Mike Abrams shares what make FourBlock one of the Best Non-Profits to work for

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by Richard H. Levey

The best medium-sized nonprofits to work for (those with between 50 and 249 employees) might not have the financial or structural resources of the best large organizations (those with more than 250 employees).

The annual project with of The Best Nonprofits To Work For is a multi-story package you can find on The NonProfit Times website.

They might not have the nimbleness or immediate access to all levels of management of the best small nonprofits (those with 49 or fewer employees). But they mirror all of the best nonprofits in their aggregate scores. When there are variations, they are usually by no more than a point or two.

Two of the most notable variations popped up when employees were asked about payment and fun. Only 64% of employees at the best medium nonprofits said they were paid fairly for the work they do, compared with 68% of all best nonprofits. Conversely, however, employees at the best medium-sized nonprofits were four percentage points more likely to say they had fun at work than the overall score for best nonprofits — 84% to 80%.

Leaders at several medium-sized nonprofits mentioned staff retreats or other employee-focused time as significant aspects of their fun/productivity activities. And several cited their mid-sized staffs as allowing top management and lower-level employees to meet and exchange ideas during these retreats — a benefit especially valuable for organizations that are largely or entirely remote.

At FourBlock in New York City, the 13th best nonprofit to work for in the medium-sized nonprofits category and 26th best overall, their annual team meeting is “bonding first, strategy second,” according to founder and CEO Mike Abrams.

The organization’s October 2025 retreat included for the first time both full-time staff and board members. Communication between those constituencies provided clear insight into all levels of the organization’s efforts to help former military service members and their spouses transition to the civilian workplace.

“We had a board and a full-time staff that didn’t know each other,” Abrams said. Building firsthand relationships between board members and staff fostered communication and trust between the two constituencies. In turn, that trust allows the organization to adjust and refine its strategy and plans more effectively, according to Abrams.

“The development of those relationships has increased engagement of board members and enabled our full-time staff to be more effective because they now have more senior relationships to leverage,” Abrams said. The same increase in trust that facilitated frank conversations between organization levels also empowered FourBlock’s workforce, which is largely drawn from the various military services, to advocate for themselves within the workplace.

“Veteran-sourced professionals often demonstrate high resilience and mission focus, but may underreport fatigue or over-index on pushing through stress,” Abrams said. Direct interactions with upper management give organization leaders the opportunity to reinforce the idea that “high performers need structural guardrails to sustain performance,” as Abrams put it.

The rise of remote work represents another organization culture shift that has increased the importance of communication fostered by staff retreats. Zero Prostate Cancer, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, exemplifies this: CEO Courtney Bugler lives in Atlanta.

“It’s hard to create culture and camaraderie,” Bugler, who joined the organization (9th best among the medium-sized nonprofits, 21st best overall) in 2023, said. “We started doing all-staff retreats with the first year I was there.” Those retreats continued throughout subsequent years, which Bugler described as a period of turmoil.

“That’s meant immense growth,” she said. “It’s also meant some turnover.” In fact, 35 of the organizations 70-person staff were hired within the past year. “We had a lot of people who had never met any of their colleagues in person,” Bugler said. “People meet with their own teams a lot, but [within the retreats] we want to make sure we do cross-department work.”

As with FourBlock, these retreats facilitate interactions up and down the organizational structure, “CEO to coordinator,” as Bugler put it. “We spent our retreat in 2025 really digging into our mission.”

Getting a nonprofit’s entire staff together in one location also allows leaders to bring up and correct endemic concerns that otherwise might not be addressed. “At the first staff retreat we had, I brought in a speaker from The ALS Foundation,” Bugler said. “He talked to the staff about what it feels like when you work for a health organization where everyone dies, and what that meant [to staff morale and operations].”

Sometimes, however, the staff retreats bring out overlooked deleterious aspects of employee relations. “We brought in a consultant, and we were talking about our culture,” Bugler said. “There was a young queer woman of color, and she said, ‘I looked on the fun channel [of the organization’s intranet], and all it is, is pictures of primarily white heterosexual people with their kids.’ And then she said ‘I don’t want to take that away from everyone, but that subliminally tells me maybe I’m not wanted in this space,” Bugler recalls.

The room got very quiet, Bugler said. Point made. And yes, the representation on the intranet was broadened.

Other organizations, such as PolicyLink, (the 15th best medium-sized nonprofit and 34th best overall) alternate work-focused summits with all-staff gatherings around mission-relevant morale-building pursuits annually. The Oakland, California-based nonprofit promotes multiracial democracy, equitable economy and thriving communities of opportunity throughout the United States. Its mission-relevant retreats focus around introducing staff to a variety of U.S. cultures while at the same time strengthening relationships among the organization’s remote workforce.

PolicyLink’s April 2025 retreat, which was held in the greater New Orleans area, focused on Louisiana cultural activities. Optional staff-suggested outings included a field trip to the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, an aquatic zipline tour through the Maurepas Swamp, and an Ancestral Historical Tour to St. Malo, the first Filipino settlement in the United States.

The retreats have become especially valuable in light of the organization’s post-COVID decision to remain 100% remote — “One of the best decisions it chose to make as an organization,” as PolicyLink’s Vice President of People Nisha Dass put it.

PolicyLink CEO Michael McAffee is convinced remote work generates a healthy life-work balance that enables employees to bring good cheer to the organization’s mission.

“We want people to have beautiful lives, take care of their families, live where they want to live, do the things that they want to do,” McAffee said. “PolicyLink doesn’t run a nanny state. We hire adults, and we want you to be an adult, and all we want in exchange is for you to do your best soul work possible. And we provide you the flexibility that allows you to do that.”

A retreat-style focus on employees does not have to be offsite for organizations to reap the benefits of time set aside for staff and processes. National Direct Support Professional Week occurs every year during the second week of September. At Becoming Independent (the 7th best medium-sized nonprofit, and 17th best overall), the Santa Rosa, California-based organization for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities uses the week to pause and focus on its staff.

“We want them to feel celebrated and recognized for the work they do each day,” said Becoming Independent CEO Luana Vaetoe. “We really cater, that week, to their ongoing feedback from throughout the year. We take it to the next level for DSP week.”

The week contains a mix of activities developed from staff feedback. But linking the group team-building exercises and burrito breakfasts are higher-level themes. “Every single year the theme of the week changes based on the feedback and the culture of the organization as our staffing changes,” Vaetoe said.

Last year’s theme was born out of a throwaway comment from a member of Becoming Independent’s staff. “I go home at the end of the day and I feel like I’m taking off my cape for the day.” Vaetoe did not think the person was suggesting staff members were super heroes… but why shouldn’t they?

“The focus of [Direct Support Professional Week] was the invisible capes,” Vaetoe said. Activities recognized the heroic actions staffers take every day, such as jumping right into work without taking time for breakfast or breaks for lunch. Or, as she put it, “arming” staffers with “super packs” of goodies that contributed to their ability to be heroic.

The other attribute for which the best medium nonprofits at which to work broke from the rest of the best was how employees feel about their pay. While few nonprofit leaders would ever say they can pay their employees what they are truly worth, those at the best medium nonprofits refuse to take a backseat to other organizations when it comes to compensation.

Becoming Independent’s Vaetoe touted the regular 5% pay increases her employees have received during the past few years. She also noted the organization has absorbed increases in health insurance costs during the past six years. Similarly, PolicyLink pays for 100% of employee benefits, including those for employee spouses and family members, while also paying employees at the 75th percentile.

FourBlock’s Abrams informally compares wages with other nonprofit CEOs, especially those in the veterans’ space, and believes his organization stacks up favorably, although he acknowledges that his employees are probably more passionate about the mission than about compensation.

So why the finding among the best medium nonprofits that employees may tend to feel underpaid? Perhaps communicating about compensation and how employees are valued is a subject for their upcoming retreats.