I raised my daughter to value making a difference over making money. Now I question that lesson.
A mother reflects on the challenges of running a nonprofit and questions whether she should have encouraged her daughter to pursue a more lucrative career path. The piece explores the emotional and financial toll of mission-driven work in the non-profit sector.
Why it matters
It addresses the societal tension between prioritizing passion-driven social impact and financial stability in career planning.
The author (right) and her daughter both founded nonprofits. Courtesy of Miriam Bonilla. My daughter and I both run nonprofits: mine rescues dogs; hers supports women's education. We are both passionate about our philanthropic work, but it comes at a price. I sometimes wonder if I should have encouraged her to choose a paycheck over passion and purpose. Two years ago, my daughter, Jordan, was in the outskirts of Marrakech in Morocco with a group of 15 Amazigh girls from the High Atlas Mountains . Displaced after a recent earthquake, they were in a temporary dorm, just a small house, but it was all they had available to them. My daughter was leading a yoga teacher training program through her nonprofit — one that she built herself from the ground up when she was 26. "How hot is it?"
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