The Hidden Cost of ‘Doing Good’ Badly
Sustainability Means Paying People Properly
Dear Curious Minds,
Happy newsletter Monday. I’ve had pretty humbling encouragement on a couple of my last posts on passion tax and whataboutism. I am glad it resonated with a diverse range of people, who probably felt a tinge of guilt about ‘complaining for selfish struggles’ in environmental and social impact sector. Today, I thought I’d dig in a little deeper with both my personal work experiences and what plays out in our country over and over again. Thank you for being here, I appreciate you.
"Find a job you love, and you'll never work a day in your life."
Whoever wrote that clearly never worked in sustainability, social impact, or healthcare. For those of us who choose to work here and deeply care about the world, loving our work typically means working harder, longer, and often, let's be honest, for less pay. Passion and purpose might fuel us, but unfortunately, it doesn’t pay the bills (or prevent burnout).
Here’s the problem: Our systems are set up to exploit passion rather than support it. The issue isn’t just personal, it's structural. Chronic short-term thinking, biased funding practices, and exploitative work environments aren’t just ethically dubious; they're terrible for business too.
Short-Term Savings, Long-Term Headaches
If there were an award for the most misunderstood, most unfairly vilified group of professionals in public services, the “back-office” staff would win that award pretty consistently.
The way politicians and media talk about them, you’d think they were some shadowy group of bureaucrats actively working against doctors, nurses, and frontline staff rather than the very people who keep hospitals running, make sure wages are paid, protect patient data, and ensure the lights stay on (literally and figuratively). You know…the minor details that stop everything from falling apart.
Yes, public spending should be scrutinised and any complex organisation needs to justify where money is going. But the current blunt-brush narrative of ‘cut the bureaucrats, save the nurses’ is not just misleading, it’s dangerous.
Because here’s the thing: if your back office is dysfunctional, your front line will be too.
And nowhere is this clearer than in New Zealand’s public health sector, where outdated IT systems, digital security risks, and staff cuts are turning an already fragile system into a ticking time bomb. New Zealand’s health sector offers a classic "what not to do" example. Recently, Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) announced plans to cut 47% of its Data and Digital workforce (that's about 1,120 jobs) to save $100 million.
At face value, that might seem savvy. In reality, it's the equivalent of saving money by removing the seatbelts and airbags from your car. Cheaper today, but disastrous tomorrow.
A leaked internal report assessed 14 out of 40 identified IT risks as "almost certain" with "severe consequences." These range from system crashes that leave doctors staring helplessly at frozen screens to potential data breaches that could make patient privacy about as secure as your grandma's Facebook password ("password123" anyone?). Ironically, these laid-off experts often reappear as costly external consultants, meaning we saved money by spending a lot more. Not so smart.
If you’ve worked in the public sector long enough, you’ll know this script by heart:
1️.Experienced professionals are laid off in a restructuring push.
2️. Institutional knowledge is lost because you can’t just Google how to run a hospital-wide data security framework.
3️. Frontline workers suffer because when the “support” roles disappear, their workload increases.
4️. The same experts who were made redundant… are hired back as consultants. At a much higher rate.
And suddenly, the $100 million in cost savings doesn’t look like savings at all.
This has played out over and over in public services, from social work to education. Gut the system, lose key expertise, panic when things go wrong, then spend more trying to fix what should never have been broken in the first place.
Funding Bias: Short-Term Wins Over Real Impact
Funders and donors have a notorious addiction to immediate, feel-good results, dubbed the "Overhead Aversion" bias. This means they're more eager to fund initiatives like uniforms and shoes for children (easy to measure, looks good on social media) rather than complex interventions like fair labour advocacy or systemic policy changes (harder to measure, and doesn’t quite have the same Instagram appeal).
It’s easier to celebrate giving out shoes than tackling why children need shoes donated in the first place. Sadly, the "ambulance at the bottom of the cliff" always attracts more money than the fence at the top. I certainly had to run campaigns like that for years because that’s how the organisation has seen success and raised those vital funds consistently. But ask yourself: would you rather prevent the accident or keep paying for ambulances?
We’ve all seen the fundraising campaigns (I certainly spent a lot of time on such over my career) :
✔ X number of children fed
✔ Y number of shoes given to poor families
✔ Z number of emergency shelter beds provided
These numbers are easy to measure, easy to communicate, and easy to fundraise for. But prevention? That’s a harder sell.
Take two possible programmes:
1️. Trafficking Prevention Programme & Labour Rights Advocacy
Involves legal reform, workplace monitoring, and systemic policy change.
Requires years of investment before clear, quantifiable impact emerges.
Doesn't produce "feel-good" individual stories that easily translate to marketing.
2️. Donating Shoes to Poor Children
Simple, immediate, and easy to measure ("X number of children now have shoes!").
Feels tangible and personal for donors.
Completely ignores why those children couldn't afford shoes in the first place.
Despite the first programme being infinitely more effective in addressing systemic poverty, donors are far more likely to fund the second.
✔ Immediate impact feels better than delayed results.
✔ Numbers-driven outcomes are easier to communicate than complex policy interventions.
✔ It removes discomfort: Donors don’t have to think about structural inequality from which they benefit.
This is why crisis response gets massive donor attention, while upstream solutions like education, prevention, governance reform, and sustainable business models struggle for long-term funding.
Volunteering Isn’t Free. It's Just Paid by Someone Else
Volunteering and pro bono work undoubtedly add immense value to our society, but let's not pretend it's equally accessible. Who gets to volunteer? Usually, it's people who can afford to. This results in governance roles filled predominantly with older, wealthier, and less diverse individuals whose lived experiences rarely reflect those they aim to help.
If we continue to rely heavily on unpaid work, we reinforce inequality rather than resolve it. We might pat ourselves on the back for saving money, but at what cost? We lose out on critical perspectives that could genuinely drive innovation and inclusivity.
Extractive Employment: Someone Always Pays the Price
Let’s also acknowledge the less glamorous truth: essential jobs like nursing or caregiving are often the most undervalued, underpaid, and overworked. Nursing students in New Zealand provide a textbook example of this exploitation. Historically, these students have had to perform hundreds of hours of unpaid clinical placements as mandatory components of their nursing degrees, despite long-running advocacy from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) to address this issue.
NZNO has repeatedly highlighted the financial hardship faced by student nurses, pointing out that many must juggle these demanding unpaid practicums alongside full-time studies and often part-time paid work simply to survive.
Recent campaigns by NZNO continue to push for paid clinical placements, underscoring that these unpaid hours are not a luxury; they're essential for graduation and professional registration. The practice systematically exploits the vulnerability of students, who must accumulate clinical hours to graduate, effectively compelling them into unpaid labour and financial instability. This isn't passion, it's necessity. And necessity shouldn’t be exploited.
Imagine telling your landlord or supermarket you’d like to pay with passion instead of money. Good luck with that. Yet we expect precisely this from our most critical workers.
Practical Recommendations for Leaders Who Prefer Sustainability Over Duct Tape
1. Invest in Actual Infrastructure
Treat infrastructure as foundational, not expendable. Tell your stakeholders that sustainable investments aren’t luxury but common sense.
2. Make Inclusion More Than a Buzzword
Replace unpaid roles with flexible, paid pathways to leadership. Diverse experiences mean smarter decisions (and fewer blind spots).
3. Champion Long-term Impact Over Quick Wins
Encourage funders to see the long-term ROI of prevention, policy advocacy, and systemic change. These will always outperform "feel-good" short-term projects.
4. Ethical Employment as a Competitive Advantage
Advocate for migrant workers' rights, abolish exploitative practices like unpaid internships, and pay people fairly. Ethical workplaces attract top talent and retain them.
5. Respect Your "Back Office" Heroes
Stop framing administrative and support roles as costs to be minimised. Unless you enjoy chaos, these folks keep your business running smoothly.
Bottom Line: Smart Leaders Think Long-term
Short-term thinking, exploitative employment models, and funding biases aren't just ethically questionable; they're strategic liabilities. Leaders prioritising sustainable, equitable, and ethical practices don’t just do the right thing. They future proof their organisations. After all, resilience and sustainability aren't just morally commendable; they’re just plain smart.
Everything here is paywall-free, because connection shouldn’t come with a price tag and I’m grateful you’re taking a wander through the entangled curiosities of my brain.
That said, writing these pieces does take time and sometimes triggers the inevitable existential spiral in my neurospicy mind. I want to encourage other creatives to charge for their expertise as well.
If you feel like supporting this creative spree and can spare it, I’d love a virtual coffee (NZD 5). Maybe one day those symbolic coffees will turn into clinking cups in real life!