In my previous post, 5 Nonprofit Culture Tensions and How to Address Them, I outlined common culture challenges that nonprofits face and provided strategies to work through them. While it’s important to start with the basics, the stronger a culture becomes, the more advanced the approaches will need to be to take that culture to the next level. The strategies outlined below will help you refine your culture work to match this added complexity and move your organization from “good” to “great.”
When to Invest in Deepening Culture Approaches
Let’s say you’re an organizational leader who’s already been proactive about prioritizing culture-building initiatives. You’ve implemented periodic culture surveys, consistently revisit cultural values as a team, and established ways for your team to collaborate and connect as people. While these foundational practices are important, you may notice that even after taking these measures, some team members thrive while others struggle.
As organizations grow and evolve, cultural challenges become more complex. Your team may share positive survey results on average, but certain team members consistently rate their experience lower. Social events bring people together, but trust and psychological safety may feel inconsistent across departments. Or maybe your organization’s cultural values resonate on paper, but translating them into day-to-day work remains a challenge. Instead of viewing these as signs of failure, consider them as signs of organizational maturity and signals that an organization is ready to refine its approach to culture.
1. Assess Culture More Deeply
Typical all-staff culture surveys evaluate team members’ sentiments on how well the organization is doing living its mission, vision, and values, as well as some internal-facing measures (e.g. strength of communication, satisfaction with meetings, etc). If your organization is looking to use the culture survey to dive a little bit deeper into the inner workings of its environment, there are a few paths you can take.
Approach: Gauging team members’ sense of belonging in the workplace – essentially, how comfortable they feel in the day-to-day environment – can unearth hidden tensions in workplace culture. If a culture survey shows mixed feedback on employees’ sense of belonging, it creates the opportunity to have team-wide discussions on what might be driving the difference in experiences and then co-create solutions together. Leadership can also examine whether cultural values and practices resonate equally across different demographics, work styles, and life circumstances. For example, perhaps all “team building” events are happy-hours immediately after work, which may isolate colleagues who are sober or have childcare responsibilities in the early evenings. Or, perhaps there are unspoken norms (e.g. quietly agreed upon ways of dressing, joking, or relating to one another) that feel alienating to those team members who don’t naturally fit that mold. Assessing team-wide sense of belonging and following up with group discussions will allow some of these tensions to rise to the surface and let all employees be heard.
Beyond belonging, another way to enhance all-staff surveys way to enhance all-staff surveys and develop a more complete picture of the workplace culture is to use comprehensive frameworks like the PERMAH model. While originally developed for use with individuals, the PERMAH model examines six interconnected elements:
- Positive emotions (satisfaction and enthusiasm about one’s role)
- Engagement (deep involvement and flow in daily work)
- Relationships (meaningful connections and trust among colleagues)
- Meaning (connection to the organization’s mission and purpose)
- Accomplishment (professional growth and contribution to organizational success)
- Health (physical wellness and sustainable energy for work and life)
Organizations can develop culture survey questions that assess how well they’re addressing each element, creating clear benchmarks and identifying specific opportunities to strengthen culture. When improvements are made within the context of a framework like PERMAH, organizations can draw a direct connection between their initiatives and building a culture where their team truly thrives.
What’s most important is ensuring that team members feel heard when they share concerns and that there are structures to prevent similar tensions for current and future staff. Creating space for group discussions, hosting office-hours for individual feedback, and following up with updates and improvements will build trust among the team and contribute to building an inclusive culture.
2. Shift from Leadership-Led to Shared Ownership
In the early stages of culture-building, leaders set the tone through consistent modeling. As shared values take root, the next challenge is creating systems that let everyone contribute and turn culture from something led at the top into something lived by the whole team. This means building buy-in and shared ownership at every level of the organization.
Approach: In order to put more decision-making power or influence into the hands of employees, organizations can develop committees or working groups focused on specific aspects of the workplace (e.g. culture and events). These groups can collaborate with leadership to identify priorities, develop initiatives, and implement changes that strengthen culture from the ground up. At Trepwise, we have separate Culture, Equity, and (Office) Space committees that meet throughout the year to address key areas of opportunity. Our Culture Committee helps develop, analyze, and report findings from our periodic culture surveys, as well as plan quarterly get-togethers. The Equity Committee works to ensure that team members and clients experience our commitment to equity as a firm. The Space Committee prioritizes changes to our office environment that increase well-being when working in person. To keep things fresh, we change the composition of these groups at least annually.
These committees can serve as extensions of leadership priorities and create space for team members to actively shape organizational culture. This shared ownership increases engagement with cultural initiatives and ensures that diverse perspectives inform how culture evolves.
3. Promote Communities of Practice
In many workplaces, certain team members will naturally gravitate towards each other and build connections, which ultimately deepens trust and makes collaboration easier. While informal connections are important, organizations have the opportunity to be more purposeful about how working relationships support both individual growth and collective success.
Approach: Communities of Practice are groups that bring together team members at similar levels or with similar roles to share best practices, solve problems collectively, and support each other’s development. At Trepwise, Associates and Advisors each have regular lunches with members from their respective groups to connect as peers, share insights about their work, and problem-solve together. These gatherings create opportunities for team members to learn from each other’s approaches and strengthen relationships grounded in shared professional experiences.
By intentionally creating these forums, organizations move beyond hoping that peer learning happens organically to ensuring it becomes a consistent part of how teams grow and improve together.
4. Learn from Peer Organizations
Culture is always influenced by changes from within, but what about changes dictated by the external world? The post-pandemic workplace has significantly shifted, with models like hybrid or remote work becoming permanent for some organizations. Understanding internal culture dynamics is important, but organizational leaders also need to stay informed about broader trends affecting workplace culture as a whole.
Approach: Organizations can stay current by engaging with trusted resources and peer networks. Publications like the Chronicle of Philanthropy offer insights into sector-wide trends, and professional networks and conferences provide opportunities to learn how analogous organizations are approaching similar challenges. At Trepwise, we subscribe to newsletters focused on organizational culture and workplace trends. We also utilize the Hone platform for professional development to ensure our team’s skills and approaches remain current. Beyond consuming information, leaders can also participate in peer learning circles, join nonprofit leadership networks, or conduct informal benchmarking conversations with colleagues at similar organizations.
Staying informed about changes happening across the field helps organizations maintain a best-in-class culture that attracts and retains great talent. When nonprofits balance internal learnings with awareness of how the broader work environment is evolving, they can make more strategic decisions about which trends to adopt, adapt, or set aside based on their unique context.
Conclusion
Evolving your approach to culture should be seen as a welcome challenge and an opportunity to ensure that your team is supported and your work is as impactful as possible. The strategies outlined above build on the foundational work of addressing basic cultural tensions. By implementing these approaches, organizations can create environments where team members thrive, collaboration flourishes, and purpose-driven work reaches its full potential.
Visit www.trepwise.com to learn more about how Trepwise can help your organization’s culture go from good to great and plan for a more impactful future.
