We work at a rep's office of a nonprofit a registered 501c(3) in Asia. Pre-covid there used to be 6 staff members and a resident coordinator, who acts as the executive officer. 7 people in total worked in the Asian country. There is an official CEO, who oversees things from USA with the board as is the case with 501c(3) nonprofits in the US.
Now, there are only 4 staff members and no resident coordinator. That's 4 out of 7. We're almost at 50% capacity. And we worked like this for over a year, the remaining staff filling in for the vacant positions, often taking work home and going the extra mile to keep the operations of the nonprofit running. Note all staff were hired from locals and are paid above average pays compared to other locals.
Our peak activity is during the summer and we have had massively successful season, completing 6 programs, organizing seminars and roundtables, providing support and giving out our grants. We even organized a nice tour for a representative of an organization that gives us a grant to fund some of our activities. This was during the peak time when we were busting our asses to complete the programs, and not to mention that there was a deluge of tourists – it was a miracle that we were able to accommodate that person's requests.
However recently, the governing board conducted a “strategic review” going around interviewing various 'stakeholders' and the aim is to “adapt the policies of the nonprofit”. Given our successes and accomplishments, we expected large raises – enough to cover the inflation rates in this country at the very least. But apparently the board issued a decree stating that our contracts will only be extended for 6 months (previously this was an annual extension), and nobody will be getting a raise. The reason given at a zoom meeting was that our performance was baaaad, and that the organization is restrategizing.
We got this message last week and we demanded an official statement from the board and asked who rated our performance as bad. No official statement given so far and everyone acts as if things were normal. This infuriates, how can people just function like normal after being figuratively spat on their faces like this.
The CEO is only covering their ass and throwing us under the bus. First of all we reached all our goals this summer. Second, if the performance was indeed bad, as they claim, as reported by some commissar, is the staff really at fault here? 4 people doing the jobs of 7 people. Moreover, there is no resident executive here, which slows down decision making due to the time differences. To me this looks more like the failure of the CEO and the board. If indeed the performance was bad, and I disagree with that, the CEO and the board were at the very least negligent.