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Is the world of the not-for-profit organisation a working world just like any other? To answer this question, sociologists have forged the idea of the “associative enterprise,” underlining the fluctuation of these employers between two modes, those of the cause-driven organisation and the world of business. In this article, based on a survey of not-for-profit employers, and of employees of such organisations, the author examines in turn how cause-driven activity affects employees, and how having paid employees affects the activism of not-for-profit organisations. Working in the not-for-profit sphere (often) means working “for the cause” and “with” volunteers. It can also be a matter of working “for” not-for-profit organisations, for which the role of employer is often an unexpected responsibility and one that is difficult to manage. These peculiarities are characteristic of labour relations in small not-for-profit enterprises and undermine the relative stances of employer and employee.