years.
Speaker 2:That's so good. So I know you and your wife Laura are not from Pittsburgh, right? So you came here specifically to be a part of Urban Impact.
Speaker 3:So when Laura and I were getting married, she was living in Pittsburgh at the time. She was here, and so I was in Columbus. I was actually in a ministry in Columbus and we were praying about where God really wanted us to be, and especially as we were about to get married and we were actually even considering at that time potentially going overseas into missions or just anywhere. We're saying God, where do you want us? And God kind of made it clear that we were supposed to go to Pittsburgh. And for me, I'm actually from Northeast Ohio and so, being a Cleveland sports fan, I was like no God anywhere but here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just send me to Africa.
Speaker 3:Asia. So yeah, god kind of led us here and started pretty much immediately. When it came here through Allegheny Center, alliance Church, found out about Urban Impact and started volunteering with them. And soon after I started volunteering, tammy Glover, who has been a longtime friend and supervisor and started the performing arts at Urban Impact, asked me to kind of come on and help her with her vision of starting a performing arts academy and just growing from there.
Speaker 2:I love it. So one of the things that I think is true is obviously true about Urban Impact, but it's true about a lot of organizations when you're talking about things that are maybe urban ministry or specific to kids, nonprofit in general but ministry specifically is not a normal nine to five, monday through Friday. These are not a regular schedule kind of thing, and so I think that's part of where maybe some of the burnout can start is that your job is all the time when you're on the front lines running programs like that. So what have you done, or what have you and your family done I know Laura's been a huge part of your ministry what have you guys done to really put some either boundaries in place? Or was there a season where maybe you didn't have those boundaries in place that you found yourself starting to get burnt out? And what did you learn from there about how to set some of those limits up for yourself?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, you're hitting all these points right on the head where, first of all, there's some great boundaries that you want to set, kind of at the beginning. And early on, when I came on, tammy taught me this and she learned it from her father, who was also in ministry and kind of put these things and it's really understanding the priorities that you need to be able to go into. And this is, you know, you can apply this to anything, but especially it helps with keeping yourself healthy. And when you go into ministry, and that's first priority is God and being able to follow after him. And then second, if you're married, is your wife or your spouse, and then after that, if you have kids, comes your kids, and then, following that is your ministry or your work. If you're not in ministry, you can say your work there. And then, lastly, fifth, is then your own recreational time and kind of your fun time or things like that, and it's really important that those kind of stay in that order too, because there are, we understand, a lot of times it's you want to be able to have, maybe, your fun time you got to keep down there but also recognizing that your ministry can't be above your family, or sometimes too, if you put you're going to become professional in it and even become above what God is really calling you to do and maybe God's calling you out to do something else, so kind of really keeping those all in there. And of course we see that echoed in through what Jesus talks about in his greatest commandment love God first and then love others and then putting yourself down there.
Speaker 3:But really that's helpful to kind of frame that in the line of ministry as well, because oftentimes we can think of our job if we're working in ministry as well. That's what God wants me to do and we can put that above our family. We can put that above our kids and I have to understand I have four kids and those kids and I have to make sure that I'm putting them above my ministry and I work with lots of kids. I love all of those kids and they are so important. But I need to make sure that I'm putting my kids and the time above my ministry and then my wife above that and then God first. So I think that's really important.
Speaker 3:And then something second also that you said is there are seasons and I was talking to Laura this morning about this and that's one of the things, too that you just really said is, you know, eric, we've gone through a lot of different seasons of our life, and when I first started ministry, I was newly married and trying to figure that out, and so I had to make sure to kind of keep those boundaries of time and to make sure that I still spent that time with Laura. And then that just even got harder as we had kids and had more kids, and so, going through those seasons of even now it's like I'm in a phase where I don't have newborns anymore and that's different, and so I have maybe a little bit more time to be able to put back into ministry that I couldn't when I had a baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when you find yourself in a season where things are getting out of balance, what's kind of your first check? To realize like, oh, hey, something's got to change because I'm sure that there are folks listening, who you know, who maybe either are in that season right now or they're feeling that pressure. But what's the signal to you of hey, I got to make a change, something's's off kilter. Where do you start to see those flags?
Speaker 3:I would say, like there's flags that come up spiritually that maybe you might miss, and so those things are kind of hidden, because a lot of times, if you're having something off with God, maybe you're not getting used to the word or things like that, but those are oftentimes easily missed, and that's just even from my own experience, where I kind of miss those spiritual red flags.
Speaker 3:Then what happens, though, is it really kind of starts to hit me, is in my home life, where it's like Laura keeps me accountable with so many things, and if we're struggling over something, or if we find that we are getting into maybe an argument or something about something, when we're like, wait, we're on the same side of this, like what are we even arguing about?
Speaker 3:But we find ourselves just being at a tension, and that is probably where I see flags. I mean, sometimes it can happen with kids as well, and I've seen that happen. You know where sometimes there's something where it's like, okay, no, I got to take this opportunity to be able to be with my child, and so those are those flags that come up, but oftentimes those flags are because you've already missed the things that God is already trying to kind of show you, and then you can go back and look at those and be like, oh yeah, actually all of my priorities are out of order because I've been spending too much time in ministry or I've spent too much time even on my own self and I haven't been able to really take that quiet time. Maybe that a way to be with God, or to be with your wife or your spouse or your family as well.
Speaker 2:So Maybe on the flip side, because you have definitely been in the game a long time at this point, but as the head of a department, because Urban Impact is constantly bringing in new missionaries, new fellows, new folks into the department, how do you, as a manager, encourage that in your staff and help them to make sure that we're not getting them burnt out at the same time?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think there's lots of ways you can do this. I one way for me is I try to be and I've learned this from Tammy, who is my supervisor is I try to be more generous with time. So I I love a calendar and I love being able to go out and see things in advance, and we have lots of performances in the performing arts and so sometimes there's things on weekends and that can take time away.
Speaker 3:You know that stacks up and so being really making sure that try to being proactive in that, to be able to say, hey, we have a weekend performance, I want to make sure that you guys are taking off sometime next week to be able to, to make sure you can be with your family or to take your Sabbath if it's on a Sunday or something like that to make sure you have that time of rest.
Speaker 3:So I mean, I love working hard and I know I have a really hardworking department and so I really don't have to worry about that. But I feel like, as a manager, when it comes to the time of the people that you're working with in ministry, it's better to be more generous than to be like trying to count hours when it comes time for that. So that is something that I try to be able to keep and really try to encourage that when the staff that is working is making sure to take that time, not just to do another project, but to be able to take that time to say, hey, this is with your family, this is your time to go on a retreat, to hear from God or whatever it might be.
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Speaker 2:I think that a lot of times we get so caught up in the micromanaging of approving time cards and all of the details but at the end of the day, one thing I think gets missed in nonprofit work or maybe something people don't realize about it is that you are again it's not nine to five, is that you are again it's not nine to five, but you're putting in an overabundance of hours right All the time. So making sure to balance that out and not getting okay well, you worked two hours here, so you can take two hours here and not micromanaging the details of that, I think is a really good call out.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and you see this with I forget where it is. You guys, this is what Google is for. You can look it up in the Bible. Okay, perfect, but I mean, it's so much of the parable of. You know, there's some people that worked like 40 hours on an event, and then there's the people that came in just the last little bit and worked it, but they still get the same amount of pay or the same amount of reward for the work, and I've found that that is very often how it is.
Speaker 3:It's like we all work for, let's say, light the Night. It's our year-end annual Christmas program. It takes a ton of hours and hours above and beyond the 40-hour work week to be able to pull that off, but some people might work 50 hours, some people might work 60 hours that week. You know, like it's just a lot that we're kind of putting in. And so to be able to say, okay, hey, you guys, we have to take off some time to rest, but we're all going to be able to take this time because we're all in this together, and that also not only helps prevent burnout but that also keeps people from comparing themselves to one another to be able to say, hey, we're all on this equal kind of playing field here.
Speaker 2:That's a good call out too, because I think that kind of attitude has to be modeled right. There's a culture of like I just need to keep hustling, I need to keep going, but if I see that my boss is making sure to take that time and being intentional about it, then it frees up the people who report to you to be able to feel okay about doing it as well. Right, if you're. If you, as the leader, are not modeling that, it's harder for them to do it. Also.
Speaker 3:Yes, oh, I mean it is. It is very important because I work with a lot of younger people that are either, you know, coming out of some of them are coming even out of high school, as fellows like you mentioned or out of college, or maybe they're just young in their careers and so as best as we can model and help them to get this in their kind of working repertoire early on, and so when they do get married or when they start a family, or when life just hits really hard or they adopt a child or bring in a foster child and things just get more challenging like that, that they already have that into their system. Because I know it was different before I had kids, that I felt like I was like, oh, I could just work, work, work, but also understanding that no, sabbath is meant for everybody, it's not just meant for the people that have 10 kids, it's meant for everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're going to go all the way back to 2008, when you were just starting. Is there something now, as you look back at that season because we're talking to a lot of folks who are just starting their nonprofit journey and their ministry journey in this season is there something that you wish you would have known then? Like, if you could go back until 17 years ago, eric, what would you tell yourself now that you, like you, wish you would have known as you were starting out?
Speaker 3:I think the thing that's so we work with a lot of youth about it. Four years is when a lot of urban missionaries that work at urban impact burnout and that's kind of like the average. So what I kind of learned at that time was and Tammy pulled me aside and said this is like, yes, we are here for the kids, but ultimately our main goal is to be able to follow what God has for us, and if we get that out of order, even though being there to make disciples of students is the utmost important, it's, we're making disciples for Christ, and so I think the main thing that I would have wanted to know just even starting out, is we want to make sure that we're here for God's business, not the business of kids, not the business of whatever your nonprofit is.
Speaker 3:We're here for God's business and the success rides and dives on him on the cross and on who he is as a provider, and not how much I am discipling a student.
Speaker 3:And that's kind of one of those things where you know very practically four years into it I had some students that I had poured really into and they started making some choices that were really hard or, you know, lying to my face about things, and I thought I was like I thought I was doing so well and I thought I was trying to pour so much into them and I was pouring a lot into them and in a lot of ways I was doing well and in a lot of ways I was making maybe some mistakes too, but at that time I had to make sure if the success was based upon their success, then I would have been out at that time at four years. But it's really seeing what God has. So I think that's what I would have liked to have known just even earlier and it would have helped put things even to better perspective and to continue to seek God first. But there are some lessons that you just kind of learn a little bit the hard way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately, right, it'd be so easy if we didn't have to do it that way. Yes, so talk to us a little bit about then the flip, the whole flip side of all of this. Right, instead of the burnout, is the reward, because there is so much you know, nobody gets. I shouldn't say nobody. I don't want to paint with that broad of a brush, that broad of a brush. I don't know of anybody that goes into nonprofit or into ministry. For the paycheck, for the accolades. These are not what tends to drive those folks. It is all about the mission, it's all about the impact and the doing of God's work and good work. So, outside of the burnout, what are the things that keep you going? What are those success stories maybe, that you look to, or even just the moments where you're like, yep, what I'm doing work. So, outside of the burnout, what are the things that keep you going? What are those success stories, maybe, that you look to, or even just the moments where you're like, yep, what I'm doing matters that keep you going throughout that process?
Speaker 3:oh, yeah, it's. It's wonderful when you get a chance to be able to see a student for for me to be able to say, like, okay, okay, this student is actually making these choices and they're making them. And you see them make the choices on their own. And it's not because of something that I said or Urban Impact said or their parents have said, it's just it's really exciting when you see it start to click and it's. You have those moments when you're like, oh, like this, what I'm doing is worth it Because, like you said, the paycheck isn't there for it and like the glory isn't there for it. Like, yeah, there's some great times where you know people can, you know, clap for a show or things like that, and that's wonderful.
Speaker 3:But really seeing a student and seeing them make those choices on their own is really wonderful. And that can be a lot of ways like people, students coming back to volunteer, students coming back to be able to, you know, run the programs that you started, or things like that. That is truly awesome reward, and God is so good and so gracious to me that so often when I find myself, when I am at a place close to burnout or things like that, there are those glimpses of like, those nuggets of being like but did you see this? Like that's, that's so good and so that's, that's really just such a wonderful award. I tell people this all the time working at Urban Impact is a lot of hard work, but it's not a job Like. I love what I do, I really do, and and being able to work here with these students and the staff that I have is just truly a blessing.
Speaker 2:I love that. So one of the things that I know you do, because I've watched it happen, is some of these. You know we do a Christmas show for Light the Night, but your summer program is pretty in depth and pretty intense and I think that for a lot of non-profit folks, especially anyone that works with students, summer can be the the time right. Whether you're running camps or programs or whatever the case may be, summer can be a really intense time to work in non-profit on those front lines. Is that a way that you all think about seasonality too? Like we know, summer is going to be crazy, so maybe in the spring we pull back a little bit, or fall. We know fall is going to be our busy season. I don't know that you all have a not busy season, to be honest, but in general is when we think about planning for that, especially as we're coming into summer, how do you, how do you guys, think about structuring seasons that way, especially when you know one is going to be just super intense?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I also learned this a little bit the hard way too. You really do have to plan ahead, you have to know and you have to look at this and to be able to sometimes to say, like no, we can take a week off. So when we had originally, my wife and I, we started a summer program that was an intensive Shakespeare program that we put together a show at the end of the summer and we did that.
Speaker 3:We started that before we had kids and then, as our family grew, it was very intensive, we loved doing it, but we actually ended up taking a summer off just because we were getting close to burnout and so we just like, okay, we're going to kind of look at this to see you know what is important, or how can we do this and do this long-term. And so one of the things that we did was, very practically, when we came back and did it, the following summer is we said, okay, we're in the middle of the summer, we're going to take a week off, because we understood that if we were feeling it as a family and that that was just so intense that chances are our students or their families might be feeling it or our interns would be feeling it to be able to say, okay, let's take a break, right in the middle of it, and it's hard to do because you're like well, but that's right when we're getting going.
Speaker 2:And we want to keep the momentum.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, but it is. It is turned out to be so, so great and now we don't miss it because it's built into our kind of our routine of things. But the first year it was tough because we were like, oh, if we just had one more week, or something like that, but yeah, but, but yeah. So you really have to look at it and you really have to schedule it out and and if you have an already an existing program, it's really good to to be able to kind of look back at it and say, okay, this was good, but maybe how could we improve it or how could we look for the longevity of it and to kind of reassess. Maybe that is taking some perfect like some, some specifically scheduled times off.
Speaker 2:So good, Okay. So in general, if someone wanted to learn more about any of the programs you're talking about or about Urban Impact itself, where would we find that information? How do we get to learn more about you guys?
Speaker 3:Well, you can, of course, check us out on the web at uifpghorg and you can probably put that in the comments, so you can just click on that and then another thing that you could just be able to do is you can follow us on Instagram or check us out on Facebook.
Speaker 2:There you go as we wrap up. My question to everybody this season has been if you could give one piece of advice to somebody who's just starting out in their nonprofit career, what would that look like? What's the one takeaway, that one nugget of wisdom that you would pass on?
Speaker 3:This is a hard kind of truth, but this is something that Pastor Ed has said to me and when I first came on, and also has said to many others if you can do something else, go do it. So that that's it. But if you feel that you're called to do this and if you're like, no, I got to come back, I didn't. Just he just has that itch and you can't do it, then that's when you know, because being a nonprofit, like we said, it's not about the money and it's not about the glory, because that's not what we're here for. So yeah, if you can go do something else, go do it. If not, then that's when you really start to focus in and be able to see what God is calling you out to do.
Speaker 2:I love it. Fantastic. A little bit of a hard pill to swallow, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:Right, absolutely. It makes you think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely, but a solid truth. If there's anything else you can do, go do that. Maybe this isn't for you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Because otherwise you'll find yourself four years down the road and you'll just be going off to a new job. But for those people that are sticking around or maybe on the edge, if you can stick it out after three years, between three and five years, you really start clicking, and then after that it's amazing to be able to see what happens with longevity. You can be able to do so much if you're able to stick it out and be able to see what starts to compound over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good. Eric, thank you so much. I really appreciate your wisdom and insight. Certainly with 17 years in the nonprofit ministry world, you are speaking from expertise, so I appreciate you sharing that with everyone.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Again, this has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, and we'll see you next time. Bye.