You can't pour from an empty cup. People in corporate impact roles are naturally caring and empathetic, often taking on the emotions of those they serve while working in under-resourced and under-supported positions. Personal resilience is key not just to surviving in this space long term, but in being able to grow and lead others.

Compassion fatigue—the physical and mental exhaustion and detachment experienced by those who care—is one of the most pervasive and least discussed traumas that nearly every corporate impact professional feels at one time or another. It can be caused by a single event or by the prolonged exposure to others’ trauma, by systemic inequities or powerlessness. This session will draw on the advice and stories in RELIT: How to Rekindle Yourself in the Darkness of Compassion Fatigue, and lead attendees in exercises to create their own self-management habits to empower them to be more present and effective for their clients.

This session confronts compassion fatigue with practical strategies from diverse experts featured in RELIT. Through lectures, discussions, and exercises, participants will learn the origins, prevention, and recovery from compassion fatigue, enhancing both personal well-being and coaching effectiveness.

We'll begin with a comprehensive overview of compassion fatigue, exploring its various causes—systemic inequities, prolonged trauma exposure, and single traumatic events—and its manifestations: empathy loss, psychic numbing, and exhaustion. Stories from RELIT will illustrate the universality of this experience, and lessons from RELIT will help attendees understand how to build their own personal resilience.

The session concludes with a Q&A period as well as guidance on bringing these techniques back to your organizations and teams, empowering participants to maintain their well-being while supporting others.

An understanding of how compassion fatigue affects corporate impact leaders

An understanding of how compassion fatigue starts and its symptoms

Practical exercises and tools attendees can use to build their own personal resilience, and to respond to disempowering and frustrating situations in the future

Antoinette LeCouteur is an author, publisher, philanthropy advisor, and caregiver who is driven to help people do good in the world. A theatre major in college and actor early in her career, she transitioned to the world of philanthropy and social impact in the mid-2000s and has helped get hundreds of millions of dollars in employee donations and corporate funds to charities all over the world. Her photography, which can be seen in the books Together and Twist, captures reality as it happens, documenting the unstaged world in its most authentic state, showing unique moments from new angles. She is part of the Gray Bear Publications leadership team. 

Peter Dudley is an executive coach and award-winning  author who tries to make the most of every day. After ten years in tech  startups, he then spent 20 years in employee engagement and corporate  social impact, running Wells Fargo's global employee giving and  volunteer programs and then leading fundraising and communications for a  regional healthcare nonprofit. He moved to executive coaching in 2022  and has helped dozens of nonprofit executives build resilient cultures  of ownership. As the father of a transgender woman, he is a fierce  advocate for equality in all its dimensions. He is the founder of Gray  Bear Coaching LLC and Gray Bear Publications.

Personal Resilience for Corporate Impact Leaders