REPORT SUMMARY

The societal, economic, and political landscape looks very different in 2010 from that which existed just a few years ago. Faced with a range of new realities, social entrepreneurs feel that they are approaching an “inflection point,” or a moment of dramatic change for their organizations and movement. Despite diminished resources, social entrepreneurs are now working to grow in entirely new ways and at faster rates than ever before.

These conditions and goals are putting incredible stress on systems that were already running at nearly full capacity. To be successful in moving to the next level, leaders need to take the entrepreneurial skills that they used so successfully in programmatic development and focus their talents on enhancing internal operating systems.  Organizations need to build capacity, enhance efficiency, and leverage human capital in order to increase their social impact per dollar invested (as represented below figuratively, not quantitatively).

To explore how social entrepreneurs are navigating through this dynamic period, Commongood Careers and the Building Movement Project convened “Conversations with Social Entrepreneurs.”  This effort included an electronic survey study and a series of regional gatherings in four cities with a group of 200 leaders from innovative nonprofits. The conversations revealed three prominent themes, as follows:

(1) Looking for new revenue sources: Social entrepreneurs are cautiously optimistic at the moment and 73% of them plan to expand programs this year, despite foundation funding cuts and other challenges with traditional funding streams. To be successful, however these groups will need to become more innovative in their approaches to revenue generation, such implementing growth capital campaigns and social media strategies, but also especially in their government relationships where only about 30% of all participants are planning to pursue new funding opportunities such as the Social Innovation Fund.

(2) Focusing on core growth with partners: In response to resource constraints and high levels of uncertainty, social entrepreneurs are rethinking their strategic plans in order to focus on core operations and essential programs. At the same time, organizations are pursuing aggressive growth plans, with 74% of participants expanding in their current regions and 40% replicating their programs in new regions in 2010. Partnerships among social entrepreneurs and across sectors also emerged as a key strategy to increase impact and decrease costs. Participants also expressed a strong desire for additional regional convening opportunities.

(3) Enhancing human capital: Participants agreed that one of the largest sources of untapped potential for increasing organizational capacity exists within the human capital arena (including staff members, consultants, volunteers, board members and other stakeholders). In order to achieve their growth and impact goals, however, social entrepreneurs recognize that they will have to re-prioritize the perception of human capital’s importance in their organizations and embrace innovative new ways of recruiting, hiring, managing and developing talent.  Through these conversations, a number of best practices and new ideas were identified along these lines, including:

1. Pipelining: Build year-round recruiting partnerships, career tracks for program alumni, and pipelines into constituent communities.
2. Cross-Training: Create cross-functional teams to facilitate knowledge sharing and increase organizational cohesion.
3. Managing Volunteers: Utilize HR systems for volunteers just as for staff (job descriptions, recruitment, screening, managing, etc.)
4. Sharing Talent: Move away from competitive poaching and toward inter-organizational career ladders and management exchanges.
5. Leveraging Corporations: Ask private-sector partners to share professional development trainings, systems, and technologies.
6. Partnering and Merging: Explore sharing back-offices, staff trainings, pooled employee benefits and even celebrations.
7. Re-branding: Collaborate to build a unified and exciting nonprofit “brand” to attract new employees, volunteers and supporters.
8. Pooling Candidates: Develop a single talent database across many organizations to pool alumni, ex-employees and strong candidates.
9. Engaging Politicians: Inform elected officials about nonprofit employment levels and advocate for solutions to stimulate hiring.

For a complete version of the 12-page report, please download it here.

REPORT SUMMARY

The societal, economic, and political landscape looks very different in 2010 from that which existed just a few years ago. Faced with a range of new realities, social entrepreneurs feel that they are approaching an “inflection point,” or a moment of dramatic change for their organizations and movement. Despite diminished resources, social entrepreneurs are now working to grow in entirely new ways and at faster rates than ever before.

These conditions and goals are putting incredible stress on systems that were already running at nearly full capacity. To be successful in moving to the next level, leaders need to take the entrepreneurial skills that they used so successfully in programmatic development and focus their talents on enhancing internal operating systems.  Organizations need to build capacity, enhance efficiency, and leverage human capital in order to increase their social impact per dollar invested (as represented below figuratively, not quantitatively).

To explore how social entrepreneurs are navigating through this dynamic period, Commongood Careers and the Building Movement Project convened “Conversations with Social Entrepreneurs.”  This effort included an electronic survey study and a series of regional gatherings in four cities with a group of 200 leaders from innovative nonprofits. The conversations revealed three prominent themes, as follows:

(1) Looking for new revenue sources: Social entrepreneurs are cautiously optimistic at the moment and 73% of them plan to expand programs this year, despite foundation funding cuts and other challenges with traditional funding streams. To be successful, however these groups will need to become more innovative in their approaches to revenue generation, such implementing growth capital campaigns and social media strategies, but also especially in their government relationships where only about 30% of all participants are planning to pursue new funding opportunities such as the Social Innovation Fund.

(2) Focusing on core growth with partners: In response to resource constraints and high levels of uncertainty, social entrepreneurs are rethinking their strategic plans in order to focus on core operations and essential programs. At the same time, organizations are pursuing aggressive growth plans, with 74% of participants expanding in their current regions and 40% replicating their programs in new regions in 2010. Partnerships among social entrepreneurs and across sectors also emerged as a key strategy to increase impact and decrease costs. Participants also expressed a strong desire for additional regional convening opportunities.

(3) Enhancing human capital: Participants agreed that one of the largest sources of untapped potential for increasing organizational capacity exists within the human capital arena (including staff members, consultants, volunteers, board members and other stakeholders). In order to achieve their growth and impact goals, however, social entrepreneurs recognize that they will have to re-prioritize the perception of human capital’s importance in their organizations and embrace innovative new ways of recruiting, hiring, managing and developing talent.  Through these conversations, a number of best practices and new ideas were identified along these lines, including:

1. Pipelining: Build year-round recruiting partnerships, career tracks for program alumni, and pipelines into constituent communities.
2. Cross-Training: Create cross-functional teams to facilitate knowledge sharing and increase organizational cohesion.
3. Managing Volunteers: Utilize HR systems for volunteers just as for staff (job descriptions, recruitment, screening, managing, etc.)
4. Sharing Talent: Move away from competitive poaching and toward inter-organizational career ladders and management exchanges.
5. Leveraging Corporations: Ask private-sector partners to share professional development trainings, systems, and technologies.
6. Partnering and Merging: Explore sharing back-offices, staff trainings, pooled employee benefits and even celebrations.
7. Re-branding: Collaborate to build a unified and exciting nonprofit “brand” to attract new employees, volunteers and supporters.
8. Pooling Candidates: Develop a single talent database across many organizations to pool alumni, ex-employees and strong candidates.
9. Engaging Politicians: Inform elected officials about nonprofit employment levels and advocate for solutions to stimulate hiring.

For a complete version of the 12-page report, please download it here.

There has been much discussion about the face of unemployment in America, but there has been little attention paid to successful job seekers.  What set them apart?  What did they do differently?

Here are four profiles of professionals, each at a different stage in their career, who have successfully secured new positions during the recession.  Together, they share some strategies that you can implement today in your own job search.

Networking Her Way to Success

When Jen Porter started her job search in April 2009, she had a safety net that few could boast – fall 2009 acceptances to several MBA programs.  One even offered deferred enrollment until fall 2011.  However, Jen wanted to gain real-world experience before business school.  With those acceptances in her back pocket, she set off to find a position in finance or micro credit. 

Through networking, Jen was able to find her position with New Profit, Inc. in under three months.  What was the secret to her success?  “[I was] focused.  I knew what I wanted and did not go for the mass approach.  I only applied to jobs through networking.”

According to Jen, her position is the ideal match for her, “[because] … it is where I want to be in terms of the non-profit space … Second, it is a good culture fit – a smaller, more entrepreneurial environment that will challenge me as I prepare myself for my next step, which will be business school in 2011.”

Jen suggests a few tips for effective networking:

• Network continually: Don’t wait until you are looking for a job
• Follow-up: Email 1-2 days after your first introduction
• Make meaningful connections:  Seek learning opportunities, not just contacts

Seeking Advice from Peers and Mentors

In December 2008, Kristin Wright realized that while she loved her job, there was minimal opportunity for growth.  With that knowledge, Kristin started researching organizations with child-centric missions and setting up strategic informational interviews within her network.  As a result, she found an ideal opportunity.  By May 2009, she was working in her new position with Youth Villages.  This position offered her the chance to create systemic societal changes for children and families, while allowing her to stay in the Greater Boston area. 

Kristin feels that her new position is the right match for her because, “… it offered exciting opportunities to grow professionally [and] to fine tune and utilize my skills in a new way.  First and foremost, it was the mission and the people.  Beyond that, it was knowing that I could contribute to something great.” 

When participating in informational interviews, Kristin follows these best practices:

• Ask professionals, at the same level as the position you are interviewing for, how to position yourself
• Ask mentors to identify your transferable skills
• Interview the company while they interview you – Do they meet your needs?

Marketing Transferable Skills, Especially When Switching Sectors

Since graduating from business school in 2005, Amy Fannon has had a dynamic career path.  Business school led to management consulting, which led to a small start-up.  But, in May 2009, Amy realized she needed to find a new position when the start-up’s funding fell short.  She received an offer from Playworks a few months later.  Amy reflected on her job search, saying, “I was super fortunate to come upon the opportunity at Playworks early on in my searching, so I luckily did not feel like I exhausted the options of what was available.”

As someone who recently made the transition from the corporate to the non-profit world, Amy reflected on what makes this position the right one for her, “I am doing meaningful work … But it also goes back to the fact that the requirements for the position played so well to my strengths.  It makes it more exciting.”

Amy has the following advice for sector switchers:

• Before you start your job search, work with someone to define your strengths
• When transitioning into a new field, address how you would leverage your past experiences and skills
• Always keep your career direction in mind, even when you aren’t job hunting

Exploring New Career Horizons

By January 2009, the economy had significantly changed his current organization’s goals.  Instead of growing, the organization was now focusing on sustaining.  That was difficult for Matt Colburn, who was the “new project guy.”  With the full support of his boss, Matt started a job search and secured his position with KIPP Delta by June 2009.

It had been almost a decade since Matt’s last job search, and a lot had changed.  “I was finding organizations and jobs that I did not know existed.  I fell in love with a lot of these.”  However, this sometimes led to disappointment, “I found that if I didn’t know anyone in the organization my application would go into an applicant black hole.”

During his search, Matt opened himself up to new areas of focus – like education reform.  He also started looking in outside of Washington, DC to smaller cities across the country.  His position with KIPP Delta is a fit for him because, “… it’s a great combination of hands-on operational tasks and strategic management [and] that translates into focused variety.  I have always been drawn to organizations that are growing and I enjoy building systems to bring those operations to scale.” 

When embarking on a job search after a number of years, Matt suggests the following tips:

• Enthusiasm counts! You must show how excited you are about the job
• Draw on your entire contact network during your search and leverage it to open doors and increase your network size
• Keep your resume updated with your current roles and accomplishments

Successful job seekers, like the ones profiled here, know how important it is to do their research, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, seek the advice of mentors and peers, and prepare a strategy before they even write a cover letter.  Approaching your job search with a clear strategy will maximize your time and effort and eventually lead to success. 

Best Practices for Hiring Constituents

Experienced nonprofit managers follow a few best practices when considering their constituents for staff roles. 

1. Determine the unique value of constituents

To start, it is important to determine the unique value to your organization for hiring a constituent. For example, Brett Alessi, Managing Director for Education Pioneers, notes, “When hiring for an external facing role such as director of alumni engagement, hiring one of our fellowship alums adds a level of credibility. [Hiring a constituent] illustrates that we value the ‘product’ of our program.”

In addition to building credibility externally, another value of hiring a constituent is knowledge of an individual’s core competencies and personality traits. According to Brett, “When we’re hiring one of our own, it means that we have in-depth knowledge of their strengths and blind spots. This increases the odds of the hire being a good fit.”

When considering constituents for roles, loop back to these values and weigh them against the individual’s other skills and experiences. As discussed later in this article, candidates must still bring the other requirements of a given role to the table.

2. Promote hiring opportunities from the inside out

To encourage constituents to consider permanent roles at your organization, it is important to make it easy for this group to learn about and apply for job openings. Some organizations give their volunteers or corps members an early “heads up” about new staff positions.

For example, Elaine Mak, Director of Talent Management at City Year, shared that, “We roll out an internal transfer process during our hiring season which lists what positions are open across our network of sites to all of our senior corps members.” 

Constituents feel especially valued when they receive information about any open positions, so don’t overlook this highly motivated group of potential applicants.

3. Systematize the process

Partner with your IT or Operations teams to flag potential candidates in your internal systems that track constituent information. For example, create a special designation in your volunteer database for individuals who could be considered for full-time roles.

Additionally, consider methods that will save you time and effort in the future.  For example, add questions asking constituents if they would be interested in working in program roles in the future to volunteer or fellowship applications, feedback surveys, and exit interviews.  Keeping that information accessible and up-to-date in a database will help streamline future hiring processes.

Hiring Challenges & Common Mistakes

There are a few challenges hiring managers face when considering constituents for staff roles, all of which are avoidable by probing on any potential issues prior to extending an offer.  In these situations, hiring managers want to make sure they are hiring for skill, attitude, and fit, without undermining the mission of the organization.

Before making a constituent hire, it is important to fully assess the candidate’s skill set, not merely their performance in their current capacity.  Dedication and excellent performance as a volunteer or corps member may not always translate into programmatic roles. To address this situation, ask probing questions during the interview to confirm your constituent has the skills and competencies your organization needs. (For more information on this topic, read our article about competency-based hiring.) 

It is also key to explore the attitude and motivations of constituent candidates.  During the interview process, ask questions that confirm that your potential hire’s attitude (such as the enthusiasm of a volunteer or the dedication of a board member) will not change. Discussing attitude and motivations before an offer is made will also help smooth the transition for the constituent, and set expectations from the getgo.

As with every hire, organizational fit is also an important component.  Based on their current role, you are already aware that this candidate believes in and supports your organization’s mission.  This is a valuable piece of information.  However, fit is more than mission-connect. During the hiring process, seek the input of other staff to ensure the candidate’s workstyle and personality will fit in with the day-to-day culture of the organization.

Finally, avoid undermining your organization’s mission in the hiring process.  As Jenn Camus, Associate Director of Recruitment for Uncommon Schools, noted, “We always encourage our teachers to stay in the classroom.  We would never poach.  But, if someone expresses interest in an out-of-classroom role, we are very open to that.”

Making the Transition

Nonprofit hiring managers recommend two pieces of advice to constituents who are seeking to transition into a staff role: connect the dots and communicate your value.

Connect the dots:  First, determine your overall value to the organization, and then map your value to the organization’s goals and mission.  To do so, consider the answers to the following questions:

• What skills and knowledge have you gained from your direct contact with the organization?
• What core competencies do you possess that fit with the organziation’s goals, mission, and culture?
• Where do you see yourself fitting within the organization?

The answers to these questions will help you connect the dots, and position yourself to make a strong case for your employment to a hiring manager.

If the organization has hired other former constituents, reach out to these hires for advice and guidance. These staff can also offer a perspective about what challenges they faced during the hiring and on-boarding processes, as they transitioned from being a constituent to a staff role.

An organization’s human resources staff can be another great resource. HR staff should be able to share insights about the organizational culture, as well as core competencies that are required for a given role.

For example, Elaine Mak, Director of Talent Management at City Year, stresses the importance for former Corps members’ ability to highlight their leadership experience when applying for staff roles. According to Elaine, program alumni must be able to demonstrate, “strong performance in key leadership competencies, and the ability to seek out opportunities to help build the [City Year] leadership brand.”

Communicate your value: Once you have connected your personal value to the organization, it is important to let your interest be heard!

For example, Jessica Land, Volunteer Coordinator at Bottomless Closet NYC, recommends that, “... if you are interested in pursuing a position at the organization where you volunteer, make your intentions known. Don’t be afraid to discuss this with your program contact or a human resources representative.” 

To prepare for these conversations, leverage your first-hand experience with the organization, as well as the information you gained from researching the organization. Become fluent in examples of how you’ve demonstrated the core competencies sought for a particular role (or the organization in general), particularly examples from your personal interactions with the organization. In your conversations, take these opportunities to listen as well as share, so that you can continue to evaluate your fit and reflect what the organization is seeking.

Where to Look
 
Bottomless Closet NYC, Breakthrough Collaborative, and City Year are a few organizations that look at their pool of current and former constituents to fill internal roles.  However, Ben Martinez, the National Program Director of Breakthrough Collaborative, notes, “Persistence is the key. We don’t always have open positions. Interested alumni should keep updated through regular communication with staff members on openings.” 

Remember that keeping in touch takes work on your part, especially if it’s been a while since you’ve been involved with an organization. Set up a monthly or quarterly reminder on your Outlook calendar, BlackBerry or iPhone to both check the organization’s online job postings or check in with your organizational contact about any new positions, and then follow-up accordingly.

A Checklist for Success

Whether you are a program alum, volunteer, or client of a nonprofit, it is possible to leverage your personal connection into a staff role. To best position yourself for success, remember to:

• Learn as much as you can about the organization, including its culture and values, as well as sought-after core competencies for particular roles.
• Build relationships with – and make your intentions known to—key organizational staff, including other former constituents who have made the leap, and human resources staff.
• Identify and be able to articulate your personal value to the organization and/or a specific role.
• Continually demonstrate your passion and commitment to the organization.
• Give your “all” in your current constituent role. If you are a superstar volunteer, you are more likely to be able to demonstrate your value to the organization, as well as build strong relationships with key staff along the way.

This article explores the qualifications and experience needed to get ahead in the field of development.

Getting the Right (and Enough) Experience

In general, making the move from a mid to a senior-level development position requires a combination of broad experience, passion, and agility.  Senior roles require fluency in the major aspects of development – event planning, fundraising, individual gifts, working with a board of directors, etc.  In addition to these hard skills, a demonstrated passion for the nonprofit’s mission and the ability to work across departmental lines can be just as important.

To start, having the right amount of relevant work experience is a baseline requirement in order to be considered for senior development roles.  Jennifer Mamlet, Senior Vice President of Development at The Ad Council, notes, “Senior job listings in fundraising typically include an explicit requirement for years of work experience.  This is a field where experience really matters.”  To highlight years of work experience in an application, one suggestion is to cite the exact number prominently in your cover letter. Use a numeral (as opposed to writing out the number) to catch the hiring manager’s eye.

Secondly, development professionals must be able to demonstrate their competency across a variety of development functions. For example, Matthew Stone, Massachusetts State Manager at Youth Villages, recently hired a senior development professional because, “[She] learned the three development domains – working with foundations, working with individuals, and event planning – in previous positions.”

In addition to possessing competence in across a variety development functions, the strongest candidates are also adept at building skills and relationships across departments. Jennifer Mamlet suggested, “It helps to get as involved in other areas of the organization.  This not only helps to make you a more effective fundraiser, but as you look to advance your career internally, it helps to have other senior members of the organization be witness to your value and expertise.”

Continuing Your Education

Jennifer Mamlet observed that master’s degree and certificate programs are becoming more and more desirable as a requirement for senior development roles.  “[These programs] allow development professionals to demonstrate their commitment and desire to learn to prospective employers.  Even if someone is currently employed, in order to prepare for a more senior position, it is helpful to take coursework from time-to-time, such as writing courses, non-profit management, budgeting courses, etc. - to gain a deeper understanding of nonprofit management.” 

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy Special Report cited above, there are approximately 250 colleges and universities that offer programs in fundraising and non-profit management.  In fact, the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council members have noted recent spikes in applications. As noted by Julia Love, Director of Philanthropy for The Resource Foundation, “Continuing education is essential.  You really have to have a master’s to have a senior level position in the field.” 

Academia is not the only source of continuing education.  Julia also shared that, “It’s important to be up to date on current trends and issues in one’s field.  I try to attend as many events and workshops as possible on social media, online fundraising, corporate social responsibility, and anything else related to my field.”

In addition to formal educational opportunities, leveraging professional organizations and networking is also crucial for any development professional looking to advance his or her career.  As Matt Stone indicated, building successful relationships is a key skill needed to succeed in development.  Professional organizations give the opportunity to hone your interpersonal skills, expand your network, identify candidates for open positions in your organization, and even open doors to the next stage in your development careers.  The Association of Fundraising Professionals and Women in Development (WID) are two popular organizations that effectively blend networking with career development.  Jennifer Mamlet mentioned that, for instance, “WID has luncheons every month with great speakers, and plenty of opportunities to network and get to know other professionals in the field.”

Job Outlook

Despite a general downturn in some areas of nonprofit hiring, development is an area that continues to grow.  Commongood Careers is currently recruiting for a range of mid-to-senior level development positions across the U.S. including:
 

• Director of External Partnerships, Civic Builders, New York, NY
• Development Manager, Youth Villages, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro or Charlotte, NC
• Director of Advancement, Nueva School, San Francisco, CA

A Checklist for Success

Advancing your career in development takes experience, education, passion and skill.  By using the following checklist, you will be poised to transition to a senior-level development position:

• Gain comprehensive experience in all elients of development (e.g. grant writing, fundraising, special events, board of director’s management, etc.)
• Earn an advanced academic degree (check out the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Continuing-Education Guide)
• Polish your existing skills (e.g. writing courses, budgeting for non-accountants, etc.)
• Get involved in professional and industry associations
• Bring your passion and dedication to your organization

Earl should know. He’s been a champion for urban education since 1992. He recently became the Chief Executive Officer of Reach Out and Read, a national early literacy program. Previously, he was the CEO of Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL), an out-of-school time education program, as well as the Founder and Chair of Summer Advantage USA, which combats summer learning loss. 

A longtime friend and client of Commongood Careers, Earl caught us up on Reach Out and Read’s current impact and aggressive growth plans, including the inside scoop on the organization’s hiring needs in the near future.

Congratulations on your new role, Earl. Tell us about Reach Out and Read, particularly its approach to addressing early literacy. 

Thanks. I’m thrilled to be at the helm of such an innovative, evidence-based organization that is addressing such an important social issue. 

Reach Out and Read looks to answer one critical question: how do we ensure that kids are prepared to enter kindergarten? Currently, nearly 35% of all children in this country go to kindergarten with literacy skills that are below grade level. This could mean some do not even know how to hold a book correctly; others may not be able to recognize letters of the alphabet. 

To address this skill deficit, our method is to get to children early. We focus on kids aged 0-5 who live in urban and rural environments. Our program is unusual in the sense that it’s not offered in a traditional educational environment, but rather in pediatrician offices. In these settings, our programs make early literacy a standard part of pediatric primary care, from interacting with a trained literacy specialist volunteer in the waiting room to receiving advice regarding the importance of reading and a book to take home from their doctor or nurse. 

Our approach is all about leverage. We seek to leverage the fact that most parents trust what doctors say. So if a pediatrician communicates that reading is an essential piece of childhood brain development, and that a nurse shows a child the correct way to hold a book and stimulate a child’s natural curiosity, both parents and children will listen. The results have been astounding. To date, we’ve reached nearly 4 million children at 4,500 hospitals and healthcare centers nationwide. In 11 peer-review and longitudinal studies, we’ve found that parents are significantly more engaged and children are better prepared when they enter kindergarten. 

How did your personal career path lead to Reach Out and Read? 

While at BELL, I was part of a team that grew to serving over 15,000 children nationwide. Our team worked incredibly hard. The hallmark of our programs was our summer learning session, which gave me the idea to start a program devoted completely to summer learning. With $1M from a Mind Trust fellowship and the Indiana Department of Education, I founded Summer Advantage USA, a program that provides rigorous academic programming during the summer months. 

From there, I found myself asking the question: how can nonprofit leaders continue to make real impact, but without creating 150 new nonprofits every day? There has to be ways to create back-office efficiencies, as well as a pipeline that serves the needs of children from postnatal to postgraduate. It was this thinking that led me to Reach Out and Read. The opportunity to lead an organization that has such a huge presence fit with my personal vision for what it takes to impact children early on. With the opportunity to serve the 14 million children living in poverty in this nation, and to ensure that they all enter kindergarten ready to excel and with engaged parents, was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

How is Reach Out and Reach poised to grow in the near future?

The first step of scaling is securing the additional government funding that is key to our growth. This is one of the largest tasks on our plate right now.

From there, we plan to raise the growth capital that will build up the infrastructure of the organization quite a bit. This includes expanding the staff of our national headquarters in Boston, as well as being better able to support our 35 state coalitions that oversee 4,500 program sites. We want to build up the infrastructure nationally, within each of our state coalitions, so the entire organization can better deliver on our responsibilities and service to children and families.

In addition to strengthening our existing program sites, we plan to open over 150 new sites in this fiscal year. At any given time, we hope to have between 300-400 applications for new sites in the works. Being able to sustain this rapid growth is a huge piece to our ability to succeed. Since we’ve found such high demand for our program, our daily challenge is how do we build the organization in a way that we’re able to support every one of our sites with the same level of excellence that we see today. 

What does this mean for the hiring needs of the organization? Do you anticipate bringing on more talent for both your headquarters and coalition sites?

Currently, some of our coalition sites have just one part-time leader, others have up to 7 full-time staff. Our goal is to make sure that every coalition has the maximum strength in a few core areas, namely customer service, fundraising, training and technical assistance. To do this will require adding staff in some areas, both in local markets and at the national level. Building organizational strength is what’s at the heart of these efforts.

At the national level, adding to our fundraising capabilities will be key to our success. Currently, we have staff who work against a range of fundraising strategies, but our team is lean. In the near future, we hope to expand this team so that we can deepen each of our fundraising avenues, such as major corporate sponsorships. There is such opportunity for major corporate funders to get involved, particularly those seeking exposure to millions of parents of young children.

As you think about the aggressive growth on your plate, what organizations do you look to as models of scalability and sustainability?

There are many social entrepreneurs who have leveraged functional area best practices in order to scale and sustain their organizations. The first that comes to mind is Teach For America. They are excellent across a number of areas, particularly branding, fundraising, and the ability to attract top talent.

BELL demonstrates a model of an evidence-based organization that has successfully found a niche that has a positive effect on both children and parents. This is a phenomenon that Reach Out and Read shares as well, and one we hope to continue to capitalize upon.

Year Up is a great model of organizational sustainability. The ability to have a revenue source that is consistently renewable is something that we plan on emulating as well.

From a talent perspective, what does it take to be successful at Reach Out and Read? When ramping up your national team, what will you look for in new hires?

All of our staff must be hard-working, entrepreneurial, smart, and have phenomenal communication skills. They must also have very high standards and self-confident. This goes across all roles, from the coalition sites to the national headquarters.

The people who will thrive at our organization will have the dual ability to work independently and also be part of a cross-functional team.

Like most entrepreneurial organizations, it’s important to leave your ego at the door. Our staff need to be comfortable sharing ideas, and know that some will move forward and others won’t. It all comes down to humility and work ethic. 

Perhaps more than anything, we look for talent who believe in what we’re doing. I hope that anyone interested in a position at Reach Out and Reach will share the belief that we are doing something incredibly important and that our work is making and will continue to make a huge impact on early literacy, school readiness, and most importantly, the future of our children and this country. 

For more information about Reach Out and Read, please visit www.reachoutandread.org.

*****

Tell the Commongood Careers community about your uncommon talent! to nominate a colleague, or to share the story of your own nonprofit career.

With a commitment to improving the benefits of health care for those in need, Chinwe is using her ten years of experience in the health care field to help address one of the most important social issues facing our nation today.

Commongood Careers recently sat down with Chinwe to hear her thoughts on some of the key issues which are impacting her work, including how the new Social Innovation Fund will affect healthcare in America, and why diversity in the nonprofit sector is now more important then ever.

What attracted you to this position and what do you personally hope to accomplish at Project HEALTH in the next few years?

Most of my previous experience as a professional in the nonprofit sector has centered on reversing disparities in healthcare. Project HEALTH’S mission to improve healthcare for families on a national scale is what really got me excited about the position.  I really liked the idea of the Family Help Desk because it is an innovative, yet very simple idea that makes a significant impact on improving healthcare for families in need.

At this point, growth is very important to me and I hope that we will be able to reach out to many more communities in need and continue to improve upon the Family Help Desk model to make it as efficient as possible. Also, I think working in the New Yorksite, which serves urban hospitals such as Bellevue and Harli, presents us with a unique opportunity to think about how we can deliver our services more effectively.

First Lady Michelle Obama recently mentioned Project HEALTH in her speech about the Social Innovation Fund at the Time 100 Most Influential People Awards. How will Project HEALTH and other organizations like it be impacted by the fund?

First, I have to say that I was beyond thrilled to have Michelle Obama mention Project HEALTH in her speech; it was a true honor for all of us at the organization.
I believe the Social Innovation Fund will provide phenomenal opportunities for Project HEALTH and organizations like it to engage in a larger dialogue around healthcare reform. The message that the Fund delivers touches upon the three critical ideas that are crucial to the mission of Project HEALTH; these are, preventative health, social innovation and volunteerism. Galvanizing young people to have a positive effect on their communities, as well as scaling and providing growth capital for nonprofits that are using innovative approaches, will force major impact on the entire sector.

Diversity has always been an issue for the nonprofit sector.  Do you have any advice or best practice ideas for attracting a diversified candidate pool during the hiring process?

I think that being open to people from different sectors and professional backgrounds can be a good thing for nonprofits that focus on social entrepreneurship. Bringing in a professional who can look at things with a fresh set of eyes can be really helpful when it comes to probli solving. During the hiring process it is important for nonprofits to look for their talent in unusual places. It’s important to look beyond the typical arena of candidate pools to find people who can help strategically address a nonprofit’s social mission.

How do you think the recent economy has affected the need for talent in nonprofit organizations that support the healthcare industry?

I think the same outside-the-box approach to diversity hiring is a similar idea when it comes to attracting talent to nonprofits in the current economy. Looking for those change makers who understand how to tackle problems with very few resources is a high priority. It is now more important than ever to find someone who is able to effectively seek out and use every available resource, as well as make connections with individuals who can serve as thought partners for the organization.  Promoting and developing a volunteer base is a good example of strategically using available resources. This idea aligns with Project HEALTH’S model by mobilizing a traditional source in a new way.

Project HEALTH is made possible by a large student volunteer base. What advice would you give to those students interested in beginning a career in nonprofit healthcare?

Volunteer based programs like Project HEALTH’S Help Desk can be a very influential experience for those students interested in a career in healthcare. Our student volunteers commit to one year of service at six hours per week with intensive training at the beginning. By making a commitment like this, our students are able to gain in-depth insight into the world of public health. I have seen a number of them have transformative experiences that end up affecting their chosen career path. For instance, some of our student volunteers go on to pursue a career in public health or community advocacy or policy.  Regardless of what they end up doing, they are all more informed about what needs to be done to improve healthcare in low income populations. What is really special about the volunteer program is that it brings together an eclectic group of people with different points of view. Their experience and interaction, both with each other and the families they serve, creates new energy and solves problems with innovative ideas for family healthcare.

You can learn more about Project HEALTH by visiting http://www.projecthealth.org

Tell the Commongood Careers community about your uncommon talent! to nominate a colleague, or to share the story of your own nonprofit career.

Too often hiring organizations treat the reference check stage as a necessary evil, as the last “required” stage before the excitement of finalizing an offer.  It is important to realize, however, that reference checking is not the end of the hiring process but rather the bridge between the hiring and onboarding processes.  Not only will reference checking help you make the best hiring decision possible but it will also support the hired candidate’s successful transition into his or her new role. 

Checking references is the last step of a process designed to help you identify the candidate who will be most successful in a specific role and within the organization as a whole.  At the beginning of the process, you should have outlined the competencies required for success in the role.  During the interview stage, you gathered data about each candidate’s ability to be successful in that role.  The résumé and cover letter gave you some information, the in-person interviews gave you a lot more, and your ongoing interactions and any assignments you had the candidate complete added to the picture.  The reference check process is your first opportunity to gather data from an outside source; take advantage of it! 

The Process
Checking references begins with requesting references from the candidate.  For a lower-level position, 3 references should be sufficient; for a more senior position, 5 are appropriate.  For the most senior positions, 7–10 references are ideal. 

When requesting references, think about the position and what you need to learn about the candidate.  Typically, reference lists include mostly previous supervisors.  This is fine, as you are certainly interested in the past performance information that a former supervisor can provide.  Don’t feel, however, that you need to limit yourself only to former supervisors.  For example, if you are hiring for a management position, it will be important to ask the candidate to include as a reference someone she has managed.  If the position is a senior-level one, you might want to consider requiring the candidate to list a board member or other high-level constituent from her professional experience.  If your organization is highly team-oriented, you may want to speak with a former peer or colleague of the candidate. 

Structuring Reference Checks
Reference letters are a thing of the past.  Think about it; a reference letter is static and tells you only what the reference wants you to know about a candidate.  Similarly, reference letters do not address the needs of the particular position for which you are hiring.  Performing reference checks by phone allows you to direct the conversation to gather the data that you need in order to make the best hiring decision.

When you are ready to start your reference checking, remember the following tips:

Be persistent: When you are reaching out to a reference, remember that these are busy people and that providing a reference is not part of their daily job.  It is important to be respectful of their time and reasonable about your expectations in terms of availability while also persevering, as returning your call may fall to the bottom of a reference’s priority list.  Sometimes it is more efficient to schedule reference calls over e-mail instead of relying on catching someone by phone. 

Be purposeful: Plan the calls in advance.  Take some time to create a reference-checking template for the specific position.  This template should open with an introduction of yourself and a short overview of the organization and the position, then proceed to such standard questions as “What has been your relationship to this candidate and how long have you known him/her?” 

The next few questions should ask the reference for specific examples of times when the candidate has successfully demonstrated the core competencies required for the position.  For example, one question for a director of development position might be “Please give me an example of a time when the candidate successfully identified a prospective donor and worked with that donor through the cultivation stage to a contribution.” 

Toward the end of the call, ask if the reference would rehire the candidate.  Close the call with the simple yet effective “What else should I know about the candidate?”
 
Be consistent yet flexible:  Just as when you are interviewing candidates, it is important to maintain a consistent and equitable process while checking references.  Using a template as described above can ensure consistency.  That being said, consider individualizing your template based on what you have learned about a particular candidate to date.  For example, your organization may be very team-oriented, but teamwork is not identified as a core competency for the position in question.  If you have a concern about how the candidate would fit into the culture, ask the reference.

Be aware:  The absolute most important part of a reference check is listening; let the reference talk.  Give the reference time to digest the question and then give a full answer.  Then listen carefully to not only the words the reference is using but how they are using them. 

For example, if you ask, “Would you rehire this candidate?” think of all the ways that someone can say the single word “Yes.”  It can be completely and utterly enthusiastic and sincere.  There could be a long pause and some hesitation before the reference finally squeaks out a mild “Yes.”  Listen for pauses and hesitation; they could be signs that the reference is trying to find a way to put a positive spin on his or her answer.  It is usually fairly evident when a reference is struggling to find a positive answer rather than raving on about the candidate. 

Keep it legal:  Remember that the same discrimination laws that apply to interviewing apply to reference checking, so do not ask about marital status, age, disabilities, religion, ethnicity, or other personal characteristics.  Remember that all questions have to relate directly to the candidate’s ability to be successful in the position that you are filling. 

Final Thoughts
Increasingly, organizations have a company policy that prevents their employees from providing references; instead, they are only able to verify employment, including dates of employment and title.  Don’t judge the candidate because his or her former employer has this policy; it does not mean that the candidate was not successful.  Instead, go back to the candidate to get the name and contact information for an alternative reference. 

Finally, many employers like to include “back-door reference checks” in their process, which means that they call people known to them who may have experience with the candidate but have not been listed by the candidate as a reference.  Although back-door references can provide important information, it is essential to recognize and be respectful of the position that this could put the candidate in.  The nonprofit sector is a particularly small world, and letting someone know that a candidate is on the job market could easily get back to the candidate’s current employer and put that candidate at risk. 

Much has been written and discussed about the social sector’s leadership gap, as well as the potential for retiring Baby Boomers from other sectors to play a role in addressing the growing need for talent.  In reality, however, many organizations are slow to recruit and hire from this seasoned workforce, and in those instances when they do, are seemingly meeting with mixed success.

At Commongood Careers, we have seen that many of these barriers and challenges can be related to a lack of sufficient forethought about the experience, nature, lifestyle and motivation of Baby Boomer professionals.  It is difficult to make generalizations about an entire generation, but it is fairly self-evident that recruiting and employing a 60 year old former corporate businessperson is likely to be fundamentally different than doing so with a 25 year old recent business school graduate.

One set of possibilities that is often overlooked in nonprofit employment is “alternatively structured” roles.  These positions may involve flexible hours, working remotely, part-time commitments, or consulting arrangements.  Such non-traditional roles may include some of the following attributes and benefits:

(1) Alternative location arrangements can have employees based fully off-site or working from another place on some days and from the office on other days.  People may be based from home, from their office at another part-time job, from the library or a coffee shop, or from a rented desk within an organization in another city.  Alternative location arrangements may open-up the possibilities of a national talent pool for any role that can be performed outside of headquarters or simply permit those with home-based responsibilities or limited mobility to still play an important role.

(2) Flexible full-time schedules are considered as anything except for 9-5 and may allow some employees to work 12-8 every day while others work 40 hours a week all packed into four or even three business days.  Some employees may work full weekends and half-days during the rest of the week.  These schedules may allow for childcare responsibilities (with children or grandchildren), other out-of-office commitments, or those who require flexibility for other reasons.

(3) Part-time roles are most commonly thought of as 2-3 day per week commitments, but can also include working just half-days everyday or even working full-time during a part of the year while taking unpaid leave for the remainder of the year as teachers do or those who spend summers or winters at second homes in other regions.  These possibilities depend heavily on the nature of the role’s responsibility and the seasonality of the organization’s work, but may also open some intriguing possibilities for organizations to fill roles during periods of high-demand while saving money on an employee’s line item in the budget during quieter times.

(4) Consulting relationships are also most frequently associated with a limited scope of project-based roles that are farmed out to professional consultants or firms, but they can also be thought of as another form of part-time roles.  Structured non-employee relationships can be applied to almost any back-office function and can allow for more flexibility in staffing up and down within an area.  In difficult economic times, these relationships may also serve as attractive alternatives to making a full-time commitment with benefits to an employee.  As with all of these options, however, organizations should consult applicable state and federal employment regulations to ensure that they are in compliance in structuring alternative roles.

With most of the sector having an underdeveloped HR function, many organizations dismiss such possibilities as being too difficult to structure, quality control or manage.  Others find that individuals pursuing these opportunities may not exhibit the same levels of commitment, passion or cultural fit for which they are used to searching.  Short-term thinking in this area, however, overlooks numerous possibilities and may close the door on valuable talent groups like Baby Boom second career seekers. 

Particularly for Baby Boomer careerists, in fact, alternatively structured roles may present attractive opportunities because of the stage that they have reached in their careers and the lifestyle choices that they are balancing.  These roles many also allow organizations to tap into the experience and talent of such individuals, without struggling as much to support the salary needs of a senior professional or to ensure the same level of cultural fit with an employee who may be more of a demographic outlier than the norm.  With some planning and flexibility, these employment vehicles can present win-win opportunities for nonprofits and Baby Boomer career seekers alike.

There are a number of ways that recruiting and hiring processes can go wrong, and hiring the right people into the right positions is too important to leave to chance. There are a number of common mistakes that can be easily avoided by utilizing some basic hiring best practices.

(1) Taking Shortcuts with Planning: Make sure that you have dedicated the appropriate amount of time to planning your search before beginning the process. Too often, organizations need someone hired “yesterday” and jump into the process by throwing a poorly developed job posting up on a random smattering of job boards. Instead, take some time to identify exactly what you are looking for in the role, make sure that all decision makers are involved at the outset and that all stages of the recruiting and hiring process have been outlined in advance. These steps will help you focus the search, keep it on schedule, ensure that everyone involved is aware of his or her role, and increase the chances of a successful hire.

(2) Defining Positions Poorly: It has been said that if you don’t know what “treasure” looks like, you can dig in the sand all day without knowing whether or not you have found it. So too with searches, it is essential to fully think through the nature of the role and its responsibilities, as well as the experience, skills and personality of the ideal candidate. This structure should not prevent you from exploring “out of the box” candidates and reevaluating your initial assumptions throughout the search, but it will give you a consistent standard to which all candidates can be equitably compared.

(3) Searching for a “Unicorn”: Whenever possible, define a position that is realistic and an ideal candidate profile that exists in more than a handful of people. Are you looking for a set of skills and competencies that often do not co-exist within one person? Recognize that if you go forward, your search may be challenging and may not lead to a successful hire without concessions being made. Consider recasting the position into something more realistic and test your job description with colleagues and peers to ensure that it is reasonable and clearly communicates the nature of the role.

(4) Setting Unrealistic Salary Constraints: Make sure that the salary range you have designated for the position matches the requirements and experience level you are seeking. Again, if you move forward with a misalignment in this area, such as looking for someone with 15 years of senior experience who wants to work full-time for $32,000; then your search may be slow and frustrating. Almost as challenging as low salary expectations are excessively narrow salary bands. For most searches, it is appropriate to have a $10,000 salary range for entry/mid-level jobs and a $20,000 range for senior roles. Going into a search with too narrow a budget may be a fiscal necessity, but it can also constrain your ability to consider a range of candidates and limit your room for negotiation.

(5) Making Insufficient Recruitment Efforts: It is best to use a broad variety of tools and resources to generate the largest and most diverse pool of candidates. Posting an ad to one or two job boards is generally insufficient. Make sure you tap “active” jobseekers through advertising as well as “passive” jobseekers through robust outreach to your personal and professional networks. A common mistake is to move in a gradual and staged approach, escalating efforts after initial postings have failed to produce results. It is best to be aggressive from the start and make a big splash with your hiring announcement.

(6) Losing Momentum: Recognize that searches follow a cycle and ensure that your search does not lose valuable momentum. There is usually a lot of energy at the beginning of a search, as staff members imagine bringing on great new talent and as initial postings bring an early rush of candidates. As the search goes on, however, people’s energy may wane as your colleagues realize how much time a search can take and as the number of new candidates begins to diminish. It is the hiring manager’s job to make sure that energy and results carry through until the successful completion of the search. This includes re-posting ads, re-mining networks, reviewing candidates efficiently and keeping the team informed.

(7) Lacking Respect for Candidates: Put yourself in your candidates’ shoes and make sure that you are treating them in the way you would want to be treated at every stage of the process. Think things through from confirming application receipt, to the timing and nature of correspondence about their status and the process, to making offers and communicating regrets. Recruiting is a marketing opportunity as well as a means to a hire. Remember that for any given position, only 1 person will be hired, but the other 50-100 individuals could become donors, board members, community partners, or future hires for other roles. Keep all candidate information in a database if possible.

(8) Conducting Weak Reference Checks: Don’t underestimate the power of reference checking. Too many organizations are so exhausted by the time they identify a strong candidate and are so anxious to “close the deal” that they overlook the incredible value of learning from others about their top candidate’s past performance. It certainly can be frustrating when you learn that your top candidate is not going to be the right fit for your position, but it is much more advantageous, both emotionally and financially, to come to that conclusion before the hire is made than two or six months later. Remember also that advice from references can be helpful even as you work to on-board and manage new hires.

(9) Hiring at the Wrong Pace: Don’t hire too quickly. It is important to resist the tendency to let your urgency to fill a position lead to an abbreviated process that lacks rigor and consistency. Similarly, don’t hire too slowly. Make sure that your process moves efficiently through the different stages, and resist the urge to “hold out” for an even better candidate to come along. This latter strategy often leads to a prolonged or unsuccessful search. Knowing in advance what you are looking for and holding to those standards will help you identify a candidate who will meet your needs.

(10) Failing to Document: Be careful what you write down during a search, but maintain a confidential file of each candidate’s application materials, the dates at which they moved through the different stages in the process, and the reasons why they were advanced or declined. This will help protect you in case of any allegations of inappropriate hiring practices, and also creates an invaluable resource of candidates for similar future searches.

How can organizations deal with the strain presented by the current economic situation? First and foremost, they need to ensure that the organization remains financially viable during the economic downturn. Unfortunately, this will most likely mean staffing related changes because such costs represent about 70 percent of an average nonprofit’s budget. Throughout the process of reducing costs and downsizing, however, nonprofits need to ensure that the team remains strong and healthy, which means focusing on people and continuing to cultivate cultural elients. The following article will explore several of these strategies and best practices.

Staff-Related Cost Reductions

Before turning to actual layoffs, many organizations work to trim costs around staff-related expenses such as compensation, benefits and administrative costs. All of the following measures represent regrettable and difficult choices that will virtually ensure employee dissatisfaction. Such options should ideally be communicated carefully and impliented seamlessly while helping employees to understand that sacrifices on behalf of all must be made to ensure that the organization can continue its work.

In rolling back budgeted compensation, new raises should be withheld first and that policy should be applied equally across all employees of the organization. The next consideration is to withhold any performance-related bonuses, which is most likely to impact the management and development teams, as these are the two groups with which bonus systems are most commonly used. Some consideration should be made of the potential inequity of such a decision and the risk of disappointing and de-motivating the two groups that are essential to navigating tough economic times. In general, however, these are also the two most highly compensated groups, so there may be more room to cut costs without directly impacting people’s ability to cover their core living expenses.

You may also consider an unpaid furlough, which means shutting down the entire organization with a forced unpaid leave for a period of days or weeks. Furloughs can be most easily impliented during periods of traditional organizational down-time such as holidays or summers slow-downs. Another way to accomplish a similar goal through a more drastic step is to institute an across the board salary reduction such as a five or ten percent decrease for all employees, which can be either time-limited or indefinite in scope.

Beyond direct compensation, many managers will review their benefit plans to ensure that they are only paying for essentials and getting the best benefits for their buck. Some groups will choose to phase out benefits that may be less important to their staff such as life insurance, long term disability, vision or dental. Others may downgrade their health insurance or consider switching to a different provider. Ultimately, the fastest and easiest way to cut benefit costs is to reduce the percentage that the company covers. By making a ten percent reduction in the employer contribution to health care, for example, you may only increase the burden for each employee slightly, while at the same time cutting aggregate organizational costs dramatically.

Talk with your employees to ensure that you have the best and most current information about which forms of compensation and benefits matter most to them and which ones are expendable. It may even be possible to convene a relatively large staff group and give them the challenge of cutting a certain amount of money from the benefits budget, making whatever allocations and trade-offs the group sees as most fitting. If employees feel engaged in the decision-making process, they may not be as upset with the realities of the decisions.

It is important to note than some plan restrictions and state and federal laws may impact which options are available to you and when. Minimum health care coverage legislation and plan open enrollment periods may be worthy of particular consideration. Speak with your HR experts and benefit managers to learn more about the available options.

Alternatives to Direct Layoffs

Before moving to layoffs, consider using a hiring freeze. Is your organization able to manage for the next six months, for example, with only the staff you have on board now? Can you commit to not making any additional hires, even if you experience resignations and turnover? This will require you to reallocate the work loads of departing employees, but may be a slow and easy means of reducing your staff size.

Another option to consider is part-time and flexible work arrangements. Are there staff members who would prefer to work part-time, either on a temporary or permanent basis? Or is there anyone on staff who is interested in taking an unpaid leave of several weeks or several months for vacation, travel, family time, consulting, or any other reason? If so, you may be able to work out deals under which people reduce their hours or have their jobs waiting for them when they return from leave. You may also consider officially terminating a full-time employee and hiring them back as an independent contractor if they are going to be working on a part-time and project-orientated basis. This will save on benefit expenses as well as payroll taxes, but make this move with caution as the IRS has strict guidelines regarding such strategies and structures.

It will also help with your budgeting efforts if you can find out sooner rather than later if people are planning to leave for any reason such as graduate school or relocation. This can be a difficult conversation to have, as you don’t want to give the impression that you are pushing people out the door or panic people who were not intending to leave. Nonetheless, the information gained through such conversations may be vital to you in considering whether or not more difficult staffing decisions need to be made.

Downsizing

Often as a last resort, you may need to engage in layoffs, which will require a series of important decisions about how many individuals must go, from what departments, over what time period, and ultimately, which specific individuals will be leaving. Often, such considerations involve a mix of financial necessities, strategic implications and performance-related evaluations.

Developing clear rationales and communication strategies for these decisions will be essential to protecting you from discrimination charges as well as internal and external push-back regarding your decisions. Expect that people will question every decision and expect clear and immediate answers from you. Determine how much you are willing and able to share about each decision in advance, and make sure that all leaders are sharing a consistent message.

It is important to think through the effects of every termination decision – on the organization as a whole, on the work flow of the affected departments, on external constituents, and on staff morale. Ensure that all of the details of the severance package and separation logistics are worked out in advance so that negotiation and awkward conversations are minimized. Remember that any former staff member becomes an ambassador for your organization and no matter how challenging the situation, trying to ensure loyalty even among those who are terminated can have a tremendous impact on your organization’s reputation.

People Matter: Strengthening the Organization

Although current financial realities may call for some tough decisions, do not forget that this is also the time to improve your organization and work to ensure its continued success. You want to come out of this difficult period as strong as possible, which among other things means keeping your top performers on board.

Key strategies in this regard include communicating clearly to instill confidence, providing leadership opportunities, and looking to your employees for innovative ways to streamline work and maximize impact. Keep employees informed about the ongoing situation and how the organization is faring. You want to be realistic but positive so that employees do not fear that they will be next on the chopping block, but so that they also are not shocked when cuts are announced. It is also vitally important that your key employees know how much you value their contributions and that you will do everything possible to keep them. You want to prevent your top performers from even considering looking for other opportunities.

There are two ways that remaining employees can view downsizing: either as a burden that means they have to do more work, or as an opportunity to take on more responsibility and have a greater impact. It is management’s role to ensure that top performers take the latter approach and view this as an opportunity to develop their skills. Giving people the chance to learn, grow, and lead in a new area can increase their commitment to your organization.

Difficult times are when organizations and leaders are tested most rigorously, but you can emerge successfully from these times by considering a wide range of options, being strategic in choices and priorities, making decisions when they need to be made, managing change carefully and maintaining carefully controlled messaging and open lines of communication. Not all organizations will be able to weather this storm and continue to serve their missions in the years to come. Those that do, however, have the opportunity to use this time to become more efficient and effective and to position themselves for continued growth and success when the economy rebounds.

Today’s nonprofit sector is growing faster than ever. In fact, Independent Sector reports that nonprofit employment doubled to nearly 10 percent of total U.S. employment in the past 25 years. The report also predicts that by 2010, the nonprofit sector will employ 15 million people. With this growth comes a demand for strong nonprofit talent, as well the opportunity to build a long-term career in the sector.

This article explores a few proven career inroads that provide opportunities for advancement.

Ways In and Up

Nonprofit career options vary widely at the entry level, but the most popular inroad is program work, or positions that provide opportunities to work directly with the constituents served by an organization. Often people enter the sector on the ground-level as a tutor or community advocate. From direct service, people often transition into coordinating aspects of programs, such as managing volunteers, and then eventually managing entire programs. While this is a natural progression within the field of program management, direct service positions can also serve as a springboard to positions in different functional areas within an organization.

“Most people go into nonprofits thinking they are only going into the program arena. But getting involved in development, marketing, or some of the other important functional areas can be a smart idea for those seeking to advance their careers,” said Cassie Scarano, Vice President and Co-Founder of Commongood Careers. One of the inherent challenges to advancing in program work is that there are many positions on the ground-level, but only a limited number of senior management positions. Considering other skills that you can bring to an organization, like fundraising or marketing, in addition to having first-hand experience in direct service, is a great way to create career opportunities within or across organizations. 

Building a Career in Nonprofit Development

Careers in nonprofit development provide ample opportunities for advancement and long-term success. Development is the area of each organization responsible for all aspects of fundraising, including pursuing and obtaining funds from foundations, corporations, individuals, and government sources, as well as managing activities like grant-writing, annual appeals, events and strategic campaigns. “There will always be high need for development professionals. Because of the demand, people in the area of development have lots of opportunities, tend to progress quickly and are often amongst the highest paid in an organization,” Scarano said. 

The area of development is multi-faceted and requires different skills depending on the type of position and organization. Writing is important in development positions related to grant writing, while strong interpersonal skills are necessary for positions focusing on nurturing donor relationships. Some development positions are more research-based while others focus on the logistics of planning special events for the organization. There are also positions that are more general and require the development professional to incorporate many of these skills strategically.

Executive Support as a Strategy for Advancement

An often overlooked entry point for new nonprofit professionals is a role as an executive assistant. “While many people avoid these types of positions because they don’t sound glamorous, they actually provide a huge number of opportunities for advancement and provide access those at the entry level would never have otherwise,” Scarano said. 

An assistant to a high functioning executive is connected to all of the senior leaders, both internal and external, with whom the executive corresponds through reviewing and drafting emails and other correspondence, managing the calendar, and fielding phone calls. Additionally, this position often includes work on special projects that are essential to the organization, such as analyzing data, creating reports, or supporting hiring. Especially in dynamic and fast-paced socially entrepreneurial organizations, something as basic as taking notes at a board meeting or managing an executive’s calls can provide a huge amount of experience and insight into the way nonprofits work. 

Also, the executive assistant position is tremendously constructive to a nonprofit career. “Being impressive in an executive assistant role can be a fast track to advancement,” Scarano said. In fact, many executives treat these roles like fellowship positions, making sure that after a year or so their assistants are ready to move on and up, either within that organization or to another nonprofit. 

The Nonprofit Advantage in the Long Run

When on the fence about deciding whether to enter the social sector or head for the private sector, there are some things to take into account about nonprofit jobs that might make a difference in your decision. For example, working at a nonprofit can help you develop highly transferable soft skills like being able to take on leadership, being flexible, and having strong interpersonal skills. 

Working at a nonprofit can also give you personal experience with things that you might not have access to in larger, private sector organizations. “Generally in nonprofits, especially smaller organizations, you get a broader view of how an organization runs, have more access to strategic decision making, and are challenged to take initiative,” Scarano noted. Senior leadership tends to be younger and the environment more collaborative in nonprofit organizations, thus providing those at the entry level more opportunities to have a hand in the organization’s growth while also providing opportunities to advance within the organization. 

What’s more, today’s trends show that the private and social sectors are converging, so that those who want traditionally private sector benefits with traditionally social sector values have more options. “It’s no longer about deciding if you are either mission-driven or profit-driven,” Scarano said. “Instead, people need to consider where on the continuum they fall and what factors on a whole are most motivating to them.” Today’s socially entrepreneurial nonprofits are able to provide many opportunities to develop strong business skills while at the same time aligning with the personal values of their employees. “Choosing a career path is a harder decision today because the sectors are no longer so black and white,” said Scarano, “but with that challenge come many great career opportunities.”

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

In any field, having a professional mentor can help individuals develop and advance their careers. Mentors are especially important in the nonprofit sector, where structured career development opportunities are not always readily available.

A strong mentoring relationship is built on collaboration and the commitment to the professional development of one or both of its participants. While in the typical mentoring relationship, one participant has more experience, skill, knowledge than the other, many strong mentoring relationships provide an opportunity for both parties to learn from each other through the development of a caring and respectful partnership.

The Growth of Mentoring in the Social Sector

Corporate mentoring programs have long been recognized as an essential strategy for attracting, developing, and retaining top employees.  According to a survey by the American Society for Training and Development, 75% of private sector executives said that mentoring had been critical in helping them reach their current position. 

In the social sector, employee mentoring programs are more unusual.  While some innovative organizations are taking steps to create effective internal programs, other organizations offer external programs that connect mentors and mentees; these programs can be a great option for nonprofits that lack the resources to provide internal programs. 

For example, the Center for Nonprofit Development and the International Mentoring Network Organization have developed their own mentor-matching programs to help connect seasoned nonprofit professionals with professionals earlier in their careers.  The Center for Nonprofit Development focuses on connecting new but high-level nonprofit leaders with other, more experienced nonprofit leaders to help them strategically solve organizational challenges or create carefully developed plans for the future of the mentee’s organization.  The International Mentoring Network Organization applies an “open source” approach to mentoring, giving its members access to interviews with experienced professionals, discussion forums, and a mentor match service. 

Why a Mentor?

There are a number of benefits to building a mentor relationship with a seasoned nonprofit professional, most notably access to new contacts, knowledge, and skills.

“Mentors can do a number of things for your career.  They can help you build your resume, guide you on a project, and help you identify resources, including referring you to other mentors and important people in your field,” said Ken Williams, Director of the New Voices National Fellowship Program and author of the monograph “Mentoring the Next Generation.”

Mentors provide developing nonprofit leaders with the support they might not have access to otherwise.  For example, access to the mentor’s personal network can give emerging leaders a chance to meet important people at a crucial time in their careers and can broaden their range of possible professional opportunities.
 
The New Voices National Fellowship Program, administered by the Academy for Educational Development, works on leadership development for human rights activists, currently focusing on emerging leaders in the Gulf Coast region.  New Voices requires each fellow participating to have a mentor because of the benefits the organization has seen from these relationships.

“In our program we’ve seen mentors help develop the Fellows’ strategic thinking, connections and contacts, and resources and opportunities.  Having a mentor provides people with an open space in which to raise issues, tackle challenges, and nurture growth,” Williams said. 

Finding a Mentor

A mentor is someone whose knowledge and experience the mentee respects and someone whose wisdom and know-how can support the professional growth and development of the mentee.  Often this is a boss, professor or other nonprofit leader who the mentee has already met, but sometimes a mentor can be someone who is not known to the mentee.  Mentors do not necessarily need to be the most senior person at an organization or within the field; the right mentor depends on what knowledge the mentee hopes to gain. 

“If you don’t have an idea about who to ask to be your mentor, find organizations that work in the area you’re interested in and look to their leaders.  Asking to do something as simple as getting a coffee together can be very successful,” Williams said. 

Another great way to engage a mentor is to collaborate on a project that is of interest to both parties.  “Choose something that supports your potential mentor’s work and ask for some help putting it together,” Williams suggested. “This way, you are both invested in completing a goal together that can lead to a deeper relationship during the process.”

Sustaining Healthy Mentor Relationships

To make the most of a mentoring relationship, start with a formal agreement that outlines the roles and expectations of both participants.  Including details such as when the pair will meet, how frequently and for how long, and what the goals of the relationship are will build a strong foundation for the relationship. 

While the duration and frequency of mentoring meetings varies, most mentoring partners meet or talk once a week for about an hour.  The format and content of these conversations may vary, but typically consist of brainstorming sessions to solve problems, updates and follow-ups on current projects, or more focused discussion of professional development topics.  A mentoring relationship should not be considered an inside track to the top or an opportunity to complain; it is a respectful and professional relationship in which both parties can learn from the experience and each other. 

As the relationship develops, mentees should remember to share their successes with their mentors and make sure the mentor knows how valuable their time and insight is.  Remember that mentoring is about sharing knowledge and expertise in a way that benefits both of the participants and thereby helps to build and strengthen the nonprofit sector as a whole.  As nonprofit professionals develop their leadership skills, it will be important to incorporate best practices into every mentoring relationship. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Finance. Marketing. Facilities Management. These may not be the first words that come to mind when you think about nonprofits, but these are all crucial parts of most nonprofit organizations’ abilities to succeed.

Similar to corporations and small businesses, nonprofits strive to operate with method and within budget. It is especially important for nonprofits to run efficient operations and demonstrate measurable outcomes, because they are accountable to funders, board members, and the government.

What to Expect

In any industry, the operations team is the infrastructure of an organization that works behind the scenes to keep things running. This is especially true in the nonprofit sector, where operations staff support an overall organization in a number of functional areas, including accounting and finance, administration, human resources, information technology, marketing, and office management. Across all of these functional areas is one goal: to make sure an organization is operating efficiently and to its full potential.

Most roles in nonprofit business operations require individuals to work with systems. This could mean working to devise an accounting system that helps departments process their invoices more efficiently, or following existing protocols for ordering supplies or on-boarding new employees. While the specific functional area of a role will dictate what type of systems an individual will be involved with, the ability to quickly understand business challenges and address them systematically is an asset to all operations roles. Generally, individuals who are highly organized, analytical, and adaptive do well in nonprofit business operations roles.

Within business operations, roles vary by functional area. For example, in facilities management, a Facilities Coordinator might be responsible to managing sites where programs are delivered, including the layout, design, equipment, and furniture at the site. An understanding of how physical environment affects an organization’s ability to deliver programs is essential to this type of work. Another example is that of Marketing or Communications Associate, a role that generally requires an individual to support an organization’s fundraising and constituency building efforts.

Roles within nonprofit business operations not only vary by functional area, but also by level of experience. In general, job titles with “coordinator” or “associate” are entry-level, and typically entail supporting the back-office administration. “Manager” level positions focus on two areas: 1) developing solutions and systems in a given functional area, and 2) managing the staff that implient these systems. Typically, the most senior operations role is Chief Operations Officer (COO), who oversees all back-office functions for an organization and works closely with the CEO or Executive Director to provide strategic and organizational leadership.

A few examples of opportunities in business operations include:

Human Resources Manager

Director of School Operations
Director of Finance and Administration

Director of Operations
Senior Marketing Manager

Director of Marketing and Communications

Job Outlook

As more and more nonprofits adapt entrepreneurial philosophies of operating efficiently while scaling their programs, career opportunities in business operations are on the rise. Unlike nonprofit roles that typically require at least 3-5 years of experience to get in the door, such as development or program management, there are a number of entry-level opportunities in business operations.

Professional experience in operations is largely transferable across industries. Individuals with experience in nonprofit business operations can generally transition into similar roles in other sectors. Industries that are particularly operations-intensive include manufacturing, transportation, banking, financial services, retail, telecommunications, and health care. However, operations roles exist in almost all companies and organizations. For individuals with nonprofit business operations, their experience and skills are valued greatly by small businesses, start-ups, or other organizations that operate in resource-constrained environments.

For those seeking to transition from other industries into the nonprofit sector, opportunities in business operations often provide a bridge. The skills and experience gained in these roles can be some of the most transferable from the corporate to the nonprofit sector, and often prove to be exceptionally rewarding to sector-switchers looking to apply their operational skills in a socially driven setting.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

So it’s your senior year and campus is buzzing. Everywhere you turn there’s a career fair.  Recruiters have blown into town and they’re interviewing everyone in their path.  Your roommates are mulling over offers from Fortune 500 companies and even friends in your community service club are comparing sign-on bonuses. You, however, have never pictured yourself working for a paycheck in a huge corporation. You envision a career spent working towards a bottom line measured by social gains. The nonprofit sector is calling you. The pressure is on to get a job.  Graduation is around the corner, student loan bills are on their way, and the last thing you want to do is move back home with your parents. 

If this sounds familiar, then welcome to the crossroads of your real world responsibilities and your “change the world” sensibilities.  Though the challenge seems daunting, you can land an amazing job in the nonprofit sector with the right strategy and techniques.

Step 1: Know What Moves You

A good place to start is to focus on the social cause or mission that excites you. What issues do you feel strongly about?  Whether it’s the environment, immigrant rights, or education reform, it may take some digging to find the roots of your social consciousness, but this effort is essential before diving into your job search.

Next, think about the characteristics of your dream job. Ask yourself about your ideal organizational culture (e.g. collaborative, entrepreneurial, or results-oriented.) Picture your day-to-day responsibilities. Do you want to be out in the community running programs? Or do you prefer to work behind-the-scenes in an office? Through this exercise, you will develop a detailed understanding of yourself and what you want. This will best prepare you to target the right organizations and opportunities.

Step 2: Know What’s Out There

Unlike corporations that may plan well ahead of their hiring needs and have the resources to recruit on campus, nonprofits recruit when staffing needs arise. Breaking into the nonprofit sector, you most likely will not have the luxury of setting up on-campus interviews or landing that dream job without stepping foot off campus. You’ll need to be proactive to find what opportunities are out there.

Begin by putting those research skills to work!  Find the organizations that inspire you. A great launch pad is idealist.org, a web site with information about over 75,000 nonprofits.  Also, Guidestar provides more in-depth organizational information, such as budgets, staff, and funders. Finally, familiarize yourself with the issues impacting the sector; publications like Stanford Social Innovation Review, Nonprofit Times, Philanthropy News Digest, and Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Award offer a window into what’s buzzworthy in the sector.

Based on this research, create a target list of 5-10 organizations that interest you.  Scour their web sites and find the job descriptions for their entry-level positions.  This way, you can determine exactly what they’re looking for in these positions and tailor your application accordingly. 

Step 3: Get to Work!

Now that you’ve done your homework on yourself and the sector, it’s time to figure out how to put this knowledge. There are a number of nonprofit roles for recent graduates. Some examples of titles that may be good matches include:

• Program Associate or Coordinator
• Project Coordinator
• Special Projects Assistant
• Executive Assistant
• Business or Program Analyst

In addition to entry-level positions, there are a number of other ways to gain tremendous experience in the nonprofit sector, including:

• Service Programs – Public service programs offer amazing (and often paid!) opportunities to get your feet wet and gain incredible experience in your field of interest. Some of the nation’s largest service programs include Americorps, Teach For America, CityYear, and AVODAH.
• Fellowships – Similar to service programs, fellowships provide recent graduates with the opportunities to gain experience over a relative short amount of time, typically a year or less. Some popular fellowships are offered by Youth Service Oppportunities Program, American Jewish World Service, CORO, and New Sector Alliance.
• Volunteering – Volunteering is a tried and true way to get your foot in the door, as well as network with nonprofit staff and hiring managers. From your list of 5-10 target organizations, research what volunteer opportunities they offer and sign up. Also, scour the idealist.org, Hands On Network, and Volunteer Match for interesting fundraising event volunteer opportunities.

Though challenging, making the jump from school to the nonprofit sector may be easier than you think.  A strategy based in defining your interests, researching organizations, and pursuing the right opportunities can result in a promising start to a fulfilling career in the nonprofit sector.  You may not be changing the world tomorrow, but you’ll be on your way to making a big impact, one footprint at a time. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Nonprofit career fairs can be an excellent opportunity to learn about job opportunities and meet staff from hiring organizations. However, jobseekers should do some preparation before attending any career fair to ensure that they make a good impression!

By the end of 2008, Commongood Careers will have participated in over one hundred career fairs across the country. To date, we have met thousands of nonprofit jobseekers, some who have impressed us and others who have left us underwhelmed.  Based on this experience, we’ve prepared a set of tips to help jobseekers gain valuable information, make important connections, and create positive impressions with hiring organizations at career fairs.

1. Prepare a scouting report: Before arriving at a career fair, set aside some time to visit the web site of the career organizer. Idealist.org, a nonprofit resource that organizes a national series of career fairs, lists the names and web sites of every organization that attends their fairs. For organizations that interest you, read the mission statements and learn about their programs. Jot down some notes and prepare one or two questions if you’d like to hear more about a given nonprofit.

According to Meg Busse, Director of Nonprofit Career Transitions Program at Idealist.org, there are a number of ways jobseekers can prepare in advance.

“Just as you’d never walk into an interview without researching the organization, don’t show up at a career fair without having reviewed the list of organizations in attendance and selected a few to research more in-depth. Conduct an Internet search to find out who is on staff at any organization that interests you, and check to see if you have any personal connections.”

2. Visit your short list: After you research what organizations will be at the career fair, prioritize your list of favorite organizations and make visiting those organizations your top priority. This will save you time and keep you focused. Being focused at a career fair communicates confidence and direction. Aimlessly meandering around a room reflects confusion and self-doubt.

Do not plan on papering the career fair with your resume. Bring only a couple of resumes for a few select organizations. This will help you bring a focused attitude. If you know you are already planning to apply to an opening posted on one of your targeted employer’s web sites, craft your resume to match the qualifications of the position and bring it along (but don’t forget to also apply as instructed in the job description; you don’t want your application to get lost in all the paper of a career fair!).

3. “To thine own self, be true”: When visiting an employer booth, a representative may ask you about your career interests. Be prepared to give a thoughtful answer. You don’t have to know exactly what your career goals are, but be prepared to articulate your interests. Take stock of your values and motivations, and use this information to craft a personal “elevator pitch” in advance. Because hiring decisions are rarely made on the spot at a nonprofit career, working on a fluid personal pitch at a career fair can prepare you for actual in-person interviews.

4. Be confident … but check your ego at the door: An approach that will surely derail your credibility with an organization at a career fair is to be overconfident about your skills and experiences. Employers want to meet competent jobseekers who are interested in making a contribution and being team players, not those who are egocentric and arrogant. 

To make a great first impression, start off by maintaining a positive, enthusiastic attitude. Smiling, making eye contact and projecting genuine excitement will not only demonstrate your interest, but will also communicate soft skills like friendliness and approachability.

Finally, listen actively and make a connection with the organization’s representative. According to Kasey Gagnon, Recruitment and Events Manager at Commongood Careers, passively listening to an organization’s pitch can translate to disinterest. ”It is very obvious to an organization representative when you have tuned-out and only want to talk about yourself and your experiences. Listen actively by asking a few brief questions that are relevant to the information that the representative is telling you. Having nothing constructive to add to the conversation can make the interaction go south very quickly. We want to know that you have understood what we have told you. If you are able to connect the information back to why you may be interested in our work, we will be impressed.”

5. Mingle with your peers: Representatives from organizations are not the only people at career fairs who are valuable sources of information. Because career fairs attract attendees with a diversity of backgrounds and experiences, chances are there are peers in the room who could be helpful in your search. Strike up conversations with fellow jobseekers and practice your elevator pitch some more. Be friendly and welcome other jobseekers into your conversation with the organization’s representative. However, if the table is crowded, be respectful and don’t jump into conversations already going on.

6.  Manage the clock: Organizations have a lot of people to meet during the course of a career fair. Being aware of this simple fact can help a jobseeker not overstay his/her welcome at an organization’s table.

“Just as attendees are anxious to get information and then move on to the next organization on their short list, staff members who are manning tables have a lot to manage. It’s not the time to go into your life story. Get the information, ask a brief but relevant question and then move on,” says Jocelyn Sherman, Commongood Careers’ Director of Recruitment and Partnerships.

Therefore, limit your time spent at a table to only a few minutes. Quality of time spent at a table trumps quantity of time. A short, smart, positive conversation will be most memorable.

7. Take advantage of career fair programming: Along with providing organizations a venue to recruit talent, many career fairs have informational programs for jobseekers scheduled into the day’s events. These programs may include panel discussions or tutorials on topics like effective resume writing. In addition to gaining information that will help in your job search, these programs provide opportunities to network in a smaller, more focused setting.

8. Remember names and follow up: When meeting an organization that interests you, do your best to remember the name of the representatives you meet. When appropriate, ask the representative for a business card. Then, write a note on the back of the card to help you remember them. Thank them by name on the spot, and follow up with an email with 24 hours. If you have any remaining questions, an email is a great avenue through which to ask them. Initiating this contact with an organization will help solidify you as a thoughtful and strong candidate in their memory. 

Smajl Cengic, Director of Career and Alumni Services at Year Up, agrees that follow-up is key.  “The most important phrase for a jobseeker who approaches our table at a career fair is relationship building.  If our recruiters walk away from the fair remembering something about a candidate, that person is much more likely to continue a relationship with Year Up.  The strongest candidates we meet engage us in real conversations and then follow up with an email referencing the conversation after the fair.” 

Conclusion

There is much more to career fairs than just showing up. Effectively working the room at a career fair requires knowing details about the organizations in attendance, as well as being able to talk about yourself and your interests with humility, confidence, and enthusiasm. Being mindful of these tips will help you stand out among all the other attendees. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Nonprofit employees are known for their dedication to their jobs, devotion to their organization’s missions and passions for their careers.  In the study The Voices of Nonprofit Talent Survey in 2008, Commongood Careers found that 84 percent of nonprofit jobseekers saw work as part of their identities, not just a way to make a living.  While this level of commitment is a driving factor when it comes to working for social change, it also can be a factor in the ability for nonprofit professionals to find a healthy balance between their work life and personal life. 

As the demand for leaders in nonprofits is rapidly increasing, concerns about work-life balance are becoming more important to younger professionals.  In the study Ready to Lead? Next Generation Leaders Speak Out, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and its partners reported that two of the top five reasons potential nonprofit leaders surveyed were wary of rising to executive positions were related to the belief that they would have to sacrifice work-life balance to be a director.  Additionally, the study’s focus group participants frequently said that being an executive director means making compromises in personal life they are not willing to make. 

Simple Steps to Balance the Work-Life Scale

With today’s expectations and norms for work, especially in the social sector, many with nonprofit careers recognize that these things may be more easily said than done.  To address this challenge, here are some simple ideas that can help those looking to balance the work-life scales:

Keep a log of a week’s worth of time.  Writing down every activity in which you participate in one week can help pinpoint opportunities to maximize your time, as well as weed out extraneous or the needlessly time-consuming activities. 

Learn to say no.  The important thing about saying “no” is being honest with yourself about the activities to which you say “yes.”  Remember that saying no can help you do more and better of what you already have on your plate; saying yes to too much not only impacts current projects, but can add a level of stress not worth taking on. In addition, turning down requests to do everything can help you better understand the capabilities of your colleagues, and what they are able to take on themselves.  If you are concerned that saying no is too much of a hassle or is going to produce a conflict you want to avoid, complimenting the person or group’s effort while saying that you’re unable to commit at this time helps to soften the blow and can keep you in good standing with your co-workers.

Communicate clearly.  Mistakes happen, but mistakes that arise from rushed communication are especially frustrating because they can be easily avoided.  Taking the time to communicate as clearly and succinctly as possible can help you avoid the time-consuming mistakes that sometimes come from miscommunications.  Clear communication can mean you are more efficient at work and give you more time for yourself. 

Take advantage of what your organization has to offer.  The best methods of striking a comfortable work-life balance are often readily available at the workplace.  Find out if your organization offers flex time or allows you to work from home.  Or explore the option of a “4 x 10,” essentially compressing your work-week to a four-day week by working ten hours a day.  And yes, use your vacation time and know how much paid and unpaid leave you have available to you. 

Additionally, the message of the importance of work-life balance needs to come from the top. One of the best things current nonprofit managers and leaders can do to attract these new leaders is set an example of positive work-life balance.  Avoiding sending e-mails at all hours, staying in the office far into the night, and keeping weekends relatively work-free are simple ways to communicate that working to help others does not mean unacceptable personal sacrifice. 

Work-life Balance as an Organizational Value: DonorsChoose.org’s Story

DonorsChoose.org is known for helping teachers fund educational projects by providing an online platform that gives donors the flexibility to choose projects to support.  What may be news is that it also applies that flexibility to the organization’s approach to work-life balance.  The organization’s culture puts an emphasis on a healthy work-life balance by encouraging employees to use their alloted vacation time, maximize their individual work time, and work on a schedule that fits with each individual’s home and work life. 

“We still work hard enough that sometimes our work load is pretty immense, but in our employee survey, flexibility of work hours was one area that scored highly.  Our employees told us how much they appreciate the flexibility of their work time,” said Charles Best, Executive Director of DonorsChoose.org

Since there are a number of parents on staff, the organization is flexible about when employees can arrive and leave.  “One of our workers makes time to take his kids to school every day and so comes in more around 9:30 or 10:00, while some of the moms on our team make an effort to walk out of the office doors at 5:00 or 5:30 to be with their kids when they’re awake,” Best said.  By being flexible to these kinds of approaches, working at DonorsChoose.org encourages healthy family life in addition to a dedicated work life.

In addition to offering flexible hours, DonorsChoose.org offers five weeks of paid vacation at every level of employment. “We encourage people to take their vacation time, and unlike some law or consulting firms that state a policy but don’t stick to it, there is an organizational expectation and allowance for our team to take that time,” Best said. 

Additionally, the organization encourages employees to evaluate their work if they feel that they have too much on their plate. “There is a standing offer between managers and their direct reports that if someone is feeling overwhelmed their manager will run a prioritization exercise to maybe eliminate some items from the bottom of the priority list or prune down a task list to what has to get done,” Best said.  The organization is committed to helping its team work at its best and one of those ways is through promoting a healthy work-life balance. 

Balancing as Best You Can

Even if your organization does not offer all of these benefits, it pays to take a look at what they do offer and see how you can best take advantage of it.  Additionally, stay aware of the other things you can do to make your work life and home life as balanced as possible.  Taking stock of the important things you do during the day and remembering to take on only the tasks you know you have time for can increase your performance and productivity at work and make your home life happier too.  Dedicated people with nonprofit careers may have put their home lives aside in the past, but as new leaders look for positive examples to encourage them to direct nonprofits, paying attention to the balance of your work and life may be one of the most important things you can do for the health of both your career and the social sector.  Finding the right work-life balance can help you do a better job, create more impact while also giving the social sector a boost in attracting the best talent that will continue to make a difference. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

When an organization has an open position, it typically relies on advertising the job through traditional means, such as online job boards and newspaper classifieds. However, many organizations overlook the recruiting power of the personal and professional networks of their staff members, dismissing networking as too difficult, time consuming or foreign to them.

According to a study by the U.S. Department of Labor, however, almost half of all jobseekers (48 percent) obtain their jobs through referrals. Additionally, numerous reports indicate that between 60 and 80 percent of executive level positions are filled through networking or referrals, especially in the nonprofit sector. The ability to leverage and extend an organization’s known relationships, as well as market its opportunities to jobseekers, is essential to making networking work as a viable recruitment source.

What’s in a Network?

A healthy network is a well-tended network. To ensure that an organization’s network will be available and effective when needed, it is important to define who is in that network. An organizational network consists of a varied group of people, all with some interest in or association with the organization. Networks are typically comprised of current employees and board members and all of their individual acquaintances, former employees, funders, community partners, peer groups, and other contacts that may have been developed.

Some organizations have larger networks and have done more to cultivate those groups than others. City Year, a national nonprofit that unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, has one of the most engaged and active networks in the country. Although much of their hiring comes from within the organization, Elaine Mak, Director of Talent Services at City Year, commented in a recent interview with Commongood Careers that “a good portion of our external hires come from our network, through funders, friends and family, and other contacts… especially from friends of friends.”

In addition to knowing who is in their network, it is crucial that organizations communicate with their members regularly. Keeping in touch with the members of a network, such as sending occasional emails with friendly updates and milestones, is important relationship maintenance.

Creating Your “Employer Brand”

Part of the ongoing communication with a network is sharing information that creates overall positive associations with an organization, including helping people to understand the exciting and attractive elients of working at the organization. Commongood Careers’ study The Voice of Nonprofit Talent in 2008 suggests that one way organizations can attract more talent is to create a distinct perception of themselves as an employer, essentially an “employer brand.” Just as an organization has messages to communicate to funders, it needs to communicate positive information about itself to potential employees.

“We find that what attracts people to share our open positions with their networks is not necessarily any particular aspect of the position itself, but the overall message and reputation of the organization in general,” Elaine Mak of City Year continued. “People will often select themselves out if they discover that City Year is not the right fit for them, but the people that do connect will find the right position eventually. Often they get that information through messages about what it’s like to work here and what City Year values in its employees.”

How and When to Network

There are many methods to reach members of an organization’s network. Sending out information in newsletters and via e-mails are quick and relatively simple ways to blast out information about new positions. Getting in touch by phone or in person with key contacts can help an organization pinpoint prospective candidates or people who can connect the organization to strong candidates.

“The most successful networking we’ve found is still through word of mouth,” Mak said. “We use our newsletter, especially our corps member alumni newsletter, to promote job openings, but most of the success we have in networking for hires has been reaching out to individuals and getting them excited about our positions.”

There is no wrong time for an organization to start talking to its network about its hiring needs, even if it doesn’t have current open positions. Sometimes the best connections take time to develop, so engaging people early and often can be important. That way, when the time is right to make a hire, an organization may already have a short list of potential candidates to contact.

Recruiting 2.0: Using Online Social Networking

Thanks to the proliferation of social networking websites (over 200 such sites have been developed over the past ten years), nonprofits can go online to grow their networks, promote their employer brand and connect with prospective employees. These sites have evolved into web-based communities of millions of people connecting based on shared interests and affiliations. Many nonprofits are establishing a presence beyond their homepage and are utilizing social networking sites to recruit talent and spread the word of social change. Because setting up and managing online networks merely require an investment of time, nonprofits can greatly benefit from this low-effort, low-cost and high-touch means of expanding their inner circles and reaching passive job candidates. Below are a few examples of the most effective social networking sites for recruitment.

Facebook: Founded in 2004 by a Harvard University undergraduate, Facebook allows users to create personal profiles and join networks based on shared affiliations such as universities, geographic regions, and organizations. Though Facebook originally targeted the college-age population, students now make up only half of all active users. Today, Facebook touts 67 million members and notes that users over the age of 25 are its fastest growing demographic. This trend is encouraging for organizations who are seeking more seasoned employees through this avenue. Facebook is also currently the fifth most visited web site in the world, with its users spending an average of 25 minutes on the site a day perusing profiles of their personal connections. These are engaged users who share information like job leads.

On Facebook, individuals and organizations create personal profiles to which other Facebook members can then connect. For example, Commongood Careers’ fan page on Facebook is entitled “Will Work for Social Change” and we would love for you to become a member of our network!  As a nonprofit that operates a person-to-person micro-lending program, Kiva has also greatly benefited from having a Facebook profile. Kiva’s page includes basic information about their organization such as its mission, logo, and URL. On its page, Kiva invites Facebook members to add themselves as a “fan.” On one day, the author of this article became Kiva’s 3,927th Facebook Fan, and by the end of the week, Kiva’s total fans numbered 4,912 members. By joining in this way, fans are then able to share Kiva’s page with their personal Facebook contacts. This viral networking spreads the word about Kiva’s work through like-minded networks.

As demonstrated by Kiva, organizations can significantly grow their networks by using Facebook. Having a Facebook profile communicates to today’s jobseekers that an organization is nimble and responsive to current trends. Additionally, extending an organization’s network using Facebook can help when hiring. For example, an organization can post its open positions on a page that is instantly viewable to literally millions of users. Furthermore, an organization can search member profiles to identify and reach out to prospective candidates or to glean more information about those who have applied to a position at their organization.

LinkedIn: One of the most widely used social networking web sites for nonprofit professionals is LinkedIn. Members create profiles that summarize their professional accomplishments, which can then be used to find and be found by “connections,” such as current and former colleagues, clients, partners, and schoolmates. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of other professionals. The site also features a job board where members post open jobs at their organizations, as well as “LinkedIn for Good,” a section within the site created to promote positive social change.

Prior to LinkedIn, second and third degree connections to people were often undiscovered. Knowledge of these indirect connections can be extremely valuable when hiring and sourcing candidates. Instead of applicant pools of complete strangers, hiring organizations can first tap their colleagues’ networks for potential jobseekers. These jobseekers can then be recommended through trusted colleagues. In this way, LinkedIn can also be a source for “off-book” references.

For recruiting and sourcing, Commongood Careers uses LinkedIn regularly. When launching a new search, we often post job descriptions on LinkedIn, as well as browse our personal connections to identify strong candidates. To date, we have found hundreds of candidates and new connections through LinkedIn. As a result, we have been able to maximize our ability to connect with people within our spheres of association. Commongood has also created a group on LinkedIn that we encourage you to join as an example of how to leverage such groups within your network.

Doostang: Founded by two alumni from Stanford and MIT who wanted an easy way for their friends to share job information, Doostang is an invitation-only online career community of over 400,000 members. Members use Doostang to share relevant career opportunities, as well as to interact through groups and forums. Describing itself as an “exclusive online career community that brings together the world’s most talented minds and the world’s leading employers,” Doostang’s greatest asset is its membership of individuals from prestigious universities, companies, and other affiliations.

Doostang can be a highly effective tool for advertising new positions and sourcing candidates. Individuals from hiring organizations can create a personal profile and/or a special practice group on Doostang. By creating a group, users can post open positions, as well as invite other Doostang members to join the group. Remember, Doostang is invitation only, but if you are interested in joining, Commongood Careers has created a special practice group on Doostang, entitled “Careers in the Social Sector.” If you are interested in this group, send an email with the subject “Request to join” to .

Conclusion

Nonprofit networks can provide powerful resources for generating leads, soliciting support and finding jobseekers to fill almost any type of position. The most important first step is to map out and identify your network so that you can be strategic about how you tap into those connections on an ongoing basis. Direct one-to-one contact by email, phone or in person is still the strongest way to build deep and lasting relationships, but a new generation of online social networking sites are creating low-cost, low-effort means of reaching millions of people through passive outreach and viral networking. These sites put your network to work and help you to substantially broaden your reach. New sites, such as the exciting launch of Change.org and others, are being developed regularly, so make sure that your organization stays on the cutting edge of this recruiting revolution.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Despite the economic downturn that began in 2008, many nonprofits across the country continue to expand programs, secure additional funding and hire for new positions. Indeed, during these difficult times, most socially-focused organizations note that the need for their services has never been greater and that they have a responsibility to do whatever it takes to meet those demands.

As organizations expand, however, they must also adapt carefully in order to remain stable and sustainable ventures. Throughout a period of significant growth, every aspect of an organization is tested and strained, but perhaps none more so than its organizational culture.

Being Intentional with an Evolving Culture

Culture is particularly sensitive to growth-related changes because it represents a delicate social balance that is impacted by many different factors. As new employees are added to the team, along with new processes, structures, expectations and demands, this balance is forced to shift and evolve. Maintaining the status quo is not an option with continuing growth, but it is up to the members of the team to decide whether that change is intentionally driven in a specific direction or whether it happens in an uncontrolled manner.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson for organizations experiencing growth is to be deliberate about cultural evolution. Nonprofits place a high value on their unique organizational cultures, but most groups passively allow it to remain outside of anyone’s control or influence. This does not have to be the case, and in fact, the most successful organizations go to great lengths to define their culture and control it throughout periods of growth. Managers at these organizations have learned that it is much easier to proactively build a positive culture than to fix a team than has already been allowed to change in negative ways.

The first step in managing an evolving culture is to identify the current and recent cultural elients that have had the greatest positive impact on the organization. Over the past few years, what things brought the staff together and made them more effective? What drove team performance and increased dedication to the mission? What made growth possible in the first place and what internal elients might slow it down or speed it up? And most importantly, which cultural elients should be maintained because they mirror the core nature of the organization, and which ones should be phased out because they are distracting or diminishing capacity? The answers to these questions will be different for each organization, but the keys to success in this process come from deliberately embracing the insights such discussions will make available.

Effectively managing organizational culture begins with a senior management team that embraces the:

• Importance of having a well-defined culture

• Ways in which growth will impact that culture

• Shared vision around the elients of an ideal culture

• Willingness to be hands-on in shaping the culture

• Belief that culture is driven primarily from the bottom-up, necessitating an internal grassroots approach

Once the management team is fully bought-in to this basic framework, it is time to engage the staff in the discussion. As many employees as possible, and ideally the entire staff, should be involved in the process of defining and promoting organizational culture. Staff meetings, town halls, working groups, culture committees, suggestion boxes, surveys and retreats can all be effective vehicles for engaging a grassroots approach to that process.

Ultimately, the management team and staff should collaborate to define and ensure intentional consistency around various cultural elients such as:

• How to identify and reward high-performance

• How to recognize and improve under-performance

• What management styles and behaviors are valued

• How feedback is solicited and receive

• How decisions are made

• How challenges are approached

• What “diversity” truly means, why it is important and how it is being actively promoted

• How respect is demonstrated between team members

• What makes your organization different from others

• What makes this a special place in which to work

• What accomplishments, anniversaries, birthdays and milestones will be celebrated

• How to conduct those celebrations, who leads them, when they occur and what the budget might be

• What dress code would best promote the culture

• Which elients of the physical office space should be kept and which should be improved

Hiring for Cultural Fit

Adding new people to a team has a dramatic impact on organizational culture. As new hires come on board with innovative ideas, original perspectives, fresh energy and totally different sets of expectations, the balance of the team shifts immediately. As such, hiring presents one of the greatest opportunities to be intentional with culture because managers can carefully select the ingredients that are being added to the mix and work to project how those additions will impact the result.

BELL is a national afterschool and summer tutoring program for low-income urban children that recently grew from 30 to 200 full-time employees in just a few short years. Chief Executive Officer Tiffany Cooper said recently in an interview with Commongood Careers that, “It is definitely a challenge to maintain culture as an organization grows, but we try to manage our growth by ensuring cultural fit in all of our hires. We make culture fit a key part of interviewing.”

BELL recognizes cultural factors such as preferred leadership styles, interpersonal dynamics, and organizational traditions, and incorporates this information into the hiring process. Of course, all of these factors can be affected by growth, so it is important to periodically re-examine cultural elients, identify those that are truly essential to the organization, and hire candidates who embrace and embody those core factors and are also aligned with the new realities of growth.
“Solid hiring is critical to an organization’s growth and is hugely important in managing culture change,” said Cooper. “Hiring people motivated by our culture and our mission is essential to our organizational growth. We are very slow to hire and we will turn down many great candidates in order to make sure we get those that are both great and compatible with our organizational culture.”

Additionally, BELL focuses on supporting new hires through the on-boarding process by being explicit about various cultural elients and making sure that those who are familiar with the culture are involved. “Once we’ve made the hire we ensure that the people with the most history here are involved in the on-boarding process,” Cooper said.

The Risk – and Opportunity – of Subcultures

Adding new employees can also lead to challenges. The subcultures that develop with grows can stem from many different factors. Geographically-based subcultures between regional offices result from differences in environment, standards in dress, styles of language, nature of regional management and the local community being served. Subcultures also develop within functional areas and highlight the transition from relying on employees to be “jacks-of-all-trades” toward creating more specialized functional responsibilities. As diversity in experience and background grows, subcultures often evolve based on these factors as well. It is important to recognize and value these subcultures while also maintaining a unified vision and identity for the organization as a whole.

It is also important that everyone on staff remains committed to and connected with the organization’s mission and feels like a valued part of a singular large team. Reminding employees that they are all working to solve common problems and to reach common goals, despite location or function, can build unity and an important shared identity. When the overall organizational culture is one of healthy, positive respect, subcultures that become part of the unique diversity of the team do not present a threat to the intentional management of organization-wide culture.

Communication is Key

Perhaps the most important factor in building and maintaining organizational culture is communication. “Communication is essential to managing cultural growth. We have various systems to do so including cross-functional meetings, a monthly internal newsletter and a quarterly external newsletter,” Cooper said. BELL also uses a unique quarterly “town meeting” to share organizational developments and encourage employees at all levels to contribute feedback on the strategic direction of the organization.

Employees need to feel included in organizational developments and decisions, even if they can’t be involved directly. Sharing information through various formats sends a message that employees are respected and valued, no matter how large the organization or its rate of growth.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

By the end of any job search, receiving the perfect employment offer can be a welcome and rewarding experience.  However, sometimes you will receive a job offer that is not the right fit for you. This article will suggest some ways to turn down a job offer with grace and professionalism.

Before the Offer

Being prepared to respond to a job offer requires a clear idea of what constitutes the right match in a job opportunity. You need to know what your ideal job looks like before you get to the offer stage.

“Doing a thorough self-awareness inventory up front can help you avoid having to turn down a less than perfect offer later in the process,” said Katie Pakenham, Service Manager and Director of Candidate Experience at Commongood Careers. 

It is important to make sure you are asking the right questions throughout the process, particularly about those aspects of a position that could be deal-breakers. “Candidates should think about the hours, amount of travel, and benefits they want before pursuing a position,” said Allyson Biegeleisen, Director of Client Services at Commongood Careers.  “They need to make sure that they absolutely understand what the organization would expect in these areas if they were hired into that position.” 

At any stage in the process, if you realize that you would never take the position if it were offered to you, no matter what the offer looked like, respectfully withdraw from the process before an offer is made. Organizations will invest a great deal of time in assessing your candidacy, interviewing you, and checking references; if you knew well before the offer that you would not accept the position, they will feel frustrated and perceive that time as wasted. 

Declining a Job Offer Gracefully

Remember that turning down a job offer is about maintaining, not closing, a relationship. Declining an offer gracefully can make a world of difference to your reputation and can improve your network. On the other hand, turning down a job offer in a disrespectful or unprofessional manner can do serious harm to both. 

“Performing well in a hiring process anywhere, regardless of whether an offer is given or not, can be a great asset during a job search,” Biegeleisen says.  She has even seen situations where a hiring manager has shared with his or her network a great candidate who declined a job offer. 

When you need to turn down a job offer, make sure you do it promptly; this usually means no later than a week after the offer was extended.  Remember, the organization is hoping and expecting that you will say yes.  If you say no, they will be set back considerably in their search. The sooner they know that they will need to re-invigorate the search, the better for the organization. 

“People sometimes avoid contact when they decide they don’t want the job because they want to avoid conflict,“ said Biegeleisen, “but avoiding saying anything is much more inconveniencing and much less respectful to the organization than communicating your decision.” 

Placing a prompt phone call to the person who offered you the position is the best strategy for declining an offer. In addition to being prompt, it is important to communicate your decision in a clear and honest way. You should be prepared to offer an explanation for your decision, but there is no need for lengthy excuses. “You should find a genuine way to tell the organization what you like about the position and the organization. You should make sure the organization knows that its time was well spent and that you were invested in the process until the end,” Pakenham said. 

While a phone conversation with the person who made the offer is the ideal way to communicate your decision, sometimes it is impossible. In this situation, a voicemail or email can be appropriate, but it’s still best to try to follow-up in a phone conversation at a later date. 

After declining an offer, make sure to follow-up with everyone you met with or talked to from the organization. This will be an important part of communicating your appreciation for the time the organization took to pursue your candidacy and can help you to build your personal network. Remember, you never know when one of these people, or one of their colleagues, will be hiring again.  Commongood Careers has seen candidates who declined one job offer be hired by that same organization for a different position at some point in the future.  Just because this offer isn’t the right fit, it doesn’t mean you should close the door.

If you are declining of offer because of salary issues, there are a few things you can do to show that you are still interested in supporting the organization.  For example, you can open your networks to the organization, perhaps suggesting someone you know who might be a good fit for this or other positions. Offering to volunteer some time to the organization also shows your dedication to a common mission and can make the interview process a successful networking experience, despite having to decline the offer. 

Using the “No” as a Learning Experience

Turning down a job offer is never an easy thing to do.  However, knowing exactly what you want in advance and communicating honestly with the hiring organization throughout the job search process can help you avoid ever having to decline an offer. Of course, if turning down the offer is the only option, you should take the time to understand why you had to turn it down and how, in the future, you could be more prepared to recognize that the job was not the right fit prior to receiving an offer.  While difficult, when done with grace and respect, declining a job offer can help you expand your personal network as well as gain valuable skills in communication and insight into your ideal role.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

If you love to build relationships, share your enthusiasm for a cause, and impact the resources available to a nonprofit, a position in nonprofit fundraising may be right for you.  Also known as development, this is the function responsible for all aspects of raising money, including pursuing and obtaining funds from foundations, corporations, individuals, and government sources through activities such as grant-writing, annual appeals, events and strategic campaigns. 

Because fundraising is essential to the success of an organization’s mission, there are many development jobs available and they are often among the highest-paid positions at a given organization.  In fact, demand for talented development professionals far outpaces the supply, so fundraising and development can be an exciting place to start a nonprofit career with a fast-track to the top. 

A World of Possibilities

Fundraising is one area where a variety of different competencies can be applied in different ways.  For example, strong writing skills are important for writing successful grants and communicating effectively with donors.  Excellent interpersonal skills are necessary for positions focusing on identifying and nurturing donor relationships.  While some development positions are primarily research-based, others focus on the logistics of planning special events for an organization.  There are also positions that are more general and require the development professional to integrate all of these skills. 

At the entry level, positions such as Development Associate, Junior Grant Writer, or Event Coordinator provide great hands-on experience.  These jobs tend to include the basics of development, typically involving planning, writing, editing, and reporting on the progress of grant proposals.  Additionally, development at this level can include tasks like researching and identifying new foundation and government sources of funding compatible with the organization’s programs, maintaining relationships with existing corporate and foundation partners, and helping to develop effective relationships with new supporters. 

From there, the doors open to higher level positions like Development Manager, Major Gifts Officer, and Grants Manager.  This level of position incorporates skills like writing grant proposals and researching foundation sources with more high level tasks like preparing budgets for grant proposals and assisting in developing and cultivating relationships with current donors.  In addition, people in these positions frequently contribute to communication with key foundation donors and track progress of grant projects and other development activities, while providing assistance to the senior development and other leadership staff.

At the top of the career ladder are positions like Director of Development, Vice President of Development, and Chief Development Officer (CDO).  These positions typically require 5 to 10 years of experience in development and demonstrated success raising a significant amount of money to support nonprofits.  People in these high level positions generally work closely with the Chief Executive Officer or Executive Director to develop strategic fundraising plans and provide both the organization’s senior leadership and Board with regular reports on progress toward annual and quarterly revenue goals.  Frequently, these positions include researching potential funding sources, managing strategic partnerships, overseeing the preparation of grant proposals and donor communications, and managing other development staff. 
A Closer Look at Three Fundraising Roles

Grant Writing

If written communication is your strength, grant writing may be the route for you.  Grant writers are organized, attentive to detail, and use concise, persuasive writing to request funding for an organization’s programs.  Most nonprofits rely upon some form of grants to fund either their programs or other operating costs, so the success of a grant writer directly affects the opportunities available to an entire organization. 

The most important part of the grant writing position is understanding the requirements of a grant and being able to succinctly and convincingly reflect how an organization meets those requirements. Strong grant writers use their writing skills to demonstrate the logic behind and outcome of the project, show the impact funds will have, and showcase community support for the project. In addition to being able to write persuasively, grant writers also use skills of research and planning. 

Special Events Manager

Many organizations rely on a series of special events throughout the year to not only raise money for their programs, but also to increase the organization’s visibility and provide opportunities for current and potential donors to interact with the organization.  Events could range from large-scale formal galas with seated dinners and auctions, to golf tournaments, to more intimate breakfast panels, to structured site visits to see the organization’s programs in action.  Most nonprofits have a variety of events that occur at different times each year and serve slightly different purposes or are aimed at different audiences. 

As organizations increase their calendar of events, they often look to bring in a Special Events Coordinator or Manager who is skilled at designing and executing a variety of events.  With exceptional attention to detail, strong vendor management skills, and a flair for entertaining, a good Special Events Manager can be the difference between a great event and a mediocre one, and therefore between an event that raises significant money for an organization and one that doesn’t.  For professionals transitioning from the for-profit sector, a role in special events can be an excellent entry point into nonprofit work, and similarly, developing special events management skills in the nonprofit sector can This role is one that is particularly

Special events management skills are highly transferable between sectors, so these are great roles both for professionals transitioning from the for-profit sector as well as for nonprofit professionals who are considering moving to the for-profit arena.

Major Gifts Officer

Major gifts from individual donors represent a great opportunity for an organization to develop a long-term, connected relationship to a donor that is both highly tailored to that individual’s philanthropic interests and related to the real and immediate needs of the nonprofit.  In addition, contributions from individual donors are generally not tied to very specific requirements or grant cycles, so donations can be more flexible.

Major gifts positions are highly coveted positions within nonprofits and professionals with exceptional interpersonal skills and a strategic orientation tend to be successful in these roles.  Cultivation of individual donors is part art and part science, and many nonprofit professionals really enjoy the relationship management process.  In addition, success in a major gifts position can be a building block to a more senior development position.

A Positive Career Trajectory

A career in nonprofit fundraising offers a variety of opportunities to make a real impact on an organization, as well as the community it serves.  Additionally, the high demand for people with strong skills in development provides job security, quick promotion, and above-average compensation to those who choose to work in this dynamic field.  There are a variety of different roles within the fundraising function, so don’t rule it out just because you think you don’t like asking for money!

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

There are numerous benefits to building a long-term nonprofit career, such as connecting to organizational missions and working in sector that reflects your personal values.  However, there are challenges to sustaining a nonprofit career. Understanding these challenges and taking advantage of opportunities to advance your career are key to a long and successful nonprofit career. 

Understanding the Challenges

Comprehensive research has been done to explore the challenges that nonprofit professionals face in pursuit of strong, rewarding, and stimulating careers.  These studies show that many people who work in the nonprofit sector are not only committed to improving their world, but they are also committed to improving their careers.

CompassPoint’s 2006 Daring to Lead survey found that 90% of executives had participated in professional development of some kind and almost one in five enrolled in a nonprofit management degree or certificate program. In addition, 25% of respondents said they had used an executive coach at least once. 

This dedication to professional development and growth isn’t always matched by appropriate opportunities.  Respondents to Commongood Careers’ survey The Voice of Nonprofit Talent in 2008, for example, said that a “lack of career ladders” was one of their biggest concerns about sustaining a nonprofit career. 

Frequently, nonprofit leaders find that once they have reached a certain level in an organization, there is no further room for growth or promotion so they have to search for a different position position elsewhere in the sector. 

“In the private sector, highly competitive companies often tell employees to ‘move up or move out,’” The Voice of Nonprofit Talent notes, “but in the social sector, individuals are more often finding they must ‘move out to move up.’”

Similarly, the Daring to Lead survey found that almost half (43%) of the executives today reported that they had decided to spend some time in the for-profit sector to reach career development goals or to gain more expertise in management. 

Not only that, but many executives decide that “once is enough” to lead an organization.  Respondents to the Daring to Lead survey cited stress, personnel problems, and the constant need to juggle finances as major deterrents to taking on another leadership role.  With so much to manage, it is hardly surprising that the study also found that the majority of leaders had not identified a successor within their organization. 

Creating Ladders to Leadership

Some organizations are taking steps to address these challenges. As a result of the sector-wide recognition of the impending talent crunch, several new initiatives have been put into action.
 
The Center for Creative Leadership and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example, collaborated to create The Ladders to Leadership Program. This program, launched in May 2008, aims to build the leadership capacity of community-based nonprofit health and health-related organizations serving vulnerable populations, where people are often economically disadvantaged and have limited educational opportunities and inadequate access to health services.

“Nonprofit organizations are a critical part of health care and service delivery in this country. It is important that we work with current leaders to build a pipeline of qualified future CEOs and Executive Directors, so we do not lose the vision and capacity needed to continue to do this work effectively in the future,” said Sallie Petrucci George, Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Offering 270 early- to mid-career professionals access to a 16-month leadership development curriculum, the Ladder to Leadership focuses on helping social sector professionals develop critical leadership skills in order to ensure that the needs of the populations they serve are met in the most effective and efficient manner.

“Fellows will be taught a range of skills from how to build and manage a team to probli-solving and networking,” said Karen Dyer, Director of CCL’s Education and Nonprofit Sector. “We believe this program will have a powerful and lasting impact on individual leaders and their organizations.”

Similar leadership development programs include The United Way of New York City’s Nonprofit Leadership Development Institute, which offers training to entry-level, junior and senior nonprofit leaders in New York City.  Likewise, New Sector Alliance, in addition to offering organizational development services, provides one-on-one career coaching, customized training sessions, and workshops in career development topics like nonprofit management and socially responsible careers.
 
The Value of Mentor Relationships

Other organizations are working to address different aspects of the leadership challenges facing the field.  For example, the Center for Nonprofit Success found that many current CEOs and Executive Directors had questions about leading their organizations and developing their careers but did not know where to look for support. 

“We developed the mentor program so that nonprofit professionals have help when they need it. Having a mentor can help you grow in your organization, determine strategy, or probli solve. Mentors have experience running their own nonprofits and provide support and answers as well as advice,” said David Johnson, Communications Manager at the Center for Nonprofit Success. 

The program connects current leaders of nonprofits who volunteer to mentor other, often younger or less experienced leaders.  The organization couples the mentor and mentored based on a short questionnaire filled out upon application for the program and then lets the mentoring pair work on their own from there.

The idea of the program is to inspire dialog and mentorship within the sector.  Part of the goal of this program, Johnson said, is to start a trend of mentoring that will support the career development of nonprofit leaders.

A Robust Future for Nonprofit Careers

While there are a number of challenges to building a long-term nonprofit career, the sector is responding.  Thanks to an abundance of research on what it will take to develop the next generation of nonprofit leaders and some innovative programs already addressing these challenges, nonprofit professionals have more options for professional development to build and sustain long-term nonprofit careers than ever before.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

In the social sector, organizational culture can make or break an employee’s ability to succeed at and be satisfied in a role. However, organizational culture is often difficult to assess because its definition relies on many aspects of an organization, some of which are not always easily accessible to prospective employees. This article aims to demystify organizational culture, and suggest some ways that jobseekers can evaluate cultural fit throughout the application and interview process.   

What Factors Define Organizational Culture?

Organization culture is characterized by the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an entire organization. In the nonprofit world, an organization’s culture is closely tied to its mission and programs.  The attributes of an organization’s culture can be tangible, such as dress code or physical work environments, or intangible, such as shared values and definitions of success.  Some factors that define organizational culture are: 

• Mission connect – This involves the level of importance of staff commitment to the organization’s mission.  Additionally, it includes how individual staff members contribute to the advancement of the mission.
• Leadership/management styles – The way that staff is managed and the emphasis on leadership in that organization. This also includes the ways decisions are made and problems are solved, whether collaboratively, individually, or with some combination.
• Reporting structure – The way the organization is arranged in terms of hierarchy.  This could mean a tiered or flat system of reporting.
• Language and communication - The internal language or terms used and understood by staff.  Also, specific terms or key messages the organization uses in external communication, as well as general communication style. 
• Physical work environment – The space that the organization occupies, such as offices, cubicles, or open workspaces, and common areas like reception, a kitchen, or a lunch room.
• Staff diversity – The level of importance of diversity of backgrounds, experiences, or beliefs the organization values. Also, the level of importance that staff share racial, ethnic, or economic backgrounds with the communities the organization serves.
• Interpersonal dynamics – The way staff interact.  Whether the environment is highly structured, intense, impersonal, or collegial, for example. 
• Titles – The importance of staff titles and how titles affect how staff perceive their own role and the roles of others. 
• Traditions and celebrations – This includes how the organization acknowledges personal successes and other milestones.  This can be a range of social rituals institutionalized across the organization.
• Work pace –  Whether work is done at a fast, moderate, or leisurely speed.  This also relates to the work/life balance for staff.

Each of these factors plays an important role in shaping the culture of an organization.  Not one of them alone can define an organization’s culture, but instead it is a combination of these factors that make its culture unique.

Prioritizing Your Cultural Preferences

It is a good idea for jobseekers to prioritize aspects of the ideal organizational culture from the outset of their job search.  This will make assessing your compatibility with a specific organization easier.  Not all organizations will have all of the most-desired factors, but many can have a combination of high and mid-priority cultural factors that make it a cultural fit. 

One of the most important steps in assessing cultural fit is to consider what your ideal culture is, suggests Katie Pakenham, Service Manager and Director of Candidate Experience at Commongood Careers.  “When you’re thinking about your dream position, figure out what attracts to you a particular work environment, “ she said, “And really be honest about what your answer is when you’re interviewing.  This way, both the organization’s and the individual’s expectations are clear.” 

A good way to start prioritizing what’s important to you in terms of organizational culture is to make a list of the factors of an ideal job.  Using the list above, write down the best possible situation for each factor. Take into account organizational values, your ideal work-life balance, how you like to interact with your co-workers, and other aspects of an organization.  Consider what you know has and has not worked for you in the past and list the ideal characteristics from there. 

A willingness to take the time to explore cultural factors, as well as an emphasis on flexibility when prioritizing these factors, can help jobseekers target what they want most from a work experience. For example, while an organization-wide emphasis on volunteering, available telecommuting options, and opportunities for advancement may be somewhat important to a specific nonprofit jobseeker, collaboration with co-workers may be the primary cultural factor that determines the jobseeker’s continued interest in an organization.  Knowing this from the start can significantly help the jobseeking process in the long run. 

Early Keys to Determining an Organization’s Culture

As is evident from the list of factors above, some aspects of organizational culture are difficult to assess without a good deal of exposure to the organization.  However, there are some methods that can help jobseekers evaluating an organization’s culture before they even set foot in the door.

One of the best and simplest ways to determine an organization’s culture is to “look at the work required, the size and scope of the organization that requires it, and the responsibilities included in the job you’re applying for,” said Pakenham.  Understanding all of the facets of a specific job can help jobseekers get an idea of the cultural expectations and definitions of successful work. 

Another simple place to start researching an organization’s culture is its web site.  Consider how it is built and organized, how recently it was last updated, and what programs or projects it is promoting.  The web site is also useful in providing informational materials.  Look for the organization’s mission statement.  Think about not only what the statement says, but the words and tone it uses in saying it. 

In addition, see if the web site has any employee biographies.  These can help determine the attitude the organization has toward its employees.  Note not only the past experiences and accomplishments of those working at the organization, but assess the formality (or informality) of any photos that accompany the biographies.  The web site may also have a copy of the organization’s annual report which provides valuable facts and statistics about the organization. 

Offline, try to find examples of how cultural aspects are demonstrated in an organization’s materials, such as grants and marketing collateral. If possible, speak with someone with experience with the organization, whether as an employee or in some other capacity.  Ask their opinions about their experiences, always keeping in mind that while one person’s experience is not universal, it can be a valuable piece of information. 

Evaluating Culture at the Interview

While the interview is a chance for an organization to find out about the jobseeker, it also provides the jobseeker with an opportunity to learn about the organization.  This can be the best time to assess organizational culture, especially armed with a set of ideal cultural assets and prior research about the organization. 

One of the easiest things to gauge at an interview is the office space.  On entering the organization’s space, look at the way it is set up, whether the space is open or doors are closed, the décor of the work space and other aesthetic choices.  Interviewees should also keep in mind the way the staff interacts with them and each other.

During the interview, there are some strategic questions jobseekers can ask to help them assess the culture of the organization.  For example, asking about how decisions are made in the organization can give some valuable insight into the structure and management values of that organization. 

The final word, though, has to be the jobseeker’s overall opinion of the culture encountered.  Just as the definition of organizational culture is broad and wide-spanning, so too must be the jobseeker’s assessment of that culture.  An astute and thorough analysis of an organization’s culture can help any jobseeker determine which organization is the right one for a happy and productive employment. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Nonprofits hiring entry-level talent often face a difficult “Catch-22” situation as they need people looking to enter an organization on the ground floor, but also want candidates who bring relevant professional experience to the table. This reality is a frustration for first-time jobseekers as well.

For organizations seeking entry-level candidates who possess demonstrated experience, graduates of year-of-service and leadership development programs can present a well positioned talent pool. Candidates coming out of these programs have been tested in challenging environments and generally come out of their service impassioned and committed to the social sector. Because of the skills and experiences that participants in these programs gain, more organizations are looking to leadership development programs as “the new entry-level”.

This article will discuss a few of the major leadership development programs serving the social sector, as well as share some real-life examples and recommendations for how organizations can leverage this unique talent pool.

What’s Out There?

There are hundreds of nonprofit leadership development programs currently operating in the United States and they vary widely in their scope and programming. This article will focus on the programs that the team at Commongood Careers has found to be the most valuable talent sources for a range of nonprofit hiring needs. As illustrated in the chart below, these programs offer emerging nonprofit leaders practical experience in areas like community development, education, consulting and management while also providing organizations with talented candidates who are committed to the sector.

Achievement First: Tapping into Alumni Networks

Achievement First is a charter school management organization started in July 2003 by the leaders of Amistad Academy, a high-performing charter school in New Haven, Connecticut. As a nonprofit, Achievement First is creating a network of achievement-gap closing charter schools in Connecticut and New York to bring to scale the dramatic, life-changing student achievement results produced at Amistad Academy. Achievement First currently operates 12 schools and has plans to open 1-3 schools per year over the next several years. Over the next decade, Achievement First will support 25 schools serving over 7,000 students.

With such rapid and successful growth, Achievement First looks to hire high-performing individuals with experience in education. Achievement First recruits teachers and school leaders as well as internal management staff. Whether the position is school-based or in the management team, Achievement First actively recruits seeks out alumni from programs such as Teach For America, Education Pioneers and the New York Teaching Fellows program.

Maia H.M. Levner, Achievement First’s Vice President of Talent Development, strongly believes in the value of these programs. “Teach For America, the New York City Teaching Fellows, and other like-minded organizations bring in talented individuals who may not have been originally drawn to the field of education. We value the past leadership experience and accompanying results that these candidates bring, as well as their zeal and passion for closing the achievement gap in this country. Our Teach For America alums in particular come in hungry for a district that values data-driven instruction. They also hold themselves to a high bar of excellence for student success, and it comes out in every part of their interview process. In addition, Teach For America and alums of similar programs bring a passion for social justice, and they wholeheartedly believe that this is the most important work they could be doing for our country.”

To date, Achievement First has hired over 100 Teach For America alumni into teaching and leadership positions, and looks to tap into more leadership development alumni networks in their future recruiting efforts.

Life After Peace Corps: Thomas Peng’s Story

Thomas Peng joined College Summit, a nonprofit that prepares low-income students for the college admissions process, as a Senior Application Support Analyst. Three months before accepting this position, Peng was finishing two years of service with the Peace Corps in the Philippines as an Information Communications Technology volunteer. Peng views his Peace Corps experience as a powerful form of professional development.

“Professionally, I wanted to work in an unstructured environment and succeed despite the various challenges. I learned to develop assets in a community rather than focusing on its deficits. I also discovered that from an outsider’s perspective many things may seem broken, but you have to also focus on what works well. You should improve on the things that work well so that you can grow. If you stop to fix everything and make it perfect, you will stunt your growth. You must also listen to the people and get their thoughts and input and let them drive the change they want in their community. Patience, perseverance, careful observation, and the ability to truly listen to others are invaluable skills that I learned during my service as a volunteer.”

In Peng’s opinion, the Peace Corps was integral to his successful transition into the nonprofit sector. “My experience in the Peace Corps demonstrated to College Summit my commitment to working in the nonprofit world and gave me experience in education. I worked for four years in the private sector before joining the Peace Corps, and my Peace Corps experience demonstrated to nonprofits that I was serious about working in the sector. I had dedicated two and half years of my life to serving as a volunteer. Also, prior to Peace Corps, I had never worked in education. Because College Summit works with teachers and students, my ability to understand the challenges of teaching and common issues in education aid me in my daily work. With the experience and background from Peace Corps, few would doubt my dedication to this field.”

Recommendations to Hiring Organizations

In closing, the following are suggestions for how nonprofits can leverage leadership development programs to source talent:

(1) Seek out advice from others: If your organization has not actively recruited talent from leadership development programs, chances are someone in your professional network has. Activate your network and speak with a contact at an organization with connections to alumni from leadership development programs. Ask them what is unique about these alumni and how they go about sourcing these candidates.

(2) Gain access to alumni networks: Gaining access to a database of program alumni can be an extremely effective tool for candidate mining. For example, Teach For America keeps extensive databases of Teach For America alumni in an effort to track their career progressions and communicate with them about job opportunities. Building an organizational relationship between your organization and a leadership development program can lead to a stronger flow of talented applicants. At the very least, many of the larger programs are now allowing hiring organizations to post jobs to their alumni through newsletters and websites.

(3) Partner with local programs: Look to local programs that offer leadership development fellowships and place participants directly at hiring organizations. For example, New Sector Alliance in Boston operates a year-long fellowship with a dual mission “to accelerate social change by strengthening organizations today, while developing leaders for tomorrow.” In particular New Sector’s Residency in Social Enterprise offers the skills and talents of twenty young professionals to twenty local organizations for a year-long fellowship. According to Kristi Komendant, a Program Manager at New Sector Alliance, “the value proposition for nonprofits is that they find the talented individuals who will help forward their work. It is an effective program because it gives them the opportunity to hire on a specific initiative that they might not have the capacity to hire for more than one year.” Additionally, a report by Nonprofit Congress entitled “Nonprofit Leadership: A Sample of Networks, Fellowships and Workshops” is a great resource for regional leadership development programs operating in a wide range of communities across the country.

(4) Devise guaranteed placement programs: The Presidential Management Fellowship program has been providing career development for emerging professionals in the public sector for over 30 years. One of the reasons why the Presidential Management Fellowship received 4,000 applicants in 2007 is because upon completion of the program, fellows are guaranteed employment in governmental departments at a pay grade above entry-level. In the nonprofit sector, organizations with similar missions could band together and create coalitions of guaranteed placements. Removing the question of “what next” for program alumni could result in an influx of talent to the sector.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Program management offers focused and dedicated people the chance to plan and implient an organization’s constituent-facing activities in a variety of ways.  With titles ranging from literacy program coordinator to director of enrollment and beyond, no matter the issue that you are most passionate about, program management positions provide the opportunity to meaningfully and directly impact a community.

What to Expect

Just as nonprofits reach out to serve millions of people in millions of different ways, the program management position spans a broad range of responsibilities and opportunities. Nonprofit program managers work closely to carry out an organization’s mission, coordinating objectives, strategies, and goals to manage efficient, well-run projects that have high impact on the communities the programs target.

Hal Phillips, for example, is the Director of Out of School Time Programs at Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses and works to reach the organization’s goals of providing services that enhance the educational environment for young people and expand their educational experience.
In a typical day, Phillips said he oversees two sites Federated Dorchester runs, making sure that his organization is able to provide safe, quality programs to students.  He makes sure that there are meaningful connections between Federated Dorchester, the students’ homes, and the students’ schools. 

“It helps that the job is challenging,” Phillips said, noting that enthusiasm for and devotion to the mission are two of the most important parts of his job.  “Every day I get up and say ‘How can I make someone smile today and really show them that they mean something to me?’ …It’s very rewarding work,” he said. 

Skills and Qualifications

Because of the mission-specific nature of the position, responsibilities vary from organization to organization.  However, there are some basic skills that nonprofit program managers need to cultivate to be effective and get results.  Strong organizational and time-management skills are a must-have for any aspiring program manager.  With many projects to sustain and many contacts to maintain, being an organized and self-directed person is a necessity.

Keeping in touch with people who have various relationships to the organization is also a large part of the program management position.  Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to be an effective communicator are important.  Related to this is the need for well-developed leadership ability.  All nonprofits need to make sure that the people working within the organization are connected so that they can reach out to the community effectively.  As a program manager, individuals are generally required to have relationships with staff and communicate with internal heads of projects and other office leaders, often collaborating on projects and evaluating programs.

Another, exceptionally important qualification is a demonstrated dedication to the hiring organization’s mission, often shown through other work, nonprofit, or volunteer experience.  Additionally, experience with managing a budget or some knowledge of finances is often desired in the ideal candidate for the program management position. 

In order to better serve a community and make the biggest impact, a nonprofit program manager also ensures that the organization’s activities taking place in the community are supporting that organization’s mission to their best extent.  At Federated Dorchester, for example, Phillips works to “provide necessary services in quantity and quality that make a difference” to the community his organization serves. 

Job Outlook

Leadership and strong management skills are continuously increasing in importance to nonprofits.  As more nonprofits embrace the importance of well-run and efficient organizations, the focus on promoting leadership and management—and compensating it accordingly—has increased in prevalence.  Especially for people with dedication to a certain mission and experience in the field of management, the program management position is a rewarding and readily available option. 

Typically, the program management position requires at least two years of work experience, and generally three to five years of experience is preferred in areas of management or nonprofit administration.  Phillips, for example, said his extensive experience with urban education and with youth prepared him for his position at Federated Dorchester.  “My experience really obligated me to use my skills and services to enhance the lives of those around me,” he said.

Program management offers the opportunity for advancement in the nonprofit world, giving individuals the chance to work closely with a mission they feel passionately about while interacting extensively within an organization and directly with the community they serve.  Self-starters with an enterprising mindset and a drive to make a difference while managing a diverse range of organization-specific tasks will excel in a nonprofit program management position. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Nonprofit career fairs can be an excellent opportunity to learn about job opportunities and meet staff from hiring organizations. However, jobseekers should do some preparation before attending any career fair to ensure that they make a good impression!

By the end of 2008, Commongood Careers will have participated in over one hundred career fairs across the country. To date, we have met thousands of nonprofit jobseekers, some who have impressed us and others who have left us underwhelmed.  Based on this experience, we’ve prepared a set of tips to help jobseekers gain valuable information, make important connections, and create positive impressions with hiring organizations at career fairs.

1. Prepare a scouting report: Before arriving at a career fair, set aside some time to visit the web site of the career organizer. Idealist.org, a nonprofit resource that organizes a national series of career fairs, lists the names and web sites of every organization that attends their fairs. For organizations that interest you, read the mission statements and learn about their programs. Jot down some notes and prepare one or two questions if you’d like to hear more about a given nonprofit.

According to Meg Busse, Director of Nonprofit Career Transitions Program at Idealist.org, there are a number of ways jobseekers can prepare in advance.

“Just as you’d never walk into an interview without researching the organization, don’t show up at a career fair without having reviewed the list of organizations in attendance and selected a few to research more in-depth. Conduct an Internet search to find out who is on staff at any organization that interests you, and check to see if you have any personal connections.”

2. Visit your short list: After you research what organizations will be at the career fair, prioritize your list of favorite organizations and make visiting those organizations your top priority. This will save you time and keep you focused. Being focused at a career fair communicates confidence and direction. Aimlessly meandering around a room reflects confusion and self-doubt.

Do not plan on papering the career fair with your resume. Bring only a couple of resumes for a few select organizations. This will help you bring a focused attitude. If you know you are already planning to apply to an opening posted on one of your targeted employer’s web sites, craft your resume to match the qualifications of the position and bring it along (but don’t forget to also apply as instructed in the job description; you don’t want your application to get lost in all the paper of a career fair!).

3. “To thine own self, be true”: When visiting an employer booth, a representative may ask you about your career interests. Be prepared to give a thoughtful answer. You don’t have to know exactly what your career goals are, but be prepared to articulate your interests. Take stock of your values and motivations, and use this information to craft a personal “elevator pitch” in advance. Because hiring decisions are rarely made on the spot at a nonprofit career, working on a fluid personal pitch at a career fair can prepare you for actual in-person interviews.

4. Be confident … but check your ego at the door: An approach that will surely derail your credibility with an organization at a career fair is to be overconfident about your skills and experiences. Employers want to meet competent jobseekers who are interested in making a contribution and being team players, not those who are egocentric and arrogant. 

To make a great first impression, start off by maintaining a positive, enthusiastic attitude. Smiling, making eye contact and projecting genuine excitement will not only demonstrate your interest, but will also communicate soft skills like friendliness and approachability.

Finally, listen actively and make a connection with the organization’s representative. According to Kasey Gagnon, Recruitment and Events Manager at Commongood Careers, passively listening to an organization’s pitch can translate to disinterest. ”It is very obvious to an organization representative when you have tuned-out and only want to talk about yourself and your experiences. Listen actively by asking a few brief questions that are relevant to the information that the representative is telling you. Having nothing constructive to add to the conversation can make the interaction go south very quickly. We want to know that you have understood what we have told you. If you are able to connect the information back to why you may be interested in our work, we will be impressed.”

5. Mingle with your peers: Representatives from organizations are not the only people at career fairs who are valuable sources of information. Because career fairs attract attendees with a diversity of backgrounds and experiences, chances are there are peers in the room who could be helpful in your search. Strike up conversations with fellow jobseekers and practice your elevator pitch some more. Be friendly and welcome other jobseekers into your conversation with the organization’s representative. However, if the table is crowded, be respectful and don’t jump into conversations already going on.

6.  Manage the clock: Organizations have a lot of people to meet during the course of a career fair. Being aware of this simple fact can help a jobseeker not overstay his/her welcome at an organization’s table.

“Just as attendees are anxious to get information and then move on to the next organization on their short list, staff members who are manning tables have a lot to manage. It’s not the time to go into your life story. Get the information, ask a brief but relevant question and then move on,” says Jocelyn Sherman, Commongood Careers’ Director of Recruitment and Partnerships.

Therefore, limit your time spent at a table to only a few minutes. Quality of time spent at a table trumps quantity of time. A short, smart, positive conversation will be most memorable.

7. Take advantage of career fair programming: Along with providing organizations a venue to recruit talent, many career fairs have informational programs for jobseekers scheduled into the day’s events. These programs may include panel discussions or tutorials on topics like effective resume writing. In addition to gaining information that will help in your job search, these programs provide opportunities to network in a smaller, more focused setting.

8. Remember names and follow up: When meeting an organization that interests you, do your best to remember the name of the representatives you meet. When appropriate, ask the representative for a business card. Then, write a note on the back of the card to help you remember them. Thank them by name on the spot, and follow up with an email with 24 hours. If you have any remaining questions, an email is a great avenue through which to ask them. Initiating this contact with an organization will help solidify you as a thoughtful and strong candidate in their memory. 

Smajl Cengic, Director of Career and Alumni Services at Year Up, agrees that follow-up is key.  “The most important phrase for a jobseeker who approaches our table at a career fair is relationship building.  If our recruiters walk away from the fair remembering something about a candidate, that person is much more likely to continue a relationship with Year Up.  The strongest candidates we meet engage us in real conversations and then follow up with an email referencing the conversation after the fair.” 

Conclusion

There is much more to career fairs than just showing up. Effectively working the room at a career fair requires knowing details about the organizations in attendance, as well as being able to talk about yourself and your interests with humility, confidence, and enthusiasm. Being mindful of these tips will help you stand out among all the other attendees. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Finding a way to break into the nonprofit sector can seem a daunting task for anyone, especially for someone looking to start a career.  You may know that you want to make a difference in a certain area, that you have the right kind of training to take on a specific need in a community, or that you have some innovative ideas to bring to the sector, but may not know where to turn to get the experience many higher level jobs require.  In this article, we give you an inside look at some great organizations hiring at the entry-level to help you kick off your nonprofit career. 

Teach for America

Since its founding in 1990, Teach For America has offered young professionals the opportunity to work in closing the education gap in the United States.  It has reached over 3 million students since its establishment by recruiting young leaders from across America to invest two years in teaching in urban and rural public schools.

Teach For America encourages its teachers or corps members to directly face the complexities that come with instruction in underserved public schools, giving the students access to a quality of education that might have otherwise denied to them.  The organization also encourages its alumni to work to improve the public school system beyond the two year teaching commitment in order to foster long-lasting change in education. 

Right now, Teach For America is growing at a rapid pace and growing with it are staff opportunities, according to Alice Lunsford, Director of External Talent Recruitment at Teach for America.  This means that there are entry level positions both at the national and regional level that immediately give young professionals a chance to see how Teach For America works and make a direct impact in the organization.  Positions as assistants to high level directors and coordinators at the national level are often available.  Additionally Teach For America offers positions in many of its 26 regional offices with opportunities in operations and development at the entry-level.

“[Teach For America] is filled with people who are passionate about their work and working in a smart manner toward measurable goals,” Lunsford said. ”It’s the culture that I think makes it a great place to work, especially coming out of college.”

The organization also encourages employees to map out their own career trajectories and consider their goals for their careers in the future, giving employees a chance to think about where their experience at Teach For America will lead. 

For a full list of Teach for America’s open positions visit:
http://www.teachforamerica.org/careers/index.htm

Jumpstart

Jumpstart is an organization that welcomes entry-level jobseekers dedicated to helping young children develop strong literacy, language, and social skills.  The organization, established in 1993 at Yale University, uses an entrepreneurial, results-oriented approach to foster one-to-one connections between caring adults, known as Corps members, and preschool children.

Jumpstart Corps members are paired with preschool children from low-income backgrounds in the classroom setting and work together on language, literacy, social, and initiative skills for one year. Through this relationship, Jumpstart inspires children to learn, adults to teach, families to get involved and communities to progress together. Jumpstart is working toward the day every child in America enters school prepared to succeed.

Like many other growth oriented nonprofits today, Jumpstart is adding entry-level positions to build support and capacity.  Kerry Connor, Recruitment Manager at Jumpstart, describes the organization as having a “fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment” that strongly encourages professional development.

As part of a commitment to developing careers from within, Jumpstart provides opportunities for those at the entry-level to investigate their areas of interest and expertise.  “Someone might think that they belong in a certain position because of their degree,” said Connor, “but we like to be open minded about it and give people the opportunity to explore different aspects of the organization.” 

Connor also noted that Jumpstart values constantly challenging their employees and making sure everyone continues to grow in their position.  “Flexible, adaptable, coachable is really what we look for in our entry-level candidates,” she said. 

With a focus on learning, gaining experience, flexibility and opportunities to advance, Jumpstart is a great place to kick start a career that can really take you places. 

For a full list of Jumpstart’s open positions visit:
http://www.jstart.org/index.php?submenu=employment_opportunities&src=jobs

Calvert Foundation

Calvert Foundation is a nonprofit community investment organization that lends money to nonprofit organizations and social enterprises working to alleviate poverty around the globe.  Using investment strategies to support the development of community housing and facilities, small businesses, and social innovations, Calvert Foundation makes an impact on the lives of people worldwide. 

Since its founding more than 10 years ago, the foundation has used investment capital, instead of conventional philanthropy, to enable nonprofit organizations and social enterprises to make recognizable changes in the communities they serve.  In 2007 alone, Calvert Foundation loaned organizations the funds to rebuild or rehabilitate more than 2,000 houses and has helped create over 1,000 new small businesses. 

Calvert Foundation has many associate positions for young professionals right out of college with the right qualifications, according to Carrie McGarry, Calvert Foundation’s Marketing Manager. 

One entry-level opportunity is Community Sales Associate, a position focused on helping to promote the programs of the foundation by being the first point of contact with the foundation’s investors, donors and partners.  This position provides the opportunity to see the inside of community investing and use that knowledge to move forward in one’s career. 

Another position available for recent graduates or people with little work experience is the Community Investment Partner Associate.  This position offers the chance to be a liaison between Calvert Foundation and its current and prospective partners, ultimately making a difference in developing communities in need. 

On the cutting edge of community investment, Calvert Foundation is a great place to start a career in the nonprofit sector for someone innovative and looking to the newest trends in making an impact on the world. 

For a full list of Calvert Foundation’s open positions visit:
http://www.calvertfoundation.org/about/careers.html
Go Out and Get It

Nonprofit organizations all over the world are growing and are looking for the right people to step in with the best and newest ways to create big change in communities everywhere.  Getting an entry-level position in the nonprofit sector not only gives you the opportunity to do something good for the world, it also gives you a chance to gather new skills, experience new things, and work in a fast-paced, innovative environment. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

A socially entrepreneurial organization (SEO) takes the goal of creating social impact to a new level by using innovative methods to organize, manage and measure a venture.  If you’re looking to make high impact in the social change arena and have a new, enterprising plan on how to do it, starting your own SEO could be a great choice for success.  In this article, we give you some tips on how to start a SEO that can survive, thrive, and even change the world. 

The Emerging Field

The idea of social entrepreneurship is not new.  The legacy of social entrepreneurs even reaches back to include historical figures like Florence Nightengale and Theodore Roosevelt. However, the term “social entrepreneur” became much more widespread in the 1980s, and today the movement is picking up more speed than ever. 

“[Today’s social entrepreneurs] have such an opportunity. There are no hard and fast rules.  It’s a whole new kind of hybrid world that brings together the best of both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors,” said Jerr Boschee, Executive Director of The Institute for Social Entrepreneurs and Visiting Professor of the Practice in Social Enterprise at Carnegie Mellon University.

The growth of this movement stems from the realization that “successful social entrepreneurs possess the same competencies as traditional business entrepreneurs, such as the abilities to plan strategically, manage people and programs, and measure results,” said Chaula Kothari, Director of Teach For America’s Social Entrepreneurship Initiative. These skills applied to SEOs create stronger, more sustainable organizations that assess their impact in tangible ways, and with excellent results.

Social Enterprise vs. Social Innovation

In the emerging world of SEOs, there are near limitless options for exploration, but two basic directions from which to approach them.  These are social enterprise and social innovation.  The differences are mostly in emphasis and final execution, although both rely on best practices, measurable results, and a socially-connected bottom line to drive their organizations. 

Starting a social enterprise “is not all that different from starting a business,” said Boschee.  A social enterprise is generally a venture whose ultimate purpose is social good and that advances and supports its social mission through a revenue generating mechanism guided by entrepreneurial principles.  It does not rely on fundraising or other more traditional nonprofit areas of revenue. 

Social enterprises take many forms and are becoming more and more prevalent.  Hot Bread Kitchen, for example, is a bakery that promotes independence and growth for immigrant women by creating professional opportunities for immigrant women as bakers.  The bakery sells various breads and rolls and then uses the profits to pay a competitive wage to its workers, as well as encourage its employees to start their own businesses.

Social innovators, on the other hand, start new organizations with the idea of systemic change that they use to create a sustainable organization. This can lead to organizations with better practices, more efficient management, and higher impact.  While sometimes social innovators take an existing nonprofit and begin thinking in new ways to come up with systemic changes, Boschee said, much social innovation starts from scratch. 

Social innovators fill a societal need not already addressed or take a new approach to meeting a need that is currently insufficiently addressed.  For example, the Education for Democracy Foundation is a cooperative effort between Polish and American pro-democratic educators to promote knowledge of democracy and provide skills for civic activity in a democratic state.  The organization gathers groups of between 10-15 volunteers, mainly made up of teachers, who are taught how to address both specific democratic issues as well as broader civic participation concerns in a training that takes the course of a year.

“The idea isn’t to adhere slavishly to either a social innovation or social enterprise model,” Boschee continued.  “The real challenge is to discover which one of them is the best approach for meeting a specific social need.”

Five Steps to Starting Your Own SEO

As a starting point, here are five concrete steps to help you plan to launch a socially entrepreneurial organization:

1) Clarify your objectives — Consider the ultimate goal of this SEO.  What social need will it meet and how will it meet it?  They should be issues that you are passionate about and that you really believe in.

2) Find a balance — Always keep in mind that the success of your SEO relies on a balance between sustainable social change endeavors and sustainable business practices.  What balance will make your organization most successful? 

3) Research the field — Learn from the people who have come before you and don’t limit yourself in the scope of your research.  See how other organizations and businesses, whether public or private, have used innovative methods.  Try to learn from their mistakes.  Make contacts and consider partnerships if it is appropriate.  (For a unique conversation about failed social ventures, look at a recent discussion on Social Edge)

4) Understand your market — It is essential to have a good understanding of the market for your product or service if you hope to make an impact.  Know who you will be serving and what they really need.  Always make sure what you are providing is something that the people you will be serving need. 

5) Know your numbers — Understand at least the basics of managing the finances your organization will be working with.  An ambitious vision for your organization will certainly get you somewhere, but if you don’t have a clear understanding of what makes your organization work financially, you won’t be able to plan strategically or make complete decisions.  (For a comprehensive list of FAQs about nonprofit finance management visit CompassPoint’s Nonprofit Genie)

Some Expert Advice

Starting your own SEO has some solid steps, but it also takes much more than simply following any single process.  Kothari and Boschee both say there are a few things that transcend the basic how-to of starting a SEO.

“If you plan to start your own organization, you need to be absolutely committed to and happy with what you are doing,” Kothari commented.  “If you’re not happy to take on the challenges that come with starting your own organization, you will not do a good job of helping others.”

Boschee agreed, saying “don’t do it unless it is literally the most exciting thing in your life.”  A passion for the mission and the work of an organization is what makes it most successful. 

“However, be candid with yourself if the results are not really there,” Boschee added.  There is an important balance between passion for continuing a mission and understanding when to move on from a venture. 

Ultimately, today’s social entrepreneurs have the opportunity to take advantage of the exciting changes in the nonprofit sector.  They have the chance to be innovative and make a difference in the world in a way that is promising and fresh.  “Social entrepreneurs look at social need with a new set of lenses,” Boschee said. “There are no rules for today’s social entrepreneurs.  They can be the trailblazers.”

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Like in any field, nonprofits have their own language that helps them define who they are and what they do.  As a newcomer, it can be hard to understand the nonprofit vernacular, but there’s no need to cue the horrifying flashbacks to sixth grade English vocabulary lists.  In this article, we’ll get you started with some of the words that leading nonprofits use to describe their work. 

Cross-functional: Spanning various specialized areas of focus within an organization.  For example, having job responsibilities that include managing programs, people and finances.

Data-driven: Taking factual, measurable points and using them to focus programs, missions and future development.  Being data-driven is one of the most important building blocks of a results-oriented, outcomes-based organization.

Development: The staff positions responsible for all aspects of fundraising, including pursuing and obtaining funds from foundations, corporations, individuals, and government sources through activities such as grant-writing, annual appeals, events and strategic campaigns.

Dynamic: The state of being fluid and open to constant change. Dynamic organizations are able to quickly respond to opportunities and remain flexible in response to rapidly changing realities.

Executive Director: Generally, the most senior executive leader in an organization.  This title can be interchangeable with CEO or President and sometimes includes a combination of these titles.  This person generally has wide-ranging responsibilities including fundraising, strategic planning, financial operations, and program management. 

Fast-paced: Although sometimes a relative term based on an organization’s subjective definition, in general it refers to an organization that works as quickly as possible to leverage all opportunities presented to it, often being highly responsive to their donors and constituents. 

Foundation: Generally a grant-making organization focused on serving the common welfare.  It is worth noting, however, that some organizations use the term “foundation” in their name even though they do not engage in the grant-making process.

Gap: An observed disparity between groups of people that are defined by factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, ability, or socioeconomic status.  For example, academic performance gap, developmental variance or digital divide.

Mission statement: A statement that describes an organization’s fundamental purpose and reason for being.  Many organizations will also include descriptions of the populations they serve, the nature of their programming, and their guiding values.  In comparison, a vision statement is an articulation of what the ideal future will look like when an organization has fulfilled its mission.

Mission-driven: Propelled and focused by the idea that every activity is guided by or follows logically from the organization’s mission.

Nonprofit finance & accounting: Although similar in many regards to the private sector, the focus and rules of nonprofit finance and accounting are somewhat distinct.  This includes different rules and regulations about where revenue comes from and specific restrictions placed on how it can be used.  For a more in depth discussion visit: http://www.allianceonline.org/FAQ/financial_management/what_are_differences.faq

Nonprofit: An organization operated for the public benefit that has been designated by the IRS as exempt from certain forms of taxation.  It belongs to the social sector or third sector, because it is not part of government (public sector) or business (private sector).  The term is generally interchangeable with non-profit and not-for-profit, despite sector debate about the nuances of the terms.  For more discussion visit: http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/FAQ/QuestionViewer/default?section=01&item=09

Operations: In general, this refers to the activities of an organization used for the regular and continued ability to provide its service or to work toward its goal.  This can include general administrative tasks, human resources, and project management.

Organizational capacity: The ability for a group to perform or produce a desired output.  Capacity is built when an organization increases the number of people on its team, the skills that those people possess, the financial resources available for strategic investments, and the efficiencies and capabilities of its systems and infrastructure.

Organizational culture: The essential nature and overall “feel” of an organization and its team.  Culture can be determined and shaped by many factors, including leadership styles, demographics of team members, physical work environments, languages, procedures, routines, underlying assumptions, expectations, and definitions of success.

Social enterprise: A venture whose ultimate purpose is social good and advances and supports its social mission through a revenue generating mechanism guided by entrepreneurial principles.

Social entrepreneur: A person who recognizes a social probli and uses innovative, entrepreneurial methods to create, manage and measure a venture for social change.

Strategic plan: A forward-looking and ongoing process of organizational planning based on trends and analysis of internal and external data.  This work plan helps to lead an organization to fulfill its mission and vision more effectively. 

Sustainable: The ability for an organization to be viable in the future and to continue to be able to provide its services in the most effective way.

Venture philanthropy: The practice in which donors use principles usually associated with venture capitalists to improve the performance of a nonprofit organization or social enterprise. This generally involves providing a combination of funding and expertise, engaging directly with the nonprofit leadership, committing to long-term funding relationships, and monitoring performance. 

Learn More

The nonprofit vocabulary is an important tool to have when looking to get into the sector.  Look to see how your favorite organizations use these terms and keep them in mind when reading nonprofit job descriptions.  You’ll be speaking the language of nonprofits like a professional in no time.  If you want more detail on these and other terms, please visit:

• The Nonprofit Good Practice Guide: A searchable index of thousands of nonprofit terms, many linked to other useful articles and resources. 
• Guidestar Glossary: A list of mainly finance-related nonprofit terms. 
• Foundation Center Glossary Directory: Answers to frequently asked nonprofit questions and links to several more specific glossaries.
• The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers: A comprehensive source of information about careers in the nonprofit sector in a downloadable PDF format.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

What place does a Master of Business Administration have in the nonprofit sector?  You may be surprised to know that the skills you learn when pursuing your MBA can be important in many nonprofit jobs.  What’s more, an increasing number of nonprofits are recognizing the valuable skills and competencies that MBAs bring to an organization.  In the following article, we will profile two organizations who leverage MBA grads and then conclude with some advice about how to make the connection work.

Profile #1: Nonprofit Finance Fund
MBAs Positively Impact Programs and Culture

Catherine Gill, the Director of Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) in New England, believes that hiring MBAs into nonprofits creates a valuable win-win scenario. NFF, one of the largest Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFI’s) in the country, delivers financial and advisory services to community-based nonprofits of all kinds.

An MBA herself, Gill believes that, “MBAs bring hard skills like financial know-how to NFF, but that’s not all.  They also bring a really sharp understanding of teams and how to access resources that aren’t always obvious. The MBA degree is incredibly broad and teaches people how to approach problems from different angles.”

In addition to offering business savvy, MBAs can impact an organization’s culture in positive ways. “As a result of having MBAs on staff, our culture is more operational and streamlined. There’s an organization-wide emphasis on efficiency. Our culture values processes and understands how they can help us more efficiently fulfill our social mission.”

Gill describes that one of the biggest draws for MBAs at NFF is the intellectual stimulation of the work. The advisors and analysts at NFF deal with complex business problems on a daily basis, ranging from working with organizations to secure funding for large-scale capital projects to helping nonprofits understand the impact of their finances on program outcomes. According to Gill, the sophisticated nature of this work requires “people with good degrees and strong educational backgrounds who understand the value of the work we do.”

Profile #2: Center for Effective Philanthropy
MBAs Bring Outstanding Analytical Skills

Kevin Bolduc is Vice President of Assessment Tools at Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), a nonprofit that provides management and governance tools to define, assess, and improve foundation performance. Overseeing the design of new tools and the refinement of CEP’s suite of current assessment offerings, he depends on the analytical expertise of the MBAs on his team.

“The MBAs on our staff help round out our core competencies. Some staff bring a deep understanding of philanthropy to our work, while others possess research design expertise. The MBAs on staff complient that institutional knowledge with razor sharp quantitative and analytical skills, as well as performance assessment experience,” says Bolduc.

Bringing a sophisticated appreciation of analysis to understanding foundation performance is just one asset of having MBAs on staff. Kevin also explained that being able to quickly understand their clients is a critical piece of their work, which he finds MBAs are prepared to do. “We focus on the largest philanthropic funders… sophisticated and complex organizations that face unique challenges. MBAs possess the ability to develop strong relationships and communicate with these organizations more effectively about their program performance.”

Additionally, MBAs are prepared for internal organizational change and growth. Bolduc says that “the MBAs on staff help us maintain and develop processes and structures that allow us to grow quickly. They understand that a nonprofit is more than just running programs; it’s also about management, leadership, and scalability.”

Bolduc believes that more and more nonprofit opportunities are opening up to MBAs, largely because of the growth of the field of social entrepreneurship. “MBA skill-sets are more relevant than ever. Looking at social problems through an analytical lens is becoming the norm for nonprofits, particularly as foundations and nonprofits hold themselves more accountable for producing quantifiable results. MBAs bring a complientary skill-set to those taking more traditional paths into the sector, and together these skills build a stronger and more accountable social sector.”

Getting There: How to Connect with Nonprofits

Despite the fact that MBAs are more and more desired in the nonprofit field, it can be hard to make a connection with the right organization.  Nonprofit career fairs, sometimes organized by student social enterprise clubs, can be a great place to start looking.  However, because most nonprofits cannot afford to participate in on-campus recruiting programs, many MBAs need to actively pursue nonprofit opportunities themselves.

Organizations such as Net Impact, Idealist, Craigslist and StartingBloc are strong places to look for opportunities as they provide a broad range of entry points to the nonprofit sector and promote a wide scope of organizations.

Another place to think about getting experience and connections is through an internship or similar program.  While there are fewer formalized programs that offer nonprofit internships as compared with their for-profit counterparts, there are some opportunities, such as those through New Sector Alliance, Education Pioneers, and REDF’s Farber Internships.  If finding a formal internship is not an option, nonprofits also engage MBA students early through programs like Wharton’s Nonprofit Board Leadership Program, which places MBA students on local nonprofit boards.

Looking for More?

There are many helpful resources when you are considering getting an MBA and what to do with an MBA in the nonprofit sector once you have one.  Here are a few useful links to send you on your way to a career with an MBA that makes a difference:

• Idealist Graduate School Fairs: A multi-city, annual, free event created to help people considering graduate education as a way to improve their skills and advance their nonprofit careers.
• Harvard Business School Guide to Careers in the Nonprofit Sector: A print resource MBAs interested in entering the nonprofit sector as full-time managers, board members, or volunteers.
 
• MBA-Nonprofit Connection: A wealth of information and services with the goal bringing MBA skills and energy to the nonprofit sector while bringing new job opportunities to the business school community.
• Net Impact’s Career Center: A site that gives you the opportunity to read about other people who have gotten socially responsible jobs in business; or you can become a member search through job and internship listings yourself.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Let’s face it. Not all interview questions are created equally, and some are more challenging to answer than others. However, most hiring managers are not out to stump or trick candidates in their interview questions. Rather, the majority of interviewers approach the process as an opportunity to gain the information they need to evaluate if a candidate is the right match.

In a nonprofit interview, candidates are expected to do more than talk about their professional skills. Nonprofit hiring managers rely on interviews to explore a candidate’s soft skills and potential cultural fit with the organization. This information is uncovered through the content of a candidate’s answer, as well as the candidate’s ability to understand the question, think critically about an answer, and communicate that answer effectively, confidently and articulately.

This article discusses some of the toughest yet most effective questions from actual nonprofit interviews, and suggests strategies for how to communicate the best possible answers to these questions.

Why are you interested in this position with this organization?

While this question may seem rather innocent and basic, the open ended nature of the question makes it difficult to answer well.

With this type of question, hiring managers are generally looking to evaluate a candidate’s specific connection to the organization’s mission, as well as skill fit with the particular role. Speak with passion from a personal place about your connection to the position and organization. Then, get specific about this connection, using examples from your past experience. If you are unable to talk specifically about your fit with the role and organization, the hiring manager may question your interest, as well as how much you thought about your interest prior to the interview.

Avoid answers that are completely focused on you e.g. “this would be a really good move in my career path” or “I’m really good at accounting.” An organization wants to know what excites you about the work that they do. Use this opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge about the role and organization, and what you like about both.

If you were in this position, how would you do [specific responsibility of the job]?

This question may seem difficult to answer because it depends on theoretical information. Since you are not in the position already, you may not have first-hand knowledge of how to perform the duty being inquired about. However, in most cases, hiring managers are looking to how a candidate answers this type of question. They want to assess if you are well-researched about the position and able to address a theoretical question with real-life examples and knowledge.

To prepare for this type of question, do your homework. Research as much as you can about the specific position at the organization where you are interviewing, as well as comparable positions at similar organizations. Become as familiar as you can with specific duties and responsibilities, specifically if the position will require you to take on tasks you have never before done.

A larger part of successfully answering this question is also demonstrating your capacity to approach projects in a strategic and organized manner.  Make sure that your answer also demonstrates an effective prioritization of the many facets of the role.  So, you could state what you perceive to be the most important aspects of that function, and then address how you would exceed set goals along those lines, for example specific strategies you would implient or partnerships you would form. You can also use this opportunity to discuss similar experiences you’ve had in past positions, and how you successfully approached those responsibilities and challenges.

Talk about one of your weaknesses and how you have addressed this weakness in the workplace.

Organizations often ask about a candidate’s weaknesses for three reasons. The first is to evaluate how a candidate talks about his/her weaknesses and is able to position them in a positive light. The second is to hear how a candidate has addressed his/her weaknesses in real-life situations.  The third, especially true in the nonprofit sector, is to assess the candidate’s self-awareness and sense of humility (overly egotistic candidates do not see themselves as having any weaknesses).

A strong answer to this type of question communicates that a candidate is self-aware, able to think critically about his/her own personality, and is focused on growth experiences. A pitfall of this type of question is to come off sounding “cliché” (e.g. “My greatest weakness is working too hard.”)  Having real-life examples prepared in advance will help your answer sound genuine, as well as demonstrate to the interviewer that you are able to be reflective about your own personality and characteristics in the workplace. Another way to respond to this question is to share an example of when a supervisor provided constructive feedback, and how you used that feedback to grow in your role.  Overall, your goal is to reframe the issue away from “weaknesses” and toward “professional development opportunities” of which you are already aware and actively working to ameliorate.

What requirements of this position do you think are the most important?

The answer to this type of question reveals how familiar a candidate is with the general requirements of a job, as well as how aligned a candidate is with the organization’s priorities for this role. This question is considered difficult because it requires the candidate to ascertain from the job description and other cues what requirements are most valued by the organization for the position.

To prepare for this type of question, read the job description at a high level and think about the top 3-5 competencies communicated in the description. For example, does the job description communicate that the organization wants a strategic thinker? Someone who can roll up their sleeves? Or is the priority on being able to forge relationships with constituents? By identifying these competencies in advance, you will be better prepared to talk to the importance of these requirements during the interview.

Please describe the most complicated or challenging situation you’ve been in related to race, class, or gender.

For many nonprofits, diversity is a core value. This is especially true for organizations that serve a specific population, and believe that their staff needs to be able to relate to the experiences of the people they serve. For these reasons, questions that explore a candidate’s experience with issues of race, class, or gender sometimes come up in a nonprofit interview.

This type of question can be difficult for candidates for a few reasons. First of all, candidates don’t want to come across as biased or prejudiced in any way. Issues related to diversity can also be highly personal, and a candidate may be caught off guard by this type of question. Finally, for candidates that have not been in this type of situation, it can be difficult to have a meaningful answer.

Approach this question as an opportunity to demonstrate your connection to the population served by the organization, and do your best to answer with honesty and ease. If it sounds like this is one of the first times you’ve thought about these issues and your experiences, it’ll show. Think about your relationship to these issues in advance. If you genuinely do not have any first-hand experiences to share, reflect on why that may be and offer any insight into your understanding of issues related to diversity. Focus on the aspects of your experience and personality that equip you to deal with these type of issues. Most importantly, avoid generalizations and stereotypes in your answer.

What are your salary requirements?

Talking about salary requirements in the early stages of the hiring process can be harrowing to some candidates, especially those who want to advance to the next level of the hiring process and not be screened out for salary reasons. Nonprofit hiring managers often inquire about salary requirements early in the process so that expectations are clear from the start.

Before you answer, it is generally acceptable to ask for the salary range for the position. Prior to the interview, research comparable salaries for similar positions at similar organizations. If the salary level for a given role represents a pay cut for you, it is ok to acknowledge this in the interview. However, don’t belabor the point to try and appear like a “martyr” (remember, the person who is interviewing you is likely to be earning a salary within the range of the organization).

Most importantly, be honest with your interviewer. If you are genuinely flexible on salary, say so. But if you are unwilling or unable to accept the salary for a position, do not waste the organization’s and your own time.

If you refuse to answer the question, realize that the organization may choose to no longer pursue your candidacy. At the very least, provide a baseline number or a general range for the organization’s consideration.

***

In closing, your ability to prepare for and respond to tough interview questions greatly influences a hiring organization’s decision to continue to pursue your candidacy. Careful preparation before the interview and active listening during the interview will position you for success, and allow you to respond critically and effectively to even the toughest interview questions.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

While some industries have direct in-roads for recent graduates, entry-level opportunities in the nonprofit sector can be harder to navigate. This article shares the inside scoop about entry-level positions at a few rapidly growing organizations.

Year Up

For young professionals interested in working to close the opportunity divide, Year Up offers some amazing opportunities. Operating a one-year, intensive training program for urban young adults, ages 18-24, Year Up’s mission is to prepare this population for life and work in our technology-driven society while guiding them towards successful and rewarding careers and higher education. In its eighth year of operations, Year Up will serve more than 630 students in 2008 at sites in Boston, Providence, Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco.

According to Heather Tatarski, Manager of People Development, Year Up is a great place to launch a nonprofit career. “Besides offering entry-level positions in almost every department, we are committed to helping our employees create career paths and leverage professional development opportunities,” said Heather about growth opportunities at Year Up.

Year Up regularly hires for the entry-level roles of Fellow and Coordinator. A Fellow is an ideal position for recent college graduates who are interested in pursuing a career path in educational instruction. Fellows work in a Year Up learning community made up of approximately 35 students and 10 staff members, and focus on developing and delivering instructional content. As there are two learning cycles per year, starting in March and September, fellows are typically hired in August and February.

Entry-level coordinator opportunities include roles in almost every functional department. Specifically, Year Up has an ongoing need for Data Coordinators to manage program-related data, Apprenticeship Coordinators to manage the administrative aspects of corporate partners, and Admissions Coordinators to conduct student outreach and recruitment. Similarly, Year Up often has entry-level positions available in its finance and development departments.

For a full list of Year Up’s current positions, visit http://www.yearup.org/getinvolved/employment.htm

Citizen Schools

Citizen Schools operates a national network of apprenticeship programs for middle school students, connecting adult volunteers to young people in hands-on learning projects after school. Since its founding 1995, Citizen Schools operates in middle schools in five states, serving 3,000 kids and engaging 2,300 volunteers. The organization is comprised of hundreds of dedicated staff members working to educate youth and strengthen communities.

For recent college graduates, Citizen Schools offers a few entry-level opportunities. One role, Teaching Fellow, is a 2-year position that provides amazing mentoring, community-building and non-profit experience. Teaching Fellows spend part of their time at one of Citizens Schools’ non-profit partners working on special projects. The rest of their time is spent being academic and leadership coaches at middle schools. This position is AmeriCorps funded, which means Teaching Fellows receive a stipend, which Citizen Schools supplients. Hiring for Teaching Fellows begins in September and continues through June.

Another entry-level position at Citizen Schools is Team Leader. Team Leaders spend their time developing and delivering creative educational experiences for students, often collaborating with volunteer experts. This position is part-time, although Citizen Schools requests that Team Leaders make at least a 1-year commitment. Hiring for Team Leaders is year-round, although the bulk of hiring occurs in June and November.

Developing talent from within is a focus at Citizen Schools. “The organization is growing quickly and there are frequently new job openings at the management, support, and campus level,” said Boston Program Coordinator Ryan McCarthy. “In just a few years, someone joining Citizen Schools as a Teaching Fellow can be managing an entire program site. For people who are committed to working with kids and challenging themselves, Citizen Schools offers great opportunities.”

For a full list of Citizen Schools’ current positions, visit http://citizenschools.org/careers/index.cfm

College Summit

College Summit, the nation’s largest high school-wide college transition program, is a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to raising college-going rates for low-income students. With a track record of producing measurable results, College Summit builds the capacity of school districts to raise college-going rates school-wide and to foster the kind of college culture that helps all students stay on track academically and graduate college-ready. Founded in 1993, College Summit works in 10 different states and is currently serving approximately 13,000 students across the county.

College Summit offers entry-level opportunities for recent college graduates, as well as those with 1-2 years of work experience. One of College Summit’s entry-level positions is Operations Associate. This role entails working in a regional office with a team that supports the local school district. The operations associate position offers great exposure to the various aspects of running a regional program and allows young professionals to support senior program and executive staff in delivering quality programs. College Summit hires for this position regularly throughout the year.

For current college students or graduating seniors ready to hit the ground running, College Summit offers a paid summer internship. In this role, interns provide program support during College Summit’s summer workshop season. The internship runs from May through August. Additionally, College Summit offers a range of volunteer opportunities, which is another great way to get your foot in the door.

“The organization is growing really quickly and we’re always seeking self-starters who connect with our mission,” said Andrea Whitmore, Director of Recruiting. She added, “Recent graduates with volunteer or past work experience in youth education are strong candidates, particularly when they can demonstrate a commitment to the work we do.”

For a full list of College Summit’s current positions, visit: http://www.collegesummit.org/employment/

For more listings of entry-level jobs in the nonprofit sector, visit these online resources:

Idealist

Opportunity Knocks

YNPN Career Center

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

While some industries have direct in-roads for recent graduates, entry-level opportunities in the nonprofit sector can be harder to navigate. This article shares the inside scoop about entry-level positions at a few rapidly growing organizations.

Year Up

For young professionals interested in working to close the opportunity divide, Year Up offers some amazing opportunities. Operating a one-year, intensive training program for urban young adults, ages 18-24, Year Up’s mission is to prepare this population for life and work in our technology-driven society while guiding them towards successful and rewarding careers and higher education. In its seventh year of operations, Year Up serves more than 650 students a year at sites in Boston, Providence, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

According to Heather Tatarski, Manager of People Development, Year Up is a great place to launch a nonprofit career. “Besides offering entry-level positions in almost every department, the organization is committed to helping all of its employees create career paths and leverage professional development opportunities, “ said Heather about growth opportunities at Year Up.

Year Up regularly hires for the role of fellow. This position is ideal for recent college graduates who are interested in pursuing a career path in educational instruction. Fellows work in a Year Up learning community made up of approximately 35 students and 10 staff members, and focus on developing instructional content. As there are two learning cycles per year, starting in March and September, fellows are typically hired in August and February.

Other entry-level opportunities include roles in almost every functional department. Specifically, Year Up has an ongoing need for data coordinators to manage program-related data, apprenticeship coordinators to manage the administrative aspects of corporate partners, and admissions coordinators to conduct student outreach and recruitment. Similarly, Year Up often has entry-level positions available in its finance and development departments.

For professionals with at least 1-2 years of professional experience and/or a master’s degree in education, Year Up offers a variety of instructional positions.

For a full list of Year Up’s current positions, visit http://www.yearup.org/getinvolved/employment.htm

Citizen Schools

Citizen Schools operates a national network of apprenticeship programs for middle school students, connecting adult volunteers to young people in hands-on learning projects after school. Since its founding 1995, Citizen Schools operates in middle schools in five states, serving 3,000 kids and engaging 2,300 volunteers. The organization is comprised of hundreds of dedicated staff members working to educate youth and strengthen communities.

For recent college graduates, Citizen Schools offers a few entry-level opportunities. One role, teaching fellow, is a 2-year position that provides amazing overall exposure to the Citizens School model. Teaching fellows spend part of their time at one of Citizens Schools’ corporate partners working on special projects. The rest of their time is spent teaching in the classroom at a program site. This position is Americorps funded, which means teaching fellows receive a stipend, which Citizen Schools supplients. Hiring for teaching fellows begins in September and continues through June.

Another entry-level position at Citizen Schools is team leader. Team leaders spend their time exclusively in the classroom providing instruction and managing volunteer instructors. This position is part-time, although Citizen Schools requests that team leaders make at least a 1-year commitment. Hiring for team leaders is year-round, although the bulk of hiring occurs in June and November.

Developing talent from within is a focus at Citizen Schools. “The organization is growing quickly and there are frequently new job openings at the management, support, and campus level,” said Boston Program Coordinator Ryan McCarthy. “In just a few years, someone joining Citizen Schools as a teaching fellow can be managing an entire program site. For people that are committed to working with kids and challenging themselves, Citizen Schools offers great opportunities.”

For a full list of Citizen Schools’ current positions, visit http://citizenschools.org/careers/index.cfm

College Summit

College Summit, the nation’s largest high school-wide college transition program, is a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to raising college-going rates for low-income students. With a track-record of producing measurable results, College Summit builds the capacity of school districts to raise college-going rates school-wide and to foster the kind of college culture that helps all students stay on track academically and graduate college-ready. Founded in 1993, College Summit works in 10 different states with high schools serving 70,000 students.

While College Summit generally doesn’t hire college graduates right out of school, the organization offers positions for people with 1-2 years of work experience. One of these positions is operations associate. This role entails working in a regional office with the team the supports the local school district. The operations associate position offers great exposure to the various aspects of running a regional program and allows young professionals to support senior program and executive staff in delivering quality programs. College Summit hires for this position regularly throughout the year.

For current college students or graduating seniors ready to hit the ground running, College Summit offers a paid summer internship. In this role, interns provide program support during College Summit’s summer workshop season. The internship runs from May through August.

“The organization is growing really quickly and we’re always seeking self-starters who connect with our mission,” said Andrea Whitmore, Director of Recruiting. She added, “Recent graduates with volunteer or past work experience in youth education are strong candidates. Candidates that can show a demonstrated connection to the work we do really stand out.”

For a full list of College Summit’s current positions, visit: http://www.collegesummit.org/employment/

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Benefits are a key factor when jobseekers evaluate potential opportunities. Even though budget constraints often dictate a ceiling on nonprofit salaries, a competitive and robust benefits package can be an effective way to attract talent and retain employees. This article highlights a few ways that organizations can rethink the benefits they extend to their employees, especially during difficult economic times.

Engage Staff as Stakeholders

Start by engaging your employees in the decision-making process. A great way to arrive at a benefits package that will be most valued by your employees is to bring them into the discussion about benefits. Involving them in these conversations makes it clear that you are serious about providing the best possible benefits while also balancing the organization’s available resources. If benefits that employees want are too far out of reach, be honest about it and work through alternatives. Being open about goals and concerns can be a benefit in itself.

Get Creative

If your organization is unable to offer robust financial benefits for your employees, thinking “outside the box” can often yield some benefits that your employees will appreciate.

Start by reflecting on your culture. How do you reward hard work or success? Would you allow an employee to work from home for a day as a reward for an accomplishment? Do you throw parties to celebrate organizational milestones? Do you recognize birthdays? These may sound like trivial questions, but all forms of compensation (including benefits) are often as much about showing respect as they are about providing dollars and cents. Finding non-cash means of showing that you pay attention to employees and reward hard work can demonstrate to your team that you really appreciate their contributions.

A common trait among many nonprofit professionals is that they are motivated by “doing good.” However, they might not get the chance to exercise their unique brand of social justice during the traditional work day or they might be too burnt out to volunteer as much as they would like. Why not add on a few days off for volunteering into your vacation package? This might allow an employee to play the role of a scout leader for an extended weekend camping trip or encourage a former political activist to drive seniors to the polls on Election Day without producing a direct cost to the organization or having those employees utilize their other vacation days.

If you are a nonprofit in a city, you are literally surrounded by opportunities for your staff members to spend their hard earned salary. Hit the streets and talk to the management of local gyms, restaurants, movie theaters, parking garages and coffee shops and see if you can work out discount prices for your employees. Kiva, a nonprofit in San Francisco that promotes micro-finance investments in developing countries, touts 50 percent off at the local sushi restaurant in its benefits package. As another example, the EF Foundation in Boston offers discounted Celtics and Bruins tickets to its employees due to its close proximity to the teams’ arena.

Revisit Time-Off and Work Arrangement Policies

In a recent study conducted by Commongood Careers, The Voice of Nonprofit Talent in 2008, nonprofit jobseekers ranked benefits such as “vacation policies” and “flexible work plans such as 4-day work weeks and working from home” as the most important non-salary benefits available. These factors ranked above traditional benefits such as dental, vision, performance bonuses, student debt repayment and family care. There are a variety of factors driving these trends, but test these kinds of ideas with your own employees to see what they value.

There are a number of low-to-no-cost ways to implient alternative time-off benefits. For example, choose two or three organizationally significant, non-holiday Fridays and declare them “our holidays” (in addition to federal holidays). Offer unpaid summer vacations to those who want it and who you can afford to have out for a few months. Encourage employees to utilize flex-time, work part-time from home, or work less than 40-hour weeks for less than full-time pay. If you are going to pursue such strategies, however, invest in your management’s capacity to maintain performance levels within an increasingly flexible office environment.

Skip Matching to Make Retirement Planning Possible

Offering a retirement plan like a 403(b) can be expensive for some nonprofits, although they may not be as cost prohibitive as one might imagine. In general, retirement plans become expensive when employers agree to match contributions made by employees. If an employer agrees to match up to five percent of every employee’s base salary, annual costs even for a small organization could sail high into five or six digits annually for an average sized organization.

There is, however, generally no requirement to match contributed funds in order to set-up a retirement savings plan for your employees. If your organization does not currently have a 403(b) or 401(k), it may be surprising to learn that you can establish and maintain such a plan for just a few hundred dollars a month in administrative fees paid to a benefits management company.

The important thing is to help your employees start saving in the immediate term. Matching funds can always be added at a later date. As an alternative to matching contributions an organization can plan to distribute year-end bonuses to employees in their retirement accounts dependent on whether or not the organization is in the black at the end of the year.

Get Flexible

A Flexible Spending Account (FSA) allows employees to set aside a portion of their paycheck on a pre-tax basis for qualified expenses. Qualified expenses are associated with medical care and dependent care, and generally include items such as over-the-counter drugs, prescription co-pays, contact solution, doctor’s office co-pays, daycare fees, diapers, and gym fees.

Because money that is deducted from a participating employee’s paycheck and placed into an FSA is not subject to payroll taxes, that is extra money (often around $300 out of every $1,000 apportioned) that you are helping to place directly into an employee’s pocket that would have otherwise gone to taxes. This can be a valuable benefit because of the tax savings as well as because it helps your employees see your organization as one that cares about their health and well being. Furthermore, the plans can be managed in-house or often outsourced to payroll and benefits management companies for relatively nominal administrative costs.

Working with a Benefits Broker on Health, Dental, Vision

Many nonprofits work directly with the largest health insurance agency in their market to choose a plan that they believe is the best that they can offer based on their budgets. Working with a trained and certified benefits broker, however, is often free for the organization as these individuals are compensated by the insurance companies. A good independent broker should be able to help you compare all of the plans at one provider against many of the other competitive companies within your market. Often, simply by negotiating one company against another, you may be able to get similar benefits for lower costs. Some nonprofits are also able to work through associations, such as the National Human Services Assembly, to access lower, large-volume rates that have been negotiated on behalf of many groups together.

During difficult economic times, it is not unusual for employers to ask employees to help shoulder some of the financial burden in order to ensure the long term stability of more people’s jobs. This may mean phasing out dental and vision coverage, or shifting a larger portion of the health insurance cost to the employees. Such measures are never easy, but many employees would prefer to see their benefits reduced if it means keeping the rest of their paycheck intact.

Conclusion

There are a number of online resources available that have more tips that might help you rethink benefits for your employees. Web sites such as http://www.irs.gov and http://www.paychex.com offer good places to start. Considering these tips and offering creative and flexible benefits will communicate that you value your employees and want to keep your organization competitive to active jobseekers.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Commongood Careers is an innovative talent partner for the nonprofit sector. Functioning principally as a retained search firm that supports social entrepreneurs with their recruitment and hiring needs at every level of the organizational chart, Commongood Careers also works to provide resources for socially-driven jobseekers and to address talent-related issues throughout the sector.

To this end, Commongood Careers recently developed and distributed a 25-question survey to the 15,000 members of its candidate pool. The survey asked jobseekers to share their attitudes, motivations and challenges in pursuing careers in the social sector. The following report is intended to provide employers with a deeper understanding of what employees prefer and expect from them. This information can help organizations be more effective at recruiting, hiring, developing and retaining talented individuals.

Three major themes emerged in the survey results. The first, Cultural Connection, reveals the participants’ motivations and values. The second, Employment Incentives, explores compensation-related concerns and preferences. Finally, Career Development offers a glimpse into their longer-term plans and aspirations.

Theme 1: Cultural Connection

Although most nonprofits consider “candidate fit” with their organizational culture to be one of the most important factors in making a hiring decision, survey results illustrated the degree to which jobseekers also place cultural connectivity above almost all other factors in assessing their job opportunities.

When asked what type of organizational culture they desired, a “collaborative, team-oriented” environment was most prized, with respondents indicating that this was one of their primary reasons for choosing nonprofit over private sector jobs. Demonstrating a “strategic, results-oriented” approach was also essential, as was an effort to engage employees in the development and implientation of that strategy. People want to see, feel and impact results while working in organizations that they believe are effective agents for social change.

Theme 2: Employment Incentives

Although survey participants indicated high levels of tension around “doing good” while also needing to earn a living, they did not want to make substantial trade-offs in the process. While “mission” still ranked first in evaluating job opportunities, “salary” finished second and remained a prevalent theme throughout the survey.

When asked to consider which non-salary benefits were most important to them (other than standard healthcare)

“vacation policies” topped the list, with second place going to “flexible work plans such as 4-day weeks and working from home.” Both factors ranked far above traditional benefits such as dental, vision, performance bonuses, tuition debt support and family leave.

Theme 3: Career Development

Respondents voiced a clear intent to stay in the sector and pursue leadership roles, with 63% indicating a plan to stay in the sector for at least ten more years; 82% saying they wanted to hold a nonprofit executive-level role at some point; and 66% stating that they were ready, or would be soon, to hold an executive position.

When asked what might keep them employed at a single organization for 5-10 years, the top response was “feeling continually challenged by my job.” On the other hand, respondents indicated that the relative absence of career ladders, mentors and professional development might limit their long-term ability to remain in the sector.

Implienting Strategic Responses

Jobseekers agree that the need for change is real, as over 75% of respondents agreed with each of the following statements:

• Organizations must change their recruitment practices to attract next generation leaders.
• Organizations must change their employment practices to retain next generation leaders.
• Organizations must do more to professionally develop future nonprofit leaders from within.

To provide some ideas for nonprofits looking to put this information to work, the following strategies are offered:

1. Define and publicly share a statement about your organization’s unique culture and values.
2. Define your “employer brand” and leverage your marketing resources in your hiring efforts.
3. Develop a proactive, year-round commitment to recruiting and informational interviewing.
4. Consider “re-scaling” growth plans for increased salaries across fewer, higher-level employees.
5. Stay current with evolving salary trends and maintain your competitiveness in compensation.
6. Get creative with benefits, offering more flexibility with vacation time and employment arrangements.
7. Build career ladders for every employee, identify successors, and promote employees regularly.
8. Challenge and develop employees through in-house training programs and mentoring opportunities.

Download the full report.

Phone interviews present the unique challenge of communicating your enthusiasm and relevant experiences without the benefits of eye contact, body language, dressing to impress, and a hearty handshake. However, the phone interview is often a critical part of the hirng process that will determine the fate of your candidacy.  The following article walks you through the phases of the phone interview and shares a collection of insider tips that can help propel you to the next stages of the interview process.

Before the Interview

• Acknowledge the importance of the phone interview. Being invited to a phone interview does not mean that you are not good enough for an in person interview.  Because nonprofits are often stretched for time, many organizations have adopted the phone interview as the initial stage of the interview process.  This means that hiring managers have decided that the phone interview is a decision point concerning an applicant’s status.  If you do not treat it as an important step, the hiring manager interviewing you will not treat you as an important candidate.
• Respect the scheduling process. Treat all pre-interview communications with your interviewer as opportunities to demonstrate your competency and decorum. Following directions is extremely important and will show your interviewer that you respect their processes. Also, make yourself available during normal work hours.  Asking an interviewer to be available at 9pm for an interview will translate as being disrespectful of the interviewer’s personal life. If the interviewer explains that the conversation should last 20-30 minutes, be prepared to tailor your answers to fit within that time slot.  Simple considerations and following directions demonstrates to the interviewer that you pay attention to details and are considerate of the hiring process.
• Research the organization and the position.Though it may seem unthinkable, we regularly have conversations with candidates who have not done their homework about the position to which they are applying.  In the week(s) before your interview, visit the organization’s website and search the web for articles to gain an understanding of the nonprofit’s programs and learn about its history. Additionally, read the job description closely and prepare questions if you need components of the job description better explained.  Prepare bullet-points that explain a specific example of a time that you fulfilled a qualification required for the role.  Citing specific examples from your previous work experience will make your phone interview more memorable for the interviewer.
• Prepare thoughtful questions and a final statement in advance. As a candidate, you can always expect the phone interview to conclude with the interviewer asking if you have any final questions.  Asking thoughtful questions at the end of an interview gives the interviewee an opportunity to show some critical thinking skills. However, coming up with thoughtful questions during an interview can be extremely difficult, so prepare your queries before the call.  Additionally, prepare in advance a quick ten second personal pitch for why you are the right person for the job. Doing so will help you clarify your motives for applying and will put you in a confident frame of mind for the interview.
• Take control of your environment. When the phone rings for your interview, you should be relaxed and have everything prepared that will make you sound calm and professional.  Find a quiet, isolated place for the interview well in advance of the phone call.  When you are pitching yourself over the phone, you want your interviewer to focus on your words.  Background noise will distract you and your interviewer and lead to increased frustration and tension on the line. To completely mitigate the negative effects of miscommunication, find a landline to make the call. Nothing can kill the flow of a conversation more than a dropped call or a bad connection. If your only phone is your mobile, conduct the phone interview in a location that historically has great reception for your phone.

During the Call

• Be enthusiastic. Your first impression on the phone is extremely important. A great way to nail the first impression is to sound happy, friendly and enthusiastic about the conversation.  Communicating excitement for the opportunity will demonstrate to the interviewer that you are someone who has passion and optimism.  A tactic to naturally sound more enthusiastic is to stand during the phone call.  Standing up allows more oxygen to flow through your airways, making your voice sound more energized and robust.
• Remember that your interviewer is taking notes. As you speak, your interviewer is most likely taking notes.  S/he will need some record of the conversation either for his/her recollection or to be able to effectively share your candidacy with other members of the staff.  Speak clearly and at a reasonable pace.
• Stay focused. As you are asked questions, jot the question down.  Tell your interviewer that you are going to do this, so s/he does not think you are pausing to do something unrelated to the interview. Writing the question will help to keep your answer focused and concise.  If you are starting to stray off topic, being able to visualize the question can help you stay on topic. If you need more time to answer the question, request some time to reflect so you can give the best answer. Also, do not multitask during the interview. An interviewer will be able to tell if you are distracted. Sharing time between the interview and driving, surfing the web, cooking, or walking home from work will communicate that you are not completely interested in the position.
• Communicate a balance of passion and experience. The interviewer wants to hear that you are passionate about the mission of the organization, but s/he also wants to hear examples of how you have demonstrated your passion in past experiences.  Remember that the interviewer has committed his/herself to the mission of the organization and therefore wants to hear that you (as a potential co-worker) will share in the passion for the given mission.  At the same time, they want to know that they will be hiring someone whose skills match the passion. Giving concrete examples of past experiences and skills that are transferable is extremely important. Providing a philosophical/ethical foundation for why you want to work for the mission is also vital to the success of the phone interview.
• Be honest about your salary requirements. If the conversation turns to the topic of salary, be honest about your requirements for the role.  If the interviewer shares the expected range it is most likely the case that the range will not drastically change during the hiring process. Deflating your requirements so that you are moved forward in the process will result in wasted time and will reflect poorly on you as a job seeker. Therefore, if it is impossible for you to accept the stated salary range, take yourself out of consideration and keep looking for other opportunities.
• Close strong. As important as your first impression is, so is your last impression. After asking one or two thoughtful questions at the end of your conversation, thank the interviewer for their time and reiterate your enthusiasm for the role.  This is where you throw in the ten second final pitch that you prepared before the interview. Making a powerful and concise closing statement will leave a lasting impression on your interviewer.

After the Phone Interview

• Write thank you notes. Within 24 hours of your phone interview, send a quick thank you via email.  Keep it simple and thank the interviewer for the opportunity to converse about the position.  This quick gesture will be appreciated.  Within the week after your phone interview, it is still very appropriate to write a hand written thank you note. For some hiring managers, receiving this gesture of appreciation could translate into a strong candidate becoming the front runner for the role.
• Manage the frequency of your follow-up. They say that patience is a virtue and this is extremely true during the interview process.  Because nonprofit organizations are frequently strapped for time and resources, the people making hiring decisions might not be as speedy with getting back to you about your candidacy as you might like. Checking in about one’s status with too much frequency can turn a strong candidate into an annoying candidate. Be mindful and respectful of the time frames promised by the interviewer.  If s/he says it will take two weeks for you to hear from them, do not contact them before that two week time frame. It is reasonable to touch base with the hiring manager or interviewer if after the stated time frame you still have not been notified. 

The phone interview can make the difference between moving ahead in the hiring process or checking your candidacy at the door. With careful preparation and a positive attitude, you can sail through the phone interview and emerge as a strong candidate for the role.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

It’s your senior year and campus is abuzz, but this year however, there’s a different feel. Everywhere you turn there’s a career fair.  Recruiters have blown into town and they’re interviewing everyone in their path.  Your roommates are mulling offers from Fortune 500 companies and even friends in the community service club are comparing sign-on bonuses.  You, however, have never pictured yourself working for a paycheck in a huge corporation.  You’ve always wanted to do something you feel passionate about; something that impacts your community and serves a greater good.  You’ve been steering straight towards the nonprofit sector.  However, the pressure is on to get a job.  Graduation is around the corner, student loan bills are on their way and the last thing you want to do is move back home with your parents. 

If this sounds familiar, then welcome to the crossroads of your real world responsibilities and your “save the world sensibilities.”  Though the challenge may seem daunting, success is within reach.  But before you hit send on your first application, you’ll need to develop a strategy and employ the right techniques to land an amazing job in the nonprofit sector.  Take a deep breath. You’ve got a lot of work to do if you’re going to change the world. 

Step 1: Find your inspiration

Chances are your interest in the nonprofit sector and your passion for social impact didn’t happen overnight.  A successful nonprofit job search strategy starts with a solid self assessment of your interests and inspirations.

• What issues do you feel strongly about?
 
• Was there a particular book, teacher or class that first sparked your interest?
 
• Would you be happier as a front line soldier or a behind the scenes catalyst?
 
• Would it be more satisfying for you to help one child succeed, or to affect high-level policy change?

Whether it’s the environment, immigrant rights, or school reform, it may take some digging to find the roots of your social consciousness.  While this effort is essential in crafting an effective nonprofit job search, you can’t merely rest on your idealism.  “The candidates that are most successful in making the leap from college to the nonprofit sector aren’t just do-gooders,” says Allyson Biegeleisen, Director of Client Service at Commongood Careers. “They’re passionate about particular issues and they’ve demonstrated that passion in their academics, extra curricular activities and volunteer work.” In short, find your passion and turn it into action.

It can be helpful to explore your motivations for working in the nonprofit sector by hearing about what has inspired others. Check out the publication Be Bold which profiles 12 social entrepreneurs and details the inspirations and qualities that drive them to continually broaden their impact and change the world.

Step 2: Research organizations

Now that you’ve uncovered your motivations for working in the nonprofit sector, it’s time to put those research skills you’ve spent 4 years sharpening to work.  Find the organizations that would be perfect match for you

• Use online resources to identify nonprofits you may want to work for.  Idealist.org and Charity Navigator, and Guidestar are good sites to start with, as they have detailed profiles for thousands of nonprofits throughout the world.
• Read up on news and trends in the sector at such sites as The Foundation Center and The Nonprofit Times.
• Talk to your school’s career center and your professors. There is often an overlap between academia and the nonprofit sector, and many professors serve as board members, policy advisors or supporters of nonprofit organizations.
• Based on this research, create a target list of 5-10 organizations that you would love to work for. 
• Then, scour the websites of the organizations on your target list and find the titles and responsibilities of their entry-level positions.  Through this, you can identify specific positions to focus on and when you’re ready to apply you can tailor your resume and cover letter according to the responsibilities and qualifications of the role. 

Step 3: Get out there!

Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s not what you know, but who you know?”  It’s as true in the nonprofit sector as it is in any facet of your life, maybe more so. Due to a lack of resources to recruit on campus and run far-reaching talent searches, nonprofits leaders rely heavily on their networks and referrals to find great talent.  Unlike your classmates who are pursuing corporate job opportunities, nonprofit jobseekers typically don’t have the luxury of setting up on-campus interviews through campus career centers. You’ll need to proactive to find the perfect fit. Building your network involves a combination of your social skills and your know-how. 

Networking:  Start within your age group and other people that have recently made the jump into the nonprofit sector.  This group is most able to relate to your situation and will have the most relevant advice for jumping the hurdles that stand in your path.  The Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) is a membership organization that creates opportunities for the young people in the sector to connect and network with their peers. From there, work outwards and upwards to network with leaders in the nonprofit sector.  For more detailed advice on networking, read our article It’s Who You Know: Networking for Jobseekers.

Volunteering: Every nonprofit in some capacity or another relies on volunteers to accomplish their mission. Find volunteer opportunities with the 5-10 organizations on your target list and get involved today. Fundraising events are generally a good starting place to volunteer and they present an excellent opportunity to network with staff, funders and other volunteers of your target organizations.  Also, call each organization directly and ask if there are any volunteer opportunities in their offices. Most nonprofits will not turn down help, and there’s often the largest need in the development and programming departments. 

Mentors: In your networking and volunteer work, keep an eye out for potential mentors to act as go-to people for advice and council.  Another technique for finding a mentor involves a bit more action.  Find the person in the sector that has your dream job and contact them.  Let them know that you’d someday like to be where they are now, and you’d like to speak to them about their career path.  If they’re amenable, schedule a meeting or an in-person informational interview.  It may seem like a scary proposition to cold call someone you don’t know, but you’d be amazed how helpful and open successful professionals in the nonprofit sector are. In developing these relationships, remember to take it slow and state your intentions. Start with an email, then a call and then a meeting.  The key is to get out in the community now, impress everyone you meet and be upfront about your goal of finding a job in the nonprofit sector.  Through this, you’ll soon have a team of supporters and advocates to help you accomplish your goal. 

Conclusion

Making the jump from undergrad to the nonprofit sector may be easier than you think.  You can drastically increase your chances of landing that perfect job by creating a strategy, understanding your passion, researching organizations, networking and getting involved.  Before you even submit your first application you’ll be half way there. You may not be saving the world tomorrow, but you’ll be on your way to making a big impact, one footprint at a time. 

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Launching your own social change venture is a labor of passion, creativity, and dedication. Social entrepreneurs typically possess these qualities in spades, but sometimes need support in turning their vision into reality. To that end, Teach For America developed a new program, the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative, to provide its alumni with the tools and knowledge required to create systemic change through social entrepreneurship.

As its inaugural director, Chaula Kothari is building the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative from the ground up. Here we share a recent interview during which Chaula discusses her experience supporting social entrepreneurship worldwide and her thoughts on what it takes to be a successful social entrepreneur.

What inspired Teach For America to create the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative?

Teach For America’s mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation’s most promising future leaders in this effort. When Teach For America started 17 years ago, the program placed 500 corps members as teachers in six urban and rural low-income regions. Since then, the organization has expanded to placing approximately 5,000 corps members in 26 regions and has 12,000 alumni who continue to work from within education and from every sector to expand opportunities for children in low-income communities. Teach For America has created an environment where talented and driven recent college graduates can have a real impact on one of the most important social problems in this country. 

The experience of teaching successfully in low-income communities is a transformative one for our corps members – it influences the career path for many of them, creating a new leadership force for social change. As we grow our size and impact, we are systemically changing the way young people view public service and their role in social change. The Social Entrepreneurship Initiative is one example of how Teach For America is seizing an opportunity to create an even bigger social impact—by supporting our alumni in their development as leaders in social entrepreneurship.

How do you define a social entrepreneur? How do Teach For America and its alumni fit that definition?

Being a social entrepreneur is about addressing systemic problems. Money and resources can fill a gap, but how are you going to change the way people think and behave? That is the question social entrepreneurs set out to answer.

Teach For America alumni are in a unique position to move into social entrepreneurship. They have spent at least two years on the ground teaching and have gained an intimate view into problems such as literacy, low graduation rates, and other educational inequities. This experience is what fuels the ideas to address these problems in new and creative ways.

Historically, a number of Teach For America alumni have launched their own social ventures. Among these are charter schools, such as KIPP, YES Prep, and district schools like Generation Schools. Other alumni have launched mission-driven for-profit companies, such as Red Schoolhouse Software, a software provider for classrooms which counts the Los Angeles Unified School District among its clients.

Building on the success of these social ventures, the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative was created to formalize the career support available to alumni interested in social entrepreneurship.

How has your career path led you to this new role at Teach For America?

At the start of my career, my background was purely technical. After earning my degree in telecommunications engineering, I realized I was more interested in exploring the political, cultural, and policy implications of technology. I returned to school, earned my master’s degree in International Relations, and then started working in the public sector in nuclear disarmament research.

From there, I was fortunate enough to find a position at Ashoka, an organization that fosters social entrepreneurship worldwide. I was originally hired to support the selection program of US-based social entrepreneurs, and was then asked to help build a new team for Ashoka’s office in India. Working in India provided me with an amazing sense of on-the-ground social entrepreneurship. From there, I returned to the States and led Ashoka’s global staff recruitment program.

The four years I spent at Ashoka helped me to identify the characteristics common to successful social entrepreneurs, namely a combination of drive, vision, and business know-how. This experience equipped me with the tools and knowledge I needed to move into a role where I now help others realize their visions.

What is most exciting to you about your role?

To start, the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative is only a few months old! I was hired in November to build and develop this program and to me, the opportunity to inspire others to start their own social change ventures, as well as create a platform that will provide the tools and resources for them to do so, is really exciting. We have seen strong interest from the alumni so far. Some interesting existing initiatives and new ideas that I have come across so far include a documentary training program for urban youth, an organization exploring ways to leverage hip-hop culture to bring about social change, and a college preparation program for high-school students.

My position is part of the Alumni Affairs department, so I get to work closely with the other alumni programs that focus on political and school leadership opportunities..

Besides working closely with internal departments, I get to partner with outside groups to provide funding, strategic planning, and consulting services for alumni interested in starting their own social change ventures. I enjoy being part of a larger community of support that new social entrepreneurs can tap into; access to a community and the resources it provides is a key factor of a social entrepreneur’s ability to succeed.

What challenges do you see for professionals interested in pursuing a career in social entrepreneurship? What general skills are needed for this type of work?

Social entrepreneurship is not always thought about as a full-time career. A lot of people have the desire to just start something, but they are unsure how this translates into a realistic, long-term career. Part of our program’s mission is to shape the perception of social entrepreneurship as a viable professional choice and to help prospective social entrepreneurs address the challenges of turning their life’s passion into their life’s work.

Social entrepreneurs need to rise above the myth that social entrepreneurship is solely driven by the heart, and not by sound business practices. Successful social entrepreneurs possess the same competencies as traditional business entrepreneurs, such as the abilities to plan strategically, manage people and programs, and measure results.

Being able to scale operations and manage growth is key. Ideally, social entrepreneurs should grow themselves out of the job. A true measure of success is when others begin to copy your idea..

Finally, what advice do you have for social entrepreneurs interested in starting their own organizations?

First of all, social change comes in all shapes and sizes. You don’t need to start a 501c3. You don’t have to give up your full time job. Everyone as a citizen has a right and a duty to social change. You can be a full citizen working for social change no matter what line of work you are in.

If you plan to start your own organization, you need to be absolutely committed to and happy with what you are doing. If you’re not happy to take on the challenges that come with starting your own organization, you will not do a good job of helping others.

Lastly, remember to consider your own personal and professional growth when launching a new venture. Strive for that growth. Strive to be happy with your job and career path. That way you’ll be able to devote yourself even better to social change.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

The Aspen Institute, in its 2008 publication “Beyond Gray Pinstripes,” reports that over 30 percent of the 112 schools of management surveyed offer a special concentration focused on social and environmental issues. Additionally, coursework and academic research on social and environmental issues has increased dramatically in the past few years. Even with increased access to such curricula, Net Impact, a nonprofit that helps business school students use their skills for social impact, reports that only six percent of MBA graduates plan on pursuing careers in the social sector.

What will it take to get more MBAs into the social sector? Is there a demand for these types of hires? This article describes the success that two organizations have found in hiring MBAs and outlines some of the challenges associated with hiring MBAs as well as some strategies for overcoming such challenges.

Nonprofit Finance Fund: MBAs are Essential to Programming and Organizational Culture

Catherine Gill at the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) believes that hiring MBAs into nonprofit positions creates a valuable win-win proposition. As the current Director of NFF Capital Partners and former Director of NFF New England, Catherine has overseen teams that deliver financial and advisory services to community-based nonprofits. An MBA herself, she sees the unique perspective and skills MBAs bring to nonprofits.

“MBAs bring hard skills like financial know-how to NFF, but that’s not all,” Gill said in a recent interview with Commongood Careers. “They also bring a really sharp understanding of teams and how to access resources that aren’t always obvious. The MBA degree is incredibly broad and teaches people how to approach problems from different angles.”

In addition to offering business savvy, MBAs can impact an organization’s culture in positive ways. “As a result of having MBAs on staff, our culture is more operational and streamlined. There’s an organization-wide emphasis on efficiency. Our culture values processes and understands how they can help us more efficiently fulfill our social mission.”

Gill describes that one of the biggest draws for MBAs at NFF is the intellectual stimulation of the work. The advisors and analysts at NFF deal with complex business problems on a daily basis, ranging from securing funding for large-scale capital projects to helping nonprofits understand the impact of their finances on program outcomes. According to Gill, the sophisticated nature of this work requires “people with good degrees…strong educational backgrounds who understand the value of the work we do, as well as understand why this work is interesting and satisfying.”

Center for Effective Philanthropy: MBAs Bring Analytical Skills

Kevin Bolduc is Vice President of Assessment Tools at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), a nonprofit that provides management and governance resources to define, assess, and improve foundation performance. Overseeing the design of new tools and the refinement of CEP’s suite of current assessment offerings, Bolduc depends on the analytical expertise that MBAs bring to his team’s work.

“The MBAs on our staff help round out our core competencies. Some staff members bring a deep understanding of philanthropy to our work, while others possess research design expertise. The MBAs on staff complient our institutional knowledge with razor sharp quantitative and analytical skills, as well as performance assessment experience,” said Bolduc.

Bringing a sophisticated understanding of analysis to understand foundation performance is just one asset of having MBAs on staff. Bolduc also explained that being able to quickly understand their clients is a critical piece of their work, which he finds MBAs are prepared to do. “We focus on the largest philanthropic funders, which are sophisticated and complex organizations that face unique challenges. MBAs possess the ability to develop strong relationships and communicate with these organizations effectively about their program performance.”

Additionally, MBAs are prepared for internal organizational change and growth. Bolduc said that “the MBAs on staff help us maintain and develop processes and structures that allow us to grow quickly. They understand that a nonprofit is more than just running programs. It’s also about management, leadership, and scalability.”

Bolduc believes that more and more nonprofit opportunities are opening up to MBAs, largely because of the growth of the field of social entrepreneurship. “MBA skill-sets are more relevant than ever. Looking at social problems through an analytical lens is becoming the norm for nonprofits, particularly as foundations and nonprofits hold themselves more accountable for producing quantifiable results. MBAs bring a complientary skill-set to those taking more traditional paths into the sector, and together these skills build a stronger and more accountable social sector.”

The MBA Hiring Challenges and Solutions

While some nonprofits have been successful in attracting, hiring, and retaining MBAs, there are also several key challenges involved, including:

Compensation: While there is some truth that nonprofit employers cannot match the market salaries MBAs expect to earn, more and more nonprofits are realizing that they may need to pay a higher salary or offer a signing bonus to secure MBA talent. In many instances, a salary of $75,000 is considered to be a baseline for MBA grads in major cities who have limited work experience (less than five years) outside of college and graduate school. Compensation levels are higher for those with more work experience in addition to the degree. In response to the discrepancies between nonprofit and corporate salaries, many universities are now offering funds to help match a portion of a nonprofit’s salary or to offset student loans for those who pursue nonprofit careers. In cases where higher salaries are not possible, nonprofits can offer other forms of compensation that may be appealing to MBAs, such as greater management responsibilities or more senior titles than a recent graduate would receive at a for-profit company.

Visibility on Campus: On-campus recruiting is a costly and resource-intensive effort even for corporations like investment banks and management consulting firms. Because most nonprofits cannot afford to participate in on-campus recruiting programs or form relationships with MBA career development offices, graduating MBA students don’t have access to information about nonprofits and therefore often don’t consider the option of working in the social sector. Nonprofit career fairs organized by campus social entrepreneurship clubs or organizations such as Idealist and Net Impact have successfully created more visibility for nonprofit career opportunities among MBAs. Online social networks and major print media coverage can also help to raise a group’s profile with this group. Still, nonprofits need to make and seize more opportunities to present their organizations to MBA candidates and to develop relationships with career development officers who can present nonprofit opportunities to graduating students.

Timing: Typically, graduating MBAs begin their job searches in the fall of their second year, when for-profit companies are doing on-campus recruiting, and most have secured offers by the January-to-March timeframe. Since most nonprofits do not plan their hiring that far in advance, and even socially dedicated jobseekers get nervous by March when all of their friends have jobs but they do not, the nonprofit sector generally misses out on almost all MBA hiring opportunities. One solution is for nonprofits to consider planning ahead for 1-2 key positions a year for which recent MBA graduates would be ideal. Then, structure the roles for January hires and June start dates while advertising the roles to graduate school networks.

Internship Opportunities: According to Harvard Business School, more than 30 percent of last year’s MBA graduates went on to full-time positions at the companies where they held internships the previous summer. There are some opportunities for prospective MBAs to intern at nonprofits, such as through Education Pioneers and New Sector Alliance, but the overall lack of formalized programs within organizations and the sector at large limits this form of early recruiting of MBAs.

Summer internships may easily be paid or unpaid, and an increasing number of universities are offering to cover a summer stipend for students who wish to work in the social sector. The largest challenge for nonprofits is to structure a highly valuable and engaging role for a well educated student that can be started and completed within 2-3 months. If internships are not possible, nonprofits can engage MBA students early through other programs like Wharton’s Nonprofit Board Leadership Program, which places MBA students on local nonprofit boards.

Cultural Expectations: Because of the relative lack of information about nonprofit careers presented in business schools, MBAs may carry some misconceptions about what it is like to work at a nonprofit (i.e. they are disorganized, have no internal systems, and do not follow business best practices). On the flip side, nonprofits may be skeptical about an MBA’s ability to fit into their organizational culture. Nonprofits need to share as much as possible with MBA students and career development officers about the work of the sector and the opportunities available for MBAs. In addition, organizations need to ensure that their culture is clearly communicated throughout all materials, including their web site and job postings.

The good news for nonprofits is that it is possible to overcome all of these and other challenges in hiring MBAs. It just takes commitment, creativity and flexibility. This investment will pay off as securing talent with strong business knowledge and analytical thinking skills can deeply impact an organization’s effectiveness, efficiency and scalability in pursuit of its mission.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

The nonprofit sector comprises more than 1.1 million registered organizations, employs more than 11 million people (and the equivalent of 5.7 million full-time volunteers), and generates annual revenues exceeding $1 trillion dollars. Nonprofit organizations are essential tools for addressing community needs, advocating for community and social change, and engaging citizens in democratic probli solving. Yet as large and critical as the sector is, little infrastructure exists for recruiting, retaining, and developing the skilled, committed, and diverse workforce and leadership the sector needs to succeed in the decades ahead.

To sustain and build on the achievements made by nonprofit organizations in addressing the needs of our communities and civil society, we must invest in the development of the workforce and future leadership of the sector. A group of leaders from national nonprofit organizations, foundations, and academic centers who are united in their commitment to strengthening the sector’s human resources convened in March 2005 to begin developing a research and advocacy agenda that involves reaching out to many more key stakeholders to establish a broad-based, powerful, and formal national coalition.

We anticipate that our coalition will seek a major investment of public and philanthropic resources to build the infrastructure necessary to recruit, retain, and develop the skilled, committed, and diverse workforce that this sector needs in the decades ahead. Some of the sector’s workforce needs might be characterized as follows.

• The nonprofit sector is not effectively recruiting diverse and talented young people to begin careers in public life. We need effective pipelines into the nonprofit sector.
• The nonprofit sector lacks the capacity to effectively support its workforce. The nonprofit sector is not effectively developing diverse young employees to be the next generation of nonprofit sector leaders. We need leadership pipelines within the nonprofit sector.
• The nonprofit sector must balance the growing need for strong nonprofit management with courageous leadership. We must develop effectively prepared, passionate, and diverse leaders for the nonprofit sector. We need greater diversity represented at all levels of the nonprofit sector.
• New research must investigate the sector’s most pressing workforce issues, and existing research needs to be more widely disseminated. We need better and more widely disseminated research on nonprofit sector workforce issues.

Possible strategies to address the workforce needs of the sector may include providing opportunities and incentives for talented and diverse young people to enter the sector; strengthening university pipelines and support for the nonprofit sector; expanding support for nonprofit human resource and leadership development and effective succession planning; holding organizations accountable for the diversity of all levels of staffing and board oversight; among many others.

Download the full white paper.

Paul Schmitz is President and CEO of Public Allies, an Americorps program identifies talented young adults from diverse backgrounds and advances their leadership through a ten month program of full-time, paid apprenticeships in nonprofit organizations, weekly leadership trainings, and team service projects.

Shelly Cryer is Director of Initiative for Nonprofit Sector Careers, a national campaign to recruit, prepare, and retain the next generation of nonprofit sector leadership, and ensure that this leadership reflects the diversity of the populations our sector serves. Initiative for Nonprofit Sector Careers is a program of American Humanics.

As the Director of Program Services at Mass Mentoring Partnership, the only nonprofit that focuses on start-up and sustainability of high-quality mentoring programs statewide, Marty Martinez has his work cut out for him. With a deep personal commitment to youth services, as well as over eight years of experience in the field, Marty now lends his talent and drive to helping a number of mentoring organizations become more effective in the communities they serve.

Here’s what Marty had to say about his current role, career path, and thoughts about working in the nonprofit sector:

Tell us about your role as Director of Program Services. What is your favorite part of this work?

I work with program staff from other mentoring organizations, both school and community based, to help them think through their programs. I work closely with them on developing strategies to recruit more mentors, defining protocols for screening mentors, and creating evaluations for assessing outcomes. I also act as a sounding board and an advisor to help them figure out where they’ve been successful and where they need to adapt their program strategies.

My favorite part of my job is the ability to be innovative and come up with creative solutions to problems. Just today, I walked into an organization that had some amazing new ideas for training and capacity building. I enjoy working with organizations that are open to new processes and new types of training.

How has your career path to date led you to your current position?

From the start, my career focused on supporting programs that serve young people. I have always been passionate about human services and social services. I started off doing the actual fieldwork, such as running prevention programs and providing other direct services. Since I worked full-time while earning my bachelor’s degree, I already had a good deal of experience in youth services by the time I finished college.

By later returning to school to earn my Masters degree, I was able to shift my focus from direct services to nonprofit management. By the time I entered graduate school, I already had a lot of direct services experience in my tool kit to build upon. This inspired me to look at this work from a broader perspective, and to ultimately make a bigger impact in the field by focusing on capacity building.

What were the most important criteria in choosing your current position?

I knew I wanted to continue working with youth, and I focused my job search on organizations that shared my passion for youth services. I looked closely at each organization’s mission, as well as the staff’s enthusiasm for the mission.  Those factors became the most important criteria in my search. I need to be part of an organization that has a mission I believe in, and I found that at Mass Mentoring Partnership.

I’ve found in my career that if I can find a position that meets these criteria, it’s easier to make other sacrifices around things like salary or specific responsibilities. It’s true what they say: do what you love, and the money will follow.

What drives you to work in the social sector?

I come from a low-income, Hispanic community. I was one of the first people in my family to go to college and graduate. While growing up, I received so much support from the local community center and other nonprofit programs. This experience instilled in me the value of supporting and building communities. I would not be where I am today if I had not received that support.

The bottom line for me is people, not how much I earn or what my title is. At this stage of my life, I could get a job in the private sector earning at least twice what I earn now. But that’s not why I work. I’m committed to giving back and helping others in the same way I was helped.

What advice do you have for jobseekers that are interested in pursuing opportunities in program management?

I would say to jobseekers that you need a combination of passion, drive, and reality. There are great opportunities and organizations doing great work, but you need to be prepared to deal with the struggles of program management, such as trying to find grants and working in a resource constrained environment. Everyday, I’m required to make a lot with very little.

The nonprofit world is very professional and filled with innovators. Program management is at the core of this innovative work. You can really make a very exciting career.

Most importantly, the desire to work in program management has to be mission-driven. You must genuinely want to commit to giving back, not just having the prestige or the salary of a given role because that’s not what will sustain you through the toughest days.

What are the greatest challenges facing the social sector today?

One big challenge is figuring out how to retain professionals in the field long-term. I’m 30 years old and have a Masters Degree. I love my work, but I still need to earn a salary where I can support myself. It’s important that people my age are able to buy a home and support a family. If the sector can’t pay bigger salaries, it needs to come up with other incentives for employees.

Diversity is another big challenge. The sector is great at developing program staff into managers, but less strong at moving managers into director-level and executive positions. It is important that nonprofit directors and executives reflect the communities being served by the organization. There needs to be more “decision makers” of color for this to be true.

What can nonprofit organizations do better to attract new talent to the social sector?

There are a few things. I already mentioned salary, and I think benefits are an area where organizations can pick up the slack. By getting creative about non-monetary benefits, such as flexible schedules or casual work attire, organizations may be able to attract a new crop of employees.

Organizations need to be committed to reaching out to young professionals. They need to get in front of undergraduates and have a visible presence on college campuses. When I was an undergrad, I remember seeing banks and consulting firms at every career-related event, but never any representation from the nonprofit sector. The sector needs to be more aggressive to compete for talent with the private sector.

Like a lot of the work we do, attracting new talent requires innovation. Many young professionals are attracted to innovation and want to become a part of an organization that does things differently. To me, there is nothing more exciting for a young professional than to create a new idea, implient it and see its impact.  By creating and communicating a culture of innovation, many organizations will attract these types of young thinkers and leaders.

Finally, I think there are a lot of people who join the field out of a personal commitment. Some join because they came from an underserved community; others join because they had a privelleged background and feel committed to give back. No matter what drives someone to the field, nonprofit talent need to feel that they are making some sort of contribution. At the end of the day, our bottom line is about people and community. The sector needs to stress this as a key benefit of nonprofit work.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Catherine Carrington recently joined Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) as its Manager of Strategic Initiatives. A sector switcher changing from a private company to a nonprofit organization, Catherine took some time to tell us about her thoughts on her career path, her new role, and the nonprofit sector.

Q: You worked in the private sector before. What drew you to the nonprofit sector and this opportunity with Management Leadership For Tomorrow (MLT)?

A: I’ve always been drawn to the crossover between education and business. Whenever I’ve looked for jobs, I’ve first looked at the mission and the leadership. My former company, StudySmart, and MLT have very similar missions: to assist students in achieving their academic and career goals, thus ultimately being in a position to give back to future generations. When I learned about the MLT opportunity through Commongood Careers, I sensed very quickly that MLT was the type of place that would reward entrepreneurship, creativity, and hard-work, and meeting the staff further reinforced that sentiment.

Q: How did your past experience prepare you to move into the nonprofit sector?

A: The value of helping others and contributing to society was instilled in me early on. My parents were both teachers and several members of my family were coaches; I learned that strengthening students’ experiences was critical to society and to a person’s intrinsic satisfaction.

The skills I have learned throughout my life, such as management, financial budgeting, and sales and marketing, are transferable to almost any industry. Of course, the ‘softer’ skills are also invaluable - a sense of pride in one’s work, a positive, can-do attitude and the ability to build strong relationships. Each of those skills is critical to increasing the visibility and viability of any organization.

Q. What do you see are the challenges facing today’s nonprofit sector? What are the opportunities?

A: Two of the biggest challenges have always been financial constraints and the impression of inefficiency that people believe is synonymous with the non-profit sector. Both keep many well-qualified people from pursuing opportunities that otherwise would be a good fit.

The opportunities in the non-profit sector can be terrific; our respective missions inspire us to get up and go to work in the morning, and we know that we’re making a societal impact every day. We also are in a unique position to be able to reinforce the idea of reciprocity within other companies and organizations. For example, corporations offer MLT financial support and intellectual capital, and we provide them with phenomenal interns and employees who otherwise may not have known of the opportunities.

Q. Describe your experience working with Commongood Careers. How was it different from past job searches you conducted?

A: My experience with Commongood Careers was tremendous. The level of knowledge and professionalism demonstrated by their staff superseded any expectation. I’ve worked with other recruiters before, and can honestly say that everyone should be so fortunate to work with such sincere, positive, results-oriented and diligent people as the folks at Commongood Careers.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Maia Blankenship graduated with her MBA from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2004. Having worked in management consulting with Ernst & Young prior to business school and establishing a nonprofit focused on entrepreneurship education; Maia’s goal was to follow her passion for community, empowerment and education by transitioning into the nonprofit sector.

Finding Her Focus
Maia took advantage of her first year at UNC to thoroughly explore the various opportunities her MBA program exposed her to. “Net Impact was the guiding force for me and my exploration, I chose to intern within the corporate sector that first year to put my new skills to test.” Through this initial exploration Maia was able to enter her second year very focused on a career in education reform with a nonprofit organization that would value the business skills she gained pursuing an MBA.

Following Her Interests
Maia focused on leveraging her network and the Net Impact community to pursue opportunities with organizations such as the New Teacher Project, Teach for America, and College Summit. She quickly found her fit in education reform as a Special Project Manager at College Summit. Maia now serves as the Director of National Partnerships and Investments at College Summit, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the college enrollment rate of low-income students across the country. In her role, she is responsible for building and maintaining College Summit’s relationships with both national foundations and private investors. In addition, Maia directly manages the organization’s “Proof Fund” (a $15 million growth capital investment) raised in 2005 from ten individual donors over the next four years.

Beyond the Office
Maia carries out her values in both her work and her personal life as she in an active leader of the Washington DC Professional Chapter Net Impact Leadership Team. Her work with College Summit is both challenging and rewarding, which energizes her to remain involved outside of her career focus as well. She volunteers regularly as a member of the National Urban League and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She also serves as financial literacy coach with Operation Hope. For others who are seeking to join their values and career path Maia recommends focusing on the issues that are most important to you by identifying and building relationships with experts in that industry or field. Professional mentors help you explore options and determine how to best leverage your skills to pursue your career interests.

Net Impact strives to improve the world by growing and strengthening a network of new leaders who are using the power of business to make a positive net social, environmental, and economic impact. With more than 125 student and professional chapters on 4 continents in 75 cities and 80 graduate schools, a central office in San Francisco, and partnerships with leading for and nonprofit organizations, Net Impact enables members to use business for social good in their graduate education, careers, and communities.

Roles in the nonprofit sector are as diverse as the organizations that hire for them. Learn about some of the roles available at today’s most exciting nonprofits and social enterprises.

Business Operations

Finance. Marketing. Facilities Management. These may not be the first words that come to mind when you think about nonprofits, but these are all crucial parts of most nonprofits’ ability to succeed.

Similar to corporations and small businesses, nonprofits strive to operate with method and within budget. Since nonprofits are accountable to funders, board members, and the government, their task to run efficient operations, while being able to simultaneously demonstrate measurable outcomes of how they are advancing their mission, is especially important.

Many jobs in nonprofit business operations require a specialized degree, such as a CPA or MBA. Other roles call for hands-on experience in disciplines like communications or sales. These degrees and skills can be some of the most transferable from the corporate to the nonprofit sector, and often prove to be exceptionally rewarding to sector-changers looking to apply their operational skills in a socially driven setting.

Community Development Finance

Do you think careers in nonprofit finance are just about budgets and audits? Think again…

Many nonprofits offer opportunities in finance and accounting that help to build the sector as a whole, such as organizations that specialize in community development finance. Individuals with 5-10 years experience working in finance, banking, or accounting, and those with a higher degree like an MBA, will find ample opportunities to put their skills to good work.

Community development finance institutions provide capital to other nonprofit organizations for mission-critical projects, such as new sites or programs. In addition to financial support, these organizations provide strategic planning and advocacy services.

Development Jobs: Win Friends and Influence People

Do you love to talk (or write) a blue streak? Are you looking to put your sales, marketing, or business background to good use? Then a career in nonprofit development may be for you.

At most nonprofits, development roles focus on soft skills, such as communication and interpersonal relationships. Hard skills, such as fundraising database management, can be learned on the job. Development is one of the easiest roles to transition into from any other field, such general management, sales, or even real estate.

Development is the single biggest area of the sector where demand out-paces the supply of good people. There are a lot of jobs out there and they are often amongst the highest paying positions at a given organization.

Program Management Jobs: Putting Mission into Action

Nonprofit program managers carry out the mission-critical work of the organization. Whether providing programs in such fields as education, healthcare, or disaster relief, program management staff works directly with the community served by an organization.

Careers in program management require excellent people and organizational skills, as well as a strong connection to the organization’s mission. As all nonprofit programs are different, specific responsibilities vary. General responsibilities may include managing volunteers or other staff, promoting the program to the local community, and making sure that program activities support the strategic vision of the organization.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

The language of the social sector is changing. Terms like social enterprise, corporate social responsibility, and social entrepreneurship are being spoken everywhere from nonprofit board meetings to business school classrooms. There is a growing momentum in the sector to approach social problems through “entrepreneurism,” essentially a blend of innovation, business-like pragmatism, and relentless passion.  The result of this movement is a new wave of entrepreneurial organizations that are rapidly scaling sustainable models of social change in visionary ways.
In the business world, an entrepreneur is someone with the vision and leadership to identify a market need and respond with a new product or service, ultimately intending to make a profit from the venture. Similar principles are true of social entrepreneurs, with the key differences being that: (1) their work addresses a societal need, such as illiteracy; and (2) they primarily measure results in social impact value, such as increased literacy rates, as opposed to profitability.

How can a nonprofit be business-minded and entrepreneurial, you ask? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Not at all! A common myth about the nonprofit sector is that organizations are run by a bunch of do-gooders who disdain business practices. This could not be further from the truth. There are literally thousands of organizations today that are applying entrepreneurial methods to social causes.

Revolutionizing the Fishing Industry

When you start digging into what is (and isn’t) social entrepreneurism, your head may start to spin. One of the most universal definitions of social entrepreneurism is offered by Ashoka, a global association of social entrepreneurs:

“Social entrepreneurs recognize when a part of society is stuck and provide new ways to get it unstuck. They find what is not working, change the system, spread the solution and persuade entire societies to take new leaps. Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.”

To apply this definition beyond an individual, socially entrepreneurial organizations:



• Deliver a powerful model for social change;

• Grow and develop at an ambitious pace;

• Leverage management best practices, borrowing from all sectors;

• Value knowledge highly and take a creative approach to hiring talent;

• Are often incorporated as nonprofits, but also include some truly socially driven for-profits.

To find great examples of some of the nation’s leading socially entrepreneurial organizations, visit Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Awards, Ashoka, Echoing Green, New Profit Inc, and Draper Richards.

It’s important to point out a distinction between social entrepreneurism and a few other trends, namely social enterprise and corporate social responsibility. A social enterprise is typically defined as a nonprofit that self-generates revenue from a business operation (as opposed to receiving funding from charitable donations) and directs those funds towards a social cause. A few examples are a homeless shelter running a thrift shop or an employment agency that places disabled people into jobs. Corporate social responsibility is defined by a private company making a commitment to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the community. Examples include corporate foundations, “greening” of businesses, and in-kind product donation programs.

Is a Socially Entrepreneurial Organization for You?

There are unique challenges and benefits to working at a socially entrepreneurial organization. Fast-paced, dynamic cultures can result in difficulties around “work/life balance” and higher “burn-out” rates. In an entrepreneurial culture, business models and strategic plans can sometimes be hastily impliented without the required expertise or resources.

For individuals motivated to work in the sector, however, such organizations provide stimulating and rewarding environments for young professionals. Collaborative work cultures comprised of like-minded, mission-driven colleagues can inspire personal fulfillment and satisfy a drive to positively impact society. Other benefits include salary levels (e.g. higher than traditional nonprofit positions and competitive with private sector jobs) and accelerated career paths. Flatter hierarchies and small senior teams result in faster career trajectories and earlier access to strategic roles.

The opportunities at socially entrepreneurial organizations await for professionals eager to think big, roll up their sleeves, and create impact in revolutionary ways. If you possess that rare combination of passion, business know-how, and big ideas, a career at a socially entrepreneurial organization may be for you.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Think nonprofits are about low pay and inexperienced staff? Think again…

Myth #1: “I can’t afford to work at a nonprofit because their salaries are not competitive.”

The reality is positions in finance, operations, and management generally pay $50-75k for mid-to-senior roles, and $75-150k for executive roles.

Myth #2: “Working at a nonprofit will not challenge me as much as a corporate job.”

Many nonprofits are highly entrepreneurial and growth oriented. Their business challenges are very similar to those of comparable corporations.

Myth #3: “There aren’t really nonprofit jobs for people with business skills or advanced degrees.”

Depending on the organization, most mid-to-senior level staff possesses advanced degrees and extensive business experience, especially in finance, operations, and general management.

Myth #4: “Nonprofits are disorganized and skimp on operational infrastructure.”

Successful nonprofits view business infrastructure needs, such as technology and management systems, as critical investments.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

At graduation time of year, the clichés come out. Commencement speakers encourage hope-filled graduates to “do what you love and the money will follow” and to “follow your passion.” As tired as these phrases may be, there is a simple wisdom behind them: many people find that the most rewarding careers are those rich in personal meaning, connection, and conviction.  If you are one of those people, then a career in the social sector is a great option.

In a sector comprised of nearly two million organizations, each with its own unique mission and culture, finding your niche begins with a thoughtful process of self-discovery. This article explores ways to leverage your passion into a fulfilling career at a nonprofit organization.

Conduct a Personal Inventory

Loc Truong, Career Advisor at Commongood Careers, approaches career advising as an exercise in self-discovery; he works with jobseekers to dig beneath the surface to define their skills and personal mission and then pushes them to discover where their ability and interest intersect and will have the most impact.

“When I ask jobseekers why they are interested in working at a particular type of nonprofit, I often hear a knee-jerk response of ‘I want to help people’ or ‘I just want to make a difference,’” Loc observes.  “Jobseekers need to get really clear. I recommend that jobseekers really think through their personal connection to an organization and its mission, and take time to fully understand how their skills and passion will add value to the organization’s work.”

To make the connection between your personal beliefs and professional work, Loc suggests starting by creating a personal inventory.  Be honest with yourself, and think about all aspects of your past and current experience, as well as your future goals, as you:

1. Make a list of your skills, particularly those that are transferable across work functions.  Include both hard skills (e.g. the ability to use Quicken for accounting taks) and soft skills (e.g. the ability to be analytical).  Other sample soft skills include: Administration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Design and Planning, Human Relations and Interpersonal, Information Management, Leadership, Management, Research and Investigation, Project Management, Time Management

2. Make a list of your area(s) of interest, as well as any particular mission areas that interest you. Be as specific as you can. For example, if you are interested in public education, specify which aspects of this field are most important to you (e.g. improving the quality of academics at inner city schools or developing a culturally inclusive curriculum.)

3. Make a list of your personal values —the beliefs that drive your personal and professional life.  What is most important to you, regardless of your specific position or the organization for which you are working?

Once you have completed this self-inventory, research organizations and positions that align with your skills, interests, and values. Look carefully at specific roles and responsibilities, and keep an open mind about a range of roles at organizations that match your values and interests. For example, if you are passionate about after-school programming but cannot find a role in your area of expertise, consider other roles that leverage your transferable skills at these types of organizations.

Focus on Culture Fit

For Kevin Donahue, Senior Development Officer at Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), finding his niche in the nonprofit sector came down to one crucial element: cultural fit.  Prior to joining MLT about a year ago, Kevin worked in the corporate sector for a large financial services firm, an experience that motivated Kevin to explore what he valued in a work environment and career choice.

“Working in a large corporation, I came to realize that I was more interested in working at a smaller and more entrepreneurial organization,” says Kevin, “I knew I wanted to work in an environment of creative, talented people who weren’t afraid to take risks and who really believe in what they’re doing.  One thing that motivated me to make a change to the nonprofit sector was looking at work environment and the type of people around me,”

Kevin’s quantitative and analytical skills were easily transferable to a range of job opportunities but he says “I wanted to put my corporate training and background to good use at an organization that valued both organizational and social change.”

Kevin found that culture at MLT, a program dedicated to developing minority students into future business and nonprofit leaders.  “At MLT, we all work really hard and believe we’re making a huge impact,” Kevin says. “The work environment is what keeps us motivated and keeps energy high.”

Identifying with a particular work culture can be a key element of carving out a career niche.  In fact, in the social sector, cultural fit can be just as or even more important than skill fit.  To begin analyzing how specific organizations and job opportunities match with your desired work culture, consider the following questions:

• How are decisions made?
• How is information shared?
• How are employees rewarded for good work?
• How is the organizational chart mapped?
• What are the values shared across staff?

The answers to these questions will help to provide an indication of how closely you identify with a particular organization’s culture.

Some Helpful Resources

When exploring your career niche, you might find career assessment tools—such as personality indicators and skill surveys—to be helpful.  There are literally hundreds of assessment tools available to jobseekers. The following online resources provide information on and links to some of these options:

The Riley Guide
Focusing on self-assessment resources, The Riley Guide walks through different categories of assessment instruments, such as personality indicators and skills surveys. This site is a great place to start to get a comprehensive overview of career assessment options.

Quint Careers
This site provides links to and descriptions of various self-assessment tools, with a focus on personality indicators.

About.com Career Planning
This site describes the different types of self-assessment instruments, and provides links to information about specific tools.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

A common myth about nonprofit organizations is that salaries are low and can’t compare with the corporate world. Depending on your expectations, nonprofit salaries may be more competitive than you think.

Nonprofit organizations are in a tough spot, in that they receive funding in order to meet a mission and there is an implicit expectation that as much of that funding as possible should go directly to programs supporting the mission.  Historically, much of the total dollars spent by an organization on compensation has been allocated to administrative overhead, which can send the wrong message to funders.  However, more and more, funders and nonprofits alike recognize that an organization’s effectiveness and ability to meet its mission is dependent upon the quality of its staff, and understand that they can no longer rely on highly qualified people who are willing to work for less than market-rate salaries just for the “feel good” satisfaction.  Nonprofit organizations are highly professional workplaces and in order to attract and retain outstanding talent, they need to be competitive with other job opportunities.  Therefore, nonprofit salaries are becoming more and more competitive and organizations are paying much more attention to the market rate for compensation.  That being said, nonprofits do operate in a resource-constrained environment and need to be very conscientious about the compensation that they offer, both from a budget perspective and from an internal equity perspective.

What does this mean for you, the jobseeker?  Salary negotiations are complicated and involve many variables.  Some will be individual criteria, such as salary requirements and estimated market value, and some will be organizational criteria, such as budget restrictions, internal equity, and benefits packages.  It is important that you understand your own criteria deeply and that you also take into consideration the situation of your prospective employer.  This article discusses some guidelines to consider when contemplating compensation negotiations with a nonprofit employer.

Compensation vs. Salary

Salary is just one piece of how employees are compensated. While salary is the actual amount of money an employee earns (financial compensation), total compensation is the full picture of how an organization demonstrates the value of its employees, including benefits and perks. When entering into any kind of compensation negotiations, it is important to consider your needs around both financial and non-financial compensation.

When determining your personal compensation requirements, consider what is important to you. Do you value 100% employer-paid medical benefits? Do you require a flexible work schedule that allows you to work at home?  While compensation packages vary across nonprofit organizations, many nonprofits offer some or all of the following types of benefits as part of their comprehensive compensation packages:

• Medical, dental, and life insurance benefits (% employer-paid will vary)
• Retirement plan, such as a 401k or 403b investment plan (employer match policies will vary)
•   Flexible schedules
• Generous time off policies
•   Internal growth opportunities
• Business-casual work environments
•   Optional unpaid vacation

Prioritize the compensation factors that are most important to you and let that guide you when considering your salary requirements.

Determining Salary Requirements and Expectations

The first step in determining your salary requirements is to figure out your personal bottom line. Create a budget of your expenses—such as housing, food, transportation, child care, entertainment, etc.—and determine what you need to earn each month.

Then, do your homework! Research benchmarks for similar positions at similar organizations. Remember that salary is determined by many factors, including an individual’s education level, years of experience, and job function. For example, positions in nonprofit finance, operations, and management typically pay $50-75K for mid-to-senior roles, and $75-150K for executive roles.

Organizational factors, such as organizational budget or location, also play a role. According to the most recent salary survey published by The Nonprofit Times, jobs in the Mid-Atlantic region offer the highest salaries, then the West, then the Central states. In general, organizations with larger budgets ($10 million and higher) tend to pay more than organizations with budgets under $10 million.

To dig deeper into specific nonprofit salary benchmarks, we recommend the following resources:

Guidestar: A free searchable database of over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations, including Form 990 tax return data that documents salary information for the five highest-paid positions at specific organizations. Guidestar also offers a fee-based nonprofit compensation report and salary search tool.

The Nonprofit Times 2005 Salary Survey: Annual special report from major sector publication The Nonprofit Times. Provides benchmarks primarily for senior-to-executive management positions across budget size and geographic location.
Professionals for Nonprofits 2006 Salary Survey - New York and Professionals for Nonprofits 2006 Salary Survey - Washington D.C.: These annual surveys of New York City and Washington D.C. nonprofits provide salary ranges in management, finance, fundraising, marketing, programs, and IT across organizations of varying operating budgets.

When developing your compensation requirements, remember that you need to understand both your market value, as described above, and the internal variables that impact an organization’s ability to pay (budget, location, internal equity, funding cutbacks, etc.).  It is perfectly possible that you determine your market value to be $60,000, for example, but the organization you really want to work with is only able to pay you $50,000.  You need to consider how you prioritize compensation, opportunity, work environment, reputation, etc.; many people have accepted positions below their market rate because of the amazing opportunities provided.

Increasingly, nonprofits are considering varied types of financial compensation plans, including signing bonuses and performance bonuses.  Consider your comfort level with the various financial compensation options.  For example, suggesting a performance-based bonus plan to a prospective employer will allow you to demonstrate your confidence in meeting goals, while allowing the organization to minimize risk and you to potentially maximize earnings.

Discussing Compensation with a Potential Employer

When discussing compensation with a potential employer, remember that nonprofit employers value honesty and communication and will anticipate that you will be ready to be open about your salary requirements and other needs.  If appropriate, explain the reasons behind your requirements but remember to always use discretion when sharing any type of personal information.  It is important for both sides to have a clear understanding of all the factors involved, and in addition to coming prepared to share your compensations needs, be sure that you have all the information you need from the organization.  If the salary range has not been openly stated, request this information directly. Inquire about the other aspects of compensation. Ask how salary is determined by the organization and where this position falls in the range of salaries.

Most nonprofits also value a combination of humility and self-advocacy; they want you to be confident in the value that you can add to their organization, without overselling, appearing too focused on compensation and status, or overvaluing past experience or education.  For example, while many nonprofit employers value an MBA, they don’t want someone who thinks that because they have an MBA, they deserve a $30,000 increase over their previous salary.

During all these discussions, stress any areas where you can be flexible, and share your willingness to explore creative solutions.  Remember that nonprofits often don’t have much flexibility in their finances, but may be able to demonstrate flexibility in other areas.  The organization may be willing to supplient financial compensation with other types of compensation, such as the ability to work from home one day a week or offering unpaid leave for extended vacations.

In general, there is not a lot of room for lengthy salary negotiations with a nonprofit employer. Nonprofits pick a range based on the factors described earlier and generally do not have the ability to offer more. With this in mind, don’t attempt to “sell” yourself as being worth more than what they can offer, and never lie about what you are willing to accept to get through to the next stage of the hiring process.

Finally, no matter what, do not agree to a salary that will make you unhappy in the short or long-term. Find out the organization’s policy on raises and bonuses in advance, and never accept a lower salary because you are expecting a salary adjustment down the road. If the organization cannot offer you what you need, and you cannot adjust your salary requirements, it is sometimes best to walk away from the opportunity. However, if you are able to be flexible with your salary requirements and consider other aspects of compensation, you may end up in a rewarding and personally fulfilling position.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

There’s an old saying: for every door that closes, another one opens. When leaving one job for another, make sure that the door doesn’t hit you on the way out.

Everyone leaves jobs for different reasons, some personal and some employer-related. Whatever your specific reason, it is important to show respect for your current employer upon your exit.

Before making your decision to leave, think long and hard about it.  Make sure that it is the best decision for you and that there is nothing that could change (promotion, pay increase, flexible scheduling, etc.) that would alter your decision.

Once you have come to this conclusion, analyze your particular situation with your employer.  It is recommended that you start talking to your employer early, give the organization plenty of notice, and do as much as possible to ensure a smooth transition.

The following are some specific tips on what to do—and not do—in order to transition out of a position with integrity, grace, and style.  Most of these suggestions are intended to apply when it is you who is initiating a resignation process, though most of the following are also applicable if it is your employer who initiates a termination discussion.

Do take into consideration, when contemplating leaving, whether your decision to leave may harm your credibility within the sector or field in which you are employed.  Be aware that if you plan to continue to work in the same field, potential employers may question your decision to leave a similar organization.

Do have a clear conversation with your manager about your decision and try to time it so that your supervisor is able to absorb the news.  Think in advance about his/her possible reactions and be prepared for any possibility; don’t be shocked by your employer’s reaction, whether positive or negative.  Often, you can predict how your employer may react by honestly gauging your performance and by thinking about how much of an impact on the organization your departure might have.

Do give as much notice as possible; 30 days is standard, with a minimum of 2 weeks.  Be prepared for the possibility of your employer letting you go sooner, however, and plan your remaining time carefully for the smoothest transition.

Don’t try to use your paid vacation days at the end of your employment term.  Although you may be legally entitled to this compensation, employers will often view this as petty or insulting if you initiated the resignation process.  This practice is more commonly used as severance when an employer initiates a termination.

Do craft a professional explanation of your departure to share with peers, contacts, and others in the field.  Review any such notice with your employer before sending it out to any constituents whose opinion they might value.

Do allow your supervisor the opportunity to negotiate with you to stay, but only if you would actually consider staying.  Be realistic about the likelihood of any counter-offer coming to fruition and take this into consideration.  If you have made up your mind to leave, you should not consider any counter-offers; it will only lead to frustration on the part of your employer and will serve to make you look greedy.

Don’t look for a new job while on-site at your current place of employment, even if you have already decided to leave or you have informed your employer of your decision.  It is unprofessional and reflects poor character and judgment.

Do take into account the impact your departure will have on the organization. In most cases, your departure will require the organization to find a replacement, which can be a difficult and time-consuming process.  Be willing to help transfer your personal institutional knowledge to others.  You might offer to write a manual that outlines the position’s key tasks and projects, including important contacts and systems used.  It may also be that the position will be vacant for a period of time after your departure.  Ensure that all of your projects are left at a place where they can be put on hold temporarily or easily picked-up by someone not familiar with the project.

Do offer to help write and/or revise the job description for your position. Also, offer to participate in the process of finding and training your replacement, if desired by your employer.

Don’t forget to tie up any logistical loose ends (e.g. final pay, keys, passwords, health insurance and COBRA forms if needed).

Do request an exit interview to share and receive final feedback, if appropriate.

Do use this opportunity to build credibility with your employer. Even though you are leaving, be as available and present as possible in your final weeks on the job, exhibiting a positive attitude and performing at a high level.  This will leave your employer with a positive impression of you and your work.  As you continue down your career path, you will find that relationships with past employers are vital, so be sure leave the best impression along the way.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Preparation for your nonprofit job search can mean the difference between getting a good job and a great one. Good preparation entails the following:

(1) PLANNING: Know What You Want and What’s Out There

• Describe your ideal organization (geography, mission, culture, size)
 
• Define your ideal position (function, department, responsibilities, compensation)
 
• Familiarize yourself with the field looking at online resources (Idealist, Guidestar, Foundation Center), publications (Stanford Social Innovation Review, NonProfit Times, Nonprofit Quarterly), foundations (New Profit Inc, Venture Philanthropy Partners, Social Venture Partners, Edna McConnell Clark, Ashoka), and award programs (Fast Company, Root Cause Institute, Manhattan Institute)

(2) NETWORKING: Build Relationships and Knowledge

• Request e-mail introductions from personal contacts to organizations of interest
 
• Conduct informational interviews first—look for knowledge, not a job!
 
• Attend career fairs, volunteer, join boards, start consulting, initiate internships
 
• Work with a search firm like Commongood Careers or Bridgestar

(3) APPLYING: Find and Apply for the Best Jobs

• Start networking ASAP, but do not start applying more than 1-2 months before you will be available—nonprofits look to hire immediately, not months in advance
 
• Stay organized and motivated, and be patient, finding the perfect job takes time

(4) MARKETING: Know Your Audience and Position Yourself

• In your cover letter, explain why you are passionate about the organization’s mission, focus on the transferable skills you bring, and address how your experience fits with the requirements
 
• With your resume, stick to relevant experience, stay under 2 pages, and avoid typos
 
• For the interview, research the organization, prepare intelligent questions, dress professionally, reiterate why you are passionate about the mission, and interview with high energy, confidence, and a positive attitude (entrepreneurial nonprofits want passionate self-starters)

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Graduate degrees and professional certifications can provide nonprofit jobseekers with a leg up in their careers; in some cases, a degree or certification in a specific field may even be required for certain positions. Even if not required, post-bachelor’s education provides the opportunity to establish professional contacts, experience an internship, and increase knowledge about a specialized function or field within the nonprofit sector.

How do you decide if a graduate degree or professional certification is necessary to reach your career goals? Here are some ideas.

To Go or Not to Go?

The decision to invest in a graduate or continuing education program is an important one. These programs typically require a substantial financial and time investment. According to Cassie Brown, Vice President of Commongood Careers, knowing what you’ll get out of a particular program can inform your decision.

“Generally, there are two reasons to go to graduate school,” Cassie says. “The first reason is to acquire job-specific, vocational training as required for positions in certain fields. For example, if you want to be a public school teacher, you get a Master’s in Teaching with certification.”

“The second reason is to gain experiential or environmental knowledge, such as pursuing a Master’s of Education in order to work as an administrator in a nonprofit or school setting. While this type of training is more theoretical, it provides the intellectual knowledge needed to operate in a particular professional environment or arena,” Cassie adds.

When contemplating “to go or not to go,” ask yourself the following questions:

• What educational credentials are required in my field or career of interest?
• How will a specific degree or certification help me achieve my career goals?
• Are there comparable ways to earn the same training and knowledge available through a graduate or continuing education program? (e.g. internships, volunteering, on-the-job experience)
• Will a specific degree or certification make me a more attractive candidate to particular nonprofits? (This is especially relevant to jobseekers new to the nonprofit sector and recent college graduates.)
• Will I be able to manage the expense and potential debt resulting from a graduate or continuing education program?
• Does the time required to continue my education fit with my current or desired lifestyle?

When it comes time to choose a course of study, there are many options. To assist in your exploration of program options, consider the following:

Many nonprofit professionals hold other important degrees, such as law degrees, master’s degrees in public health and social work, and specialized degrees in functional areas like accounting, fundraising, counseling, finance, and technology.

Putting a Degree to Work

Here are a few examples of nonprofit professionals who have used their advanced degrees to help them pursue exciting career opportunities:

Caitlin MacDonald, Events and Communications Manager at Year Up, a professional training program for young urban adults, worked as a high school English teacher before deciding to pursue an MBA with a concentration in Public and Nonprofit Management. Eager to work in an organization that creates educational opportunities, Caitlin believed earning this degree would provide her with the hard skills and experiences needed to transition from the classroom to a new environment.

“Before going to business school, I had a lot of experience in the education field, but not a lot of experience in how nonprofits operate,” Caitlin says. “My degree gave me hands-on experience in core nonprofit functions like development, accounting, and strategy.”

“The result of this education goes well beyond the acquisition of hard skills,” Caitlin adds, “I learned so much about nonprofit environments in general, such as common nonprofit inefficiencies and organizational cultures. Upon completion of my degree, I felt really prepared to join an organization in a strategic role. I wouldn’t have been able to get the knowledge and experience required for my current position if I hadn’t gone to business school.”

For Krista Clarkson, earning a Master’s in Teaching not only allowed her to work as a social studies teacher, but prepared her for a program role at a nonprofit organization that supports educational programs. A former Teach For America participant and charter school teacher, Krista is now the Associate Director of the Fellowship Educational Program at Building Excellent Schools, a national training program for charter school founders.

“In addition to allowing me to become an instructor, my Master’s program provided the intellectual space to think about big issues in education,” Krista says. “I acquired the knowledge to understand how to access and leverage resources in an educational setting, a critical skill when forging new ground in developing a new charter school.”

Krista found her training in classroom instruction to be an asset in her current role. “Being able to approach a non-teaching role with an instructional eye is key. When I know what a good classroom looks like, I’m better able to inform the educational needs of the charter school founders I’m currently working with, and develop systems to support them.”

Throughout her 20 year career, Claudia Alfaro, Director of Volunteers at Citizens Schools, has held program and operations management roles at a number of education-related organizations. In order to expand her knowledge and expertise, Claudia invested in continuing education classes in business, including business strategy, nonprofit management, and business management.

“At Citizens Schools, our programs and operations are growing extensively. The training I received through business classes allows me to bring a strategic eye to creating systems and scaling for growth,” Claudia says. “As my classes were case-based, I received exposure to many different business scenarios. I am able to apply that experience to implient successful partnerships and to develop programs in a nonprofit setting.”

Some Helpful Resources

There are numerous books, web sites, and other resources about graduate and continuing education programs. Here are a few of Commongood Careers’ favorite resources on the subject:

Idealist Graduate School Fairs
A multi-city annual free event created to help people considering graduate education as a way to improve their skills and advance their nonprofit careers

Harvard Business School Guide to Careers in the Nonprofit Sector
A print resource MBAs interested in entering the nonprofit sector as full-time managers, board members, or volunteers.

Social Enterprise Reporter
An overview of MBA programs that focus on nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship

US News & World Report
A ranking of over 1,200 graduate programs in a number of disciplines

An important aspect of any effective hiring process is the Role Structure, which refers to the people involved in the search and the roles that they play. Developing an appropriate structure for each search will ensure that the hire is made in accordance with the needs, values, and capacities of your organization.

In developing the structure, make sure that each of the following tasks is designated. Specifically, decide who will:

• Manage the overall process and design the tools and systems that will guide it

• Write the job description and posting

• Post the job and ensure that it is distributed widely to your organization’s networks

• Provide administrative support such as tracking applications and scheduling candidate interviews

• Conduct the resume and phone screens and determine which candidates will advance

• Communicate with candidates promptly at each stage of the process, including notification of regrets

• Be involved in interviews and making final decisions

• Complete reference checks

• Make and negotiate the final offer

• On-board, orient, and manage the new hire

Generally, the people involved in these various stages include internal hiring managers, administrative support staff, and HR representatives, as well as possibly board members, funders and other external stakeholders. Determining who to involve in what ways depends on several criteria.

Seniority of the Position: Generally, the higher the level of the role, the more senior people will need to be involved in the search. For a CEO or Executive Director search, for example, it may be appropriate to utilize a search committee involving board members and other external stakeholders. For an entry-level position, it is possible (though perhaps not advisable) to have only the position’s direct supervisor manage the search.

Style and Values of the Organization: Is your organization highly collaborative or are most decisions made by just a few people? Does your organization value input from various team members or is it more autonomous? If your organization values collaboration, then input from staff in any hiring process is probably important to consider, regardless of the level of position. Make sure not to diminish or frustrate any team members who were not asked to participate in the process.

Structure of the Organization: Does your organization have a human resources department? If so, what is its role in any hiring process? It may range from leading the entire process to only being involved in a sign-off for the final candidate. Similarly, does your organization have support staff? Many of the stages in the hiring process can be handled by strong administrative staff.

Availability: Finally, consider the availability of each of the people you are thinking about involving. Of course, in most nonprofits, everyone is already doing much more than their job description, but if you know that there is no way that one director will be able to dedicate the time to interviewing candidates for a particular position in the coming months, then there is no sense in including that person in the search structure. You want to make sure that the search will be able to progress quickly at each stage, with no roadblocks or bottlenecks. Here again, when an organization has administrative support staff available to support the search, senior leaders will be more highly leveraged in the process.

So, what are some options available to you? The following are several commonly used search structures:

Single Hiring Manager

In some cases, a single hiring manager will be responsible for almost all of the responsibilities in the search including recruiting, screening, interviewing, and decision-making. This model is particularly common in smaller or more resource-constrained organizations.

Typically, this individual is the person who will ultimately supervise the future hire, and as such, they have several valuable strengths in the process. Namely, they will be able to: understand the position in detail, sell the role as well as the experience of working with them as a manger, personally select the person with whom they will be able to best work, and form bonds with finalists even before the first day of work begins.

To manage a search effectively, however, a single hiring manager may need to carve out 1-2 hours every day over the course of 2-3 months for search-related tasks. It should be considered whether or not this is a realistic time commitment before beginning the effort. Whatever early adjustments need to be made, hiring is too important to entrust to someone who may not have the time, experience or commitment to ensure that the process is efficient in terms of time-to-hire, effective in selecting the right person, being respectful to all applicants and consistent in maintaining the organization’s brand. Sadly, these risks are often only appreciated in hindsight.

In addition to owning the candidate-focused and public-facing aspects of the search, the hiring manager is also responsible for timely communication with other staff about the status of the search. This communication should be directed toward both senior management and fellow team members and will help to prepare the organization for the addition of a new staff member.

The benefits of this structure are that it can be efficient and that one person does not need to build a consensus decision to make a hire. These advantages are generally overshadowed by the structure’s drawbacks, however, including the amount of work placed on one individual relative to that person’s experience and capacity, as well as the lack of different perspectives and opinions in decision-making processes.

Hiring Manager with Human Resources Department Support

For organizations with a human resources department, a partnership between the hiring manager and the HR team can compensate for the disadvantages of conducting a single hiring manager search. This can make for an organized and professional process, although one that may also be more bureaucratic and present some “hurdles” for jobseekers to leap.

HR can participate in a variety of ways, including: (a) providing tools and advisory support, (b) managing the logistics of recruitment but allowing the hiring manager to conduct all screening, (c) managing the recruitment and screening and serving as a liaison between candidates and the hiring manager, and (d) having input in the final hiring decision and offer negotiation, which is particularly valuable to have led by a neutral third party such as an HR staffer. Candidates often appreciate the ability to negotiate offers with someone who will not be supervising them and who is well versed in the group’s compensation and benefit structures.

Board-Driven Search Committees

Board committees are typically comprised of five to eight people and can include various stakeholders such as management, staff, board members, funders, program participants and community members. This structure provides a lot of “buy-in” or distributed engagement in the process, as well as providing many people to shoulder the work of the search, which can be intensive. However, committees can also be unwieldy structures that are difficult to coordinate, manage and bring to consensus. For that reason, it is important to differentiate roles for different members and establish clear decision making parameters at the beginning of the search.

The committee is typically chaired by either the most senior person in the group, the person with the greatest knowledge of the position, or the person with the largest amount of general experience with hiring. It is the role of the committee chair to set the rules for the group and to make sure that those rules are followed, as well as to ensure that the search proceeds according to plan throughout the process.

Individual committee members or support staff may be assigned specific tasks such as overseeing postings, networking, resume screening, etc. You should decide at the beginning of the search whether or not everyone in the committee is going to review every application that comes through the pipeline. If a person or sub-committee is going to decide which candidates make it through initial screening, then those individuals should be completely aligned with the group’s expectations for screening criteria at the start of the process and empowered to make those decisions.

Since no two people will have the exact same vision for what an “ideal candidate” looks like, it is also essential to decide early on who will have the final say in the hiring decision, if the group is largely advisory to the decision maker, or if a majority vote rules the determination, etc.

Staff-Driven Group Process

For most hiring situations, a group structure will be most appropriate and effective. A group differs from a committee structure in that it is a less formal association that is generally made up entirely of staff as opposed to higher level external stakeholders. Like search committees, however, group hiring teams require a great deal of up-front planning and preparation, especially when creating systems and tools to facilitate the hiring process. For example, the group must decide how often it will meet, how it will debrief candidate interviews, what tools are required for assessing candidate information, and how it will come to decisions.

Groups may divide tasks, such as posting and sourcing, but may choose to collaborate on other tasks. Typically, each member of the group will be assigned different roles during the actual interviews, such as one person probing on skill fit, while another explores experience, and yet another pursues elients of personality fit with culture. This division of interviewing topics is useful when conducting a series of one-on-one interview with candidates, so that the jobseeker does not have to answer the same question over and over again.

In conclusion, the following chart provides a summary:

The term “core competency” is believed to have been introduced in 1990 by the Harvard Business Review to describe a specialized expertise that can be leveraged as a competitive advantage. Since then, the concept has been lent to a wide range of applications for defining key strengths and essential qualifications for performance. This article provides a brief overview of competency-based hiring and how
nonprofits can best use this technique in the hiring process.

What is Competency-Based Hiring?

An individual’s core competencies are generally grouped along two dimensions: (1) skills, knowledge and technical qualifications, and (2) behavioral characteristics, personality attributes and individual aptitudes. Traditional hiring practices have focused on systematically evaluating a candidate’s fit with the first type of qualifications, while relegating insights related to the second type to “color commentary” and “gut instincts.” A competency-based approach, however, includes a framework for analyzing a candidate’s behavioral attributes as well as their technical experience. This method has dominated the literature over the past ten years as the recognized preferred approach to hiring. The process starts by identifying a full range of competencies required for success in a position and then evaluating each candidate’s demonstration of those traits.

When considering the core competencies that might be required for success in a role, it is important to distinguish between position-specific and organizational competencies. Position-specific elients may include attributes of an individual’s work style as well as personal qualities like being analytical, resourceful, flexible, or creative. Organizational competencies refer to the qualities and attributes that characterize success across an entire organization. These include fit with the organization’s management style, risk tolerance, work pace and volume, employee demographics, and physical environment. Organizational competencies play a major role in determining what type of people will “fit” in an organization, regardless of their specific role. For example, a rigid and authoritarian manager is not likely to succeed in a highly entrepreneurial and collaborative nonprofit culture.

The following chart provides some further examples of position-specific and organizational competencies.

Competencies in Action

The first step in adopting a competency-based hiring model is to determine your organizational and position-specific competencies. To figure out organizational competencies, we recommend convening a focus group or implienting a survey to identify the top four or five characteristics and traits that typically make someone successful within the organization. Be sure to include all key stakeholders as appropriate, possibly including staff from all levels as well as board members, funders and other constituents. In order to determine position-specific competencies, you will want to employ a similar process, focusing on those who know the position best. Depending on your organization, it may also be helpful to define department-specific competencies for highly specialized departments such as finance or development.

After you have determined the competencies for a given position, use this information to inform all subsequent stages of your recruitment and hiring processes. For example, your job description should focus on the core competencies that successful candidates will demonstrate. In terms of recruitment, a focus on core competencies will lead to a broader candidate pool because you will be seeking professionals who possess the desired traits but who may come from a variety of non-traditional backgrounds.

Using core competencies to drive the screening and interviewing phases of the hiring process will provide valuable information on which to base hiring decisions. We recommend using behavioral interviewing, which refers to asking questions that require candidates to describe past experiences in which they were able to demonstrate specific competencies. Based on the premise that “past behavior predicts future behavior,” behavioral interviewing has proven to be one of the most effective means of determining how each candidate has performed in certain types of situations and therefore how successful each may be in a certain role.

The Softer Side of Skills

In the nonprofit sector, so-called “soft skills,” or personality-based competencies, play a big role in hiring decisions and management strategies. Knowing the soft skills that are most important to your organization allows you to consider candidates based directly on their personal qualities and abilities. Although desired soft skills vary between organizations, many nonprofits value:
• Being an entrepreneurial self-starter / self-manager
• Working effectively in a collaborative environment
• Being resourceful and creative in approaching projects
• Having a positive attitude and a sense of humor

To evaluate the presence of these or other transferable soft skills in potential hires, it may be helpful to follow two rules of thumb: stay open-minded and do your homework. Begin by thinking broadly about a candidate’s past experience in work, school, and civic life. Research the companies listed on candidates’ resumes to understand their past work environments. Many desirable soft skills are developed when working in start-up, fast-growing or highly creative work environments. When speaking with candidates, ask for specific examples of times they were called on to use a certain soft skill.

In addition to evaluating a candidate’s transferable soft skills, probe on personal qualities that demonstrate a mission-fit with your organization. Not all candidates are going to come to you with extensive work or volunteer experience in your specific field, but that does not mean they do not possess the personal qualities required to connect with and embrace your organization’s mission. Share as much information as you can (including brochures, videos, or other collateral) with strong candidates in order to give them a sense of the importance of your organization’s mission and culture.

Transferable Hard Skills

Many career counselors advise nonprofit jobseekers, especially sector switchers and recent graduates, to identify and market their “transferable skills.” But how open-minded are nonprofits when it comes to looking at candidates who offer skills and experiences gained in other sectors or environments? Organizations that consider themselves entrepreneurial are generally more open to hiring talent from other sectors or nontraditional backgrounds. For many organizations, candidates with transferable skills are welcome in some job functions, such as operations, management, and finance, but not in others, such as fundraising and program management.

It’s common for nonprofit hiring managers to have a very specific picture of the hard skills required for a given role. A grant writer needs to have written grants before. Someone working in community affairs must have experience with the community being served. But what candidates might you be missing out on by not considering candidates with demonstrated success from different work environments? Some often overlooked skills that can be successfully transferred to nonprofit roles are:

Sales and Marketing: Skills learned and honed in these fields of the private sector can be easily transferred to the field of nonprofit development and fundraising. These candidates may be able to exhibit hard skills in building high-touch relationships, producing collateral, giving presentations and making pitches. People with sales experience, particularly those with a background in identifying prospects and cultivating relationships, can often make a smooth transition into fundraising with some basic support and guidance.

Writing and Research: Individuals with experience in journalism, corporate communications, and other fields that require strong analytical and writing skills can often leverage their transferable skills into other types of development and fundraising roles. Additionally, recent graduates from master of public administration (MPA) or master of public health (MPH) programs typically possess the research and writing experience needed to break into development.

Consulting: Management consulting experience is sought after in the nonprofit sector because of the analytical, research, project management, and client management skills that people with this kind of experience bring. Consulting experience transfers extremely well to roles in which professional services are provided to other nonprofit clients. Corporate partnerships, community outreach, and board relations are other roles in which consulting experience can be valuable. One challenge of transitioning from a management consulting (or other corporate) background to a nonprofit role is the shift from working for an internal client to an external one. For example, some management consultants work in the trenches of customer research but do not interact with clients face-to-face. When considering these candidates, probe their knowledge of and experience in client-focused environments and be prepared to connect these hires with mentors or other internal staff to support their transition.

Information Technology (IT): Thinking creatively about IT staff can yield great results for nonprofits. Administrative or operational professionals who have been responsible for technology and systems management in past jobs can easily transfer these skills to a nonprofit environment. Similarly, technology professionals who have been specialists in a large department or corporation, but who are seeking more autonomy and ownership of their work, also transfer well to the nonprofit sector. In addition to technology skills, look for customer service, teamwork, communication and soft skills.

Conclusion

Adopting a competency-based hiring model requires an investment of time and effort up front, but that investment is well worth the effort when you are making more appropriate and sophisticated hiring decisions. After the hire is made, core competencies continue to be useful in setting goals and positioning new hires for success, identifying areas for professional development, and making appropriate decisions about future promotions and raises.

Additionally, a candidate’s past success using a specific set of skills and competencies is the best indicator of how he or she will perform in a new role. Whether a hire is new to a job function or to the sector, remember that this person’s ability to call upon his or her soft and hard skills in a new role is what most ensures success. By considering candidates with a variety of transferable skills, you will diversify your staff and increase the impact of your organization.

For more information on competency-based hiring, we suggest the following helpful resources:

Hiring and Keeping the Best People (Harvard Business School Press)

How to Compete in the War for Talent (Hacker)

The Talent Edge (Cohen)

The War for Talent (Axelrod, Michaels)

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Human resources staff at nonprofit organizations frequently face significant and different challenges than their counterparts in the business world. Often, they perform not only the work of traditional human resources staff, but also manage office administration, volunteers, and Board of Directors support, among other functions. In fact, in many nonprofits, an “HR Manager” does not exist, and the responsibilities fall upon staff who don’t have a formal HR background. Moreover, support for the unique needs of the HR role in a mission-driven nonprofit organization can be hard to find, and difficult to navigate.

The Scope of Human Resources

Primarily, human resources is the function of selecting and developing people so they are satisfied with their work and have the knowledge, skills, and tools to give their best to the organization and help it fulfill its mission and its operational goals.

HR staff play a pivotal role in the success of the organization. There are many components in the HR toolkit that enables them to do this important work:

HR Planning
Creating meaningful positions that link to the overall strategic direction of the organization and provide the resources it needs to successfully and efficiently fulfill its long-term goals.

Recruitment and Selection
Developing hiring practices that are fair and consistent, and which provide an opportunity to bring a skilled and diverse array of people to the organization to help further its work.

Compensation and Benefits
The practice of providing an equitable compensation and benefits package that is consistent and aligned with organizational direction. Compensation can include both base pay (salary) and variable pay (bonuses). Benefits include health, dental, disability, and life insurance, as well as various leave programs such as parental and vacation. It also may include “work-life” balance initiatives like flexible work hours and telecommuting. Finally, benefits packages often contain some kind of retirement or pension plan.

Training and Development
A commitment to continuous learning for employees that ensures they have the knowledge and skills needed to perform their jobs effectively. It also provides them with an opportunity to develop their talents and abilities for future opportunities within the organization.

Performance Management
A process by which plans, goals, and performance are regularly reviewed to ensure that expectations of both staff and the organization are met.

Health and Safety
Focuses on prevention of workplace injuries and creating an environment that is safe and healthful for all staff. Regular training and audits as well as thorough accident investigation are all tools to help promote an injury-free workplace.

Policy Development and Regulatory Compliance
Creating fair and consistent policies, procedures, and reporting systems that help to ensure regulatory obligations are met and the needs of both staff and the organization are considered.

This article was republished with permission from Idealist.org, a project of Action Without Borders. Action Without Borders connects people, organizations, and resources to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives, whose work is guided by the common desire of its members and supporters to find practical solutions to social and environmental problems, in a spirit of generosity and mutual respect.

Navigating the hiring process can be a daunting challenge for even the most seasoned managers, but this is particularly true when hiring is not your primary responsibility. With limited time and resources, most hiring managers seek to move the process to completion as quickly as possible and to take advantage of any shortcuts available to them.

In our experience, the most effective searches, as well as those with the most efficient processes and shortest times to hire, begin with a clearly defined and well thought-out process that is set down on paper in a document that we at Commongood Careers refer to as a Search Strategy Plan.

An effective Search Strategy Plan includes several major elients that we will explore in this article: defining the position, writing an internal job description and external posting, developing a recruitment plan and setting up a screening process.

Step 1: Defining the Position

Regardless of whether you are hiring to fill a new position or to replace an outgoing employee, your first step should be to conduct a thorough organizational or departmental “needs assessment” or “gap analysis” that goes beyond the individual position and extends to its full range of influence. Collaborate with key internal stakeholders and decision-makers to compare the responsibilities and competencies of current staff against all existing and possible needs. Identify the gaps between current capacity and projected needs and leverage that insight when considering the scope of the open position. Is there any current employee whose role overlaps unnecessarily with the opening or someone who could be moved into this role in place of looking to hire? Always consider existing resources before looking for new acquisitions.

Planning along these lines is generally expected for new positions, but may be overlooked when filling existing roles. If you are hiring because of the departure of a high-performing and well-liked employee, make sure to avoid the common pitfall of trying to find a clone of that individual. More than likely, your organization has grown and changed since the exiting employee started, and as a result, his or her old job description may no longer be relevant. In addition, linear thinking will limit the opportunities available to your organization, such as considering “out of the box” candidates with different profiles who could bring new ideas and perspectives to your organization. Such thinking is equally valuable, albeit in reverse, for terminations and low-performing employees. Work through your current needs assessment from scratch, as opposed to making a knee-jerk reaction to hire someone who merely possesses what your prior employee lacked.

Once you have identified your needs, it is time to more thoroughly define the position and the profile of your ideal candidate. To ensure an equitable process, try to gather input from several staff as opposed to having the role shaped by one individual. Some questions to consider include:

• What are the key responsibilities of the role?

• What are the opportunities and challenges presented to someone filling the position?

• What core competencies, experiences or functional skills are required for success?

• What organizational values would an ideal candidate reflect? What attributes would eliminate a candidate from consideration?

• What kinds of people are generally successful in this organization and in this type of role? What kinds of people are not successful in this organization and role?

• Where does this position fit in the organizational chart in terms of direct and indirect reporting relationships?

• What is the management style of the person to whom this role will report? What is the style necessitated by this person’s co-workers and direct reports?

Step 2: Writing a Job Description and a Job Posting

We now turn to developing two different but equally important documents. The first is a Job Description, which is an internal document that lists the responsibilities as well as the qualifications of the role in precise detail. This document will be used first by hiring managers to evaluate candidates, then by the position manager to set expectations with the new hire, and finally on an ongoing basis to conduct evaluations and performance reviews.

A Job Posting, on the other hand, is an external document created to motivate the right kind of candidates to apply for the job. As such, it should be viewed largely as a marketing tool. Visiting online job boards is a great way to see a variety of different types and styles of job advertisements to inform the creation of your posting, which should include:

• A posting title, which does not need to be identical to the final and actual job title. Especially if your organization uses unique titles, try to post the position under a name that conveys the primary nature of the role to the broadest possible audience.

• A concise description of the organization’s history, mission, programs and accomplishments, as well as a description of what makes the organization an exciting place in which to work.

• An overview of the position that summarizes the importance of the role to the overall success of the organization.

• A well-constructed and organized list of key responsibilities. You do not need to include an exhaustive list, but provide some detail about what the role entails, highlighting the appealing aspects of the position such as decision-making authority, participation in strategic planning, etc.

• A list of the job’s required qualifications, trying to focus more on competencies than specific types of experience. For example, “exceptional relationship management skills and experience collaborating with high-net-worth individuals” may be better than “4-7 years work leading major donor campaigns.”

• Clear instructions on how to apply, what materials to include, and to whom to direct the application. Stay away from a “no phone calls” statement as it can seem unwelcoming or unprofessional to jobseekers. Consider closing with an equal opportunity employment statement.

Step 3: Developing a Recruitment Plan

Internal Distribution: It is important to share news of an open position with your staff for two reasons. First, current employees may be interested in being considered for the role. Second, current employees are a key source of referrals for any open position. Start by sending a thoughtful email to your organization’s staff about the opening. This email should include a brief description of the role and details on the ideal candidate’s profile and qualifications. Outlining the requirements of the position will allow employees to determine whether they may or may not be a good fit for the position. While hiring from within can provide a win-win, be prepared for the possibility of difficult conversations if an employee who expresses interest is not going to be a good fit. At the very least, conversations with current employees about new opportunities will provide insight into the individual’s career aspirations. As sources of referrals, current employees play a key role, as they know your organization and what it takes to succeed there. Also, as the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together, so your high-performing employees may have friends with similar backgrounds. Consider if a referral bonus would work within your culture. It may motivate people to activate their networks and would be a small price for a great hire.

Distribution to Your Network: Develop and maintain a list of your organization’s board members, funders, champions, community partners, peer groups, friends and associates. Keep track of who is well networked and who has referred people for other roles. Share the Job Posting, as appropriate, with as much of this network as possible. Remember that you are not trying to identify the people in your network who may be potential candidates for the role, but are rather looking to spread the word as widely as possible because you never know who might know someone who could become a candidate. Along these lines, encourage your connections to share the job with their networks as well, perhaps through Facebook, LinkedIn or Outlook address books. Post the job to your own website and include information in newsletters or external communication vehicles. If this is a new position, use it as an opportunity to highlight your organization’s growth and development.

External Posting: Broaden your reach beyond your inner circles by advertising the position externally. For most positions in most communities, gone are the days of placing a “want ad” in the local newspaper. These days, it is usually more affordable and effective to post positions on multiple online job boards like Idealist. Even so, a thorough online posting strategy may cost at least $500-700. In order to determine how to most efficiently spend your recruiting dollars, research the relevant job boards or publications where you would find similar postings. Ask colleagues and peers with similar roles where they would look for jobs. Find out which professional associations include people in the field and see if those groups have job boards or email lists. There are also job boards focused on geographic regions, job functions and cultural or ethnic groups. When evaluating opportunities, you should consider both the volume and the quality of likely respondents to a posting. Most hiring managers would rather have a smaller pool of qualified candidates than a larger pool of unqualified candidates.

Step 4: Setting Up a Screening Process

The goal of the screening process is to assess each applicant across consistent criteria in order to make the most informed and effective hiring decision possible. Determining the screening process in advance will help to ensure internal alignment and accountability among all those involved in the hiring process. Be sure to share all relevant materials with appropriate staff to ensure that everyone is on the same page and to make any necessary adjustments before beginning the following three common stages of a screening process.

Resume Screen: Before you review the first resume, determine what information you want to learn from the resume. Return to the job description and come up with a list of criteria you are looking for in a candidate. Now, cut this list down to include just those criteria that can be gleaned from a resume and cover letter. Use this list of criteria to create a Resume Screening Worksheet to complete for every application, noting whether or not each elient is present and to what degree. Note that you can often learn something about a candidate’s writing ability, organizational skills and attention to detail just by reviewing his or her application.

Phone Screen: We recommend a phone screen as the next step in the process. Because it is often difficult to decide from a resume who is a strong overall candidate, the phone screen allows the hiring organization to get more information about a candidate and his or her personality and background, without taking the time to conduct a full in-person interview. Figure out what questions you are going to ask and what answers might be ideal, adequate or unacceptable. Phone screen questions typically focus on skill fit, culture fit, and logistics (e.g. When would you be available to start?).

Interview: Use the in-person interview(s) to probe for information that you did not gain at earlier stages of the process. As with the phone screen, plan your questions in advance. Create questions that allow candidates to provide evidence of the competencies and character traits that will position them for success in the role. Also remember that candidates will be assessing your professionalism and the appeal of working in your organization, so always put a good foot forward in terms of preparation and welcome. Interviews should have a two-way transmission of information, so plan to share details and collateral with candidates that will sell them on the opportunity and prepare them for the role. It is also important that you plan, in advance, how you are going to communicate with candidates at each phase of the process. Draft “regrets” templates at the start of the search and plan for prompt notification of decisions to all candidates in the search process.

Every hour spent planning before a search will yield huge dividends throughout the process and in its end result. With this article as a guide, we hope that your plans will be thorough and that your hiring will be successful!

Hiring is one of a manager’s most important responsibilities.  Although most organizations recognize the opportunities and consequences involved with talent selection, few are prepared to lead a truly effective interview process.  This article will give you a few tips for making the most of your limited time with a prospective employee.

General Planning

First, you should develop an interviewing structure that can be kept consistent across all candidates.  As much as possible, standardize the questions, environment, and interviewers involved so that you can really compare apples to apples when it comes down to a few finalists.  This structure will not only make your interviews more effective but will also increase the professionalism, equity, and legality of the whole process.

Chose your interview format carefully.  A one-on-one meeting is more likely to set a candidate at ease and facilitate a conversational relationship, but it does not provide the objectivity gained by having two or more interviewers involved.  In the latter case, make sure that each participant’s role is distinct and mutually understood.  For example, have one person focus on employment history and experience, another on skills capacity/job requirements, and a third on culture/personality fit.

Defining the Role

Know what you want to see before the interview starts.  To the greatest extent possible, candidates should be selected for roles; roles should not be defined around candidates after the fact.

Brainstorm with colleagues about the characteristics of an ideal candidate.  Identify the core competencies that are required for success in this role and in your organization as a whole.  Keep in mind that some competencies should be based around skills and experience, whereas others should consider personality attributes and cultural fit.  Make a list that can be developed into an interview template and scoring sheet, as described later.

Interview Questions

Ensure that all your questions are:

• Relevant—centered on the required core competencies and pertaining only to areas that equal opportunity laws refer to as Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications (BFOQ), which are those qualifications required to perform a job safely and efficiently and that are reasonably necessary to the operation of the business.
• Behaviorally Based—asking candidates to describe past experiences in which they successfully demonstrated specific competencies.
• Open-Ended—allowing insight into a candidate’s thought processes without ‘leading’ the answers you want or requiring unknowable, organization-specific facts.

Structure your interviews to provide candidates with multiple opportunities to prove their potential values and abilities to succeed in the role.  Interviewing should not be a throw-back to fraternity hazing, where you put a jobseeker on the ‘hot seat’ just because someone once did the same to you.  It is easy to miss out on a great candidate if you focus more on making someone nervous and setting them up for failure than you do on evaluating their potential.

The Interview Conversation

Begin with introductions, a review of the meeting goals and timetable, and opening questions designed to put the candidate at ease.  Then move into the format that you have prepared.  You may want to have a template, on which you can quickly write notes around responses, handy.  Know that your notes may be used as evidence in any employment-related lawsuit, so please make sure to keep them focused around required qualifications and competencies.

Remember that in a good interview, information should flow both ways.  Plan time in the interview to take advantage of this opportunity to tell your organization’s story to a person who may end up being important to you, whether or not they are right for this particular job.  Allow the candidate to talk for approximately 70 percent of the time and you (and your colleagues) to speak for 30 percent of the time. Watch for responsive comments and intelligent questions.

Making a Decision

Fill in a scoring sheet as soon as possible to capture your thoughts around a candidate’s capacities related to your specific areas of focus.  This information should be recorded both numerically (1-10 scale) and in short commentary form.  If multiple interviewers are involved, have each one complete the scoring sheet individually and then convene the group to compare impressions.

Try to prevent immediate reactions, premature conclusions, and irrelevant subject matter from clouding your judgment about whether or not a candidate will be able to succeed in a role.  You may not be able to gain adequate perspective on any one candidate until you have interviewed several individuals.

Although all interviews should carefully consider a candidate’s personality fit with the organizational culture, remember that you need to focus on selecting the right employee, not a new best friend.

Conclusion

A thoughtful and thorough interview process will increase your ability to evaluate candidates and make the right hires.  Remember that your interview process reflects the value your organization places on its members. Viewing the interview process as an opportunity, not a chore or challenge, will communicate a positive corporate outlook and engender goodwill between candidates and your organization.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

In our conversations with nonprofit hiring managers, we constantly hear how cultural fit is one of the most important criteria for hiring. A challenge for some nonprofits, however, is to realize that such considerations are just as important to jobseekers and that organizations need to be intentional about communicating their cultural elients throughout every stage of the hiring process. If done correctly, a hiring process can genuinely and effectively reflect an organization’s distinct personality and values.

Attributes of Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is characterized by the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an entire organization. In the social sector, an organization’s culture is closely tied to its mission and programs. The attributes of an organization’s culture can be tangible, such as dress code, or intangible, such as shared values. When trying to describe your organization’s culture, think about some of the following questions:

• Mission Connect: How important is it that every employee be highly committed to the mission? How do individual staff members demonstrate that commitment and contribute to advancing the mission?

• Leadership/Management Styles: How is the staff managed? Is leadership a core value of the organization? How are decisions made and problems solved? Is the process collaborative or more individually driven?

• Reporting Structure: What does your organization chart look like? Is your organization hierarchical or flat?

• Language and Communication: Is there internal language used and understood only by staff? Are there specific terms or key messages in external communication? How would you describe your group’s communication style?

• Physical Work Environment: Does your organization have offices, cubicles, or open workspaces? Are there common areas like reception, a kitchen, or a lunch room?

• Staff Diversity: Is diversity of backgrounds, experiences, or beliefs important to your organization? Why? Is it essential that staff share racial, ethnic, or economic backgrounds with the communities you serve?

• Interpersonal Dynamics: How does the staff interact? Is the mood structured, intense, impersonal, collegial, etc.?

• Titles: Are staff titles important? How do titles affect the way employees perceive their own role and others?

• Traditions and Celebrations: How does your organization acknowledge personal successes and milestones? What social events are institutionalized?

• Work Pace: Do staff work at a fast, moderate, or leisurely pace? How would you describe their work/life balance?

It is important to think through the various attributes of your organization’s culture before launching your search. To find examples of how cultural aspects are demonstrated, look to existing materials, such as annual reports, grants, and marketing collateral. Speak with staff across the organization and probe their opinions about the questions listed above. Observe the physical and interpersonal environments. Most importantly, look to how your organization’s mission and values are (and are not) translated across the overall culture.

Communicating Your Organization’s Culture

Communicating aspects of your organization’s culture begins well before you meet a candidate in person or they observe the organization firsthand. There are opportunities to share information about your organization’s culture at every stage of the hiring process. For example:

When developing a job announcement or posting:

• Include your full mission statement in the introduction or footer.

• Offer an explicit description of the organization’s culture and/or values, such as, “We work in a collaborative, team-based environment. There are no private offices in our space and camaraderie is a value shared among all staff.”

• If being results-oriented is an important aspect of your organization’s culture, share statistics of program successes or other results.

• When listing job requirements, use language that mirrors specific values such as “Collaborate with…” or “Produce results on…”

• When listing candidate qualifications, include specific values or competencies that you are seeking, such as “entrepreneurial” or “flexible.”

• If diversity is an attribute of your organization’s culture, make sure that is communicated throughout the job posting. At the very least, include your organization’s “equal opportunity employer” statement.

• When posting the position, choose channels that reflect your organization’s culture whenever possible.

When interviewing candidates:

• Use a manner of outreach that reflects your organization’s communication style. Some groups use rigid form language while others use more a more casual and informal approach. The most important thing is consistency to your brand and culture.

• Reflect your organization’s culture in your office décor, particularly in the reception area. Display photos, annual reports, constituent artwork or other collateral material for candidates to peruse while waiting.

• Conduct the interview at the location where the new hire will work, such as in the office headquarters, field office, or program sites.

• Probe on candidates’ fit with your organization’s values in interview and follow-up questions, but be careful not to “lead” candidates. For example, to probe on the value of teamwork, inquire about their past experience working in collaborative environments, including asking about the challenges that they faced.

• Share candid information about work/life balance, work pace, and other realities of the environment.

• Give or lend videos, marketing collateral, or other materials to candidates for them to take home.

• Practice what you preach. If you pride yourself on being a friendly organization, give candidates a warm welcome and introduce them to other staff. For organizations that value metrics and results, consider sharing important organizational data, strategic plans, evaluations, etc.

When conducting interview follow-up and extending offers:

• In the period following the interview, consider inviting high-level candidates to staff meetings and/or external events such as fundraisers or gatherings, if possible.

• If they haven’t already done so, allow candidates to visit program sites or other places where your services are delivered. Even for non-program roles, it can be very helpful for candidates to see programs in action in order to get a better sense of organizational values and culture.

• If candidates are returning to the office for additional interviews or meetings, schedule some informal time for the candidate to spend with other staff. At the very least, allow the candidate to meet his/her direct reports or peers if this didn’t already occur.

• When making an offer, present the offer in a style that reflects the culture. And when communicating regrets to denied candidates, make sure you do so in a way that reflects respect for others.

Case Study: Massachusetts Public School Performance

For Massachusetts Public School Performance (MPSP), an educational nonprofit that helps school leaders use real-time data to improve instruction and increase student achievement, the ability to produce results sets the tone for its organizational culture. 
“Our culture is results-driven,” said Client Program Officer John Maycock in a recent interview with Commongood Careers. “Our school-clients place high performance demands on their students and expect to see results. We try to set the same expectations for our staff.”

To communicate these attributes of its culture during the hiring process, MPSP starts with the job description. “When we write each job description, we make sure to clearly state the results-driven nature of our organization. This is the most important aspect of our culture for applicants to understand,” said Maycock. In addition to focusing on results, he describes the organization’s culture as “growth-oriented, team-driven, and non-hierarchical.”

Each job description tries to convey the teamwork and non-hierarchical aspects of the culture by listing responsibilities such as “work on multi-functional teams across the entire organization” and “collaborate with all staff on projects.”

During the interview stage, MPSP involves the entire team in the process. “It’s important for everyone to get a sense of the candidate and vice versa,” noted Maycock.

The interview also includes direct questions posed to the candidate about their experience in results-oriented, deadline-driven environments. Candidates are asked to talk about scenarios that demonstrate their ability to handle multiple projects, meet deadlines, and deliver results. In turn, the interviewers try to be as transparent as possible about the results-oriented aspects of MPSP’s culture. Candidates are given access to growth plans, and challenges and successes are shared. “The interview process is not only about evaluating the position-specific and overall cultural fit of the candidate, but also helping the candidate understand as much about our organizational culture as possible,” explains Maycock.

In the period from extending an offer through on-boarding the new hire, MPSP makes an effort to continue to make their organizational culture transparent and accessible. Top candidates are matched up with staff and encouraged to schedule informal conversations. When a new hire comes on board, they are given an outline of workplace expectations and are also integrated into the team from day one.

As Maycock put it, “We expect our staff to be integrated into our results-driven and solution-oriented culture from the get-go. Making them feel part of the team helps to promote that organizational expectation of high performance and results, a quality which characterizes our entire culture, our clients, and the students we serve.”

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Imagine it’s your first day at a new job. You arrive at an office where no one seems to be expecting you. After locating your workstation, you realize that no one has shown you how to log into your computer or get an outside line on your phone. You do not have a clear idea of what you are expected to do first in your new job. Your supervisor is nowhere to be found, and you are starting to question your decision to accept this position.

As the above scenario suggests, an organization never gets a second chance to make a first impression with its new hires. Investing in employee on-boarding ensures that an organization is prepared for and committed to positioning its new hires for success in their roles.

Effective employee on-boarding serves three interrelated purposes. First, it ensures that the new hire feels welcomed, comfortable, prepared, and supported. In turn, this leads to the new hire’s ability to make an impact within the organization, both immediately and over time. Finally, employee success leads to satisfaction and retention, which allows the organization to continue to meet its mission.

In order to position a new hire for success, it is important that an organization prepares in advance and continues to support a new hire throughout the first several months (and beyond). This article explores some established best practices for employee on-boarding procedures.

Before the First Day

Preparing for a new hire’s start date is the first step in ensuring effective on-boarding. Start by completing an agenda for the first week on the job. As part of the agenda, schedule times for the new hire to meet with key staff members.

Provide staff members with the new employee’s resume and job description, and advise them to follow a meeting format that includes sharing a description of their own position, how their role interacts with that of the new hire, and how they might expect to work together in the future.

This is also a good time to assign a mentor or buddy to the new hire as an immediate resource for any questions, help them build a network, educate them on resources, and give key information about organizational culture and goals.

Next, create a comfortable workstation for the new hire. Stock his or her workstation with the tools needed to hit the ground running, such as paper, pens, computer, phone, keys, and business cards. Make sure that voicemail and email accounts are set up. Leave a copy of an organization chart, staff list and phone directory on the new hire’s desk. If your organization has an employee handbook, leave this on the desk as well, along with all administrative forms such as employment, direct deposit, and benefits so that they will be ready to be completed on day one.

To really impress new hires on their first day, add any branded collateral that you can spare such as a logo backpack, hat, pen, tee-shirt or mug to your new hire’s new desk.

Finally, make sure to communicate with your new hire before the first day to confirm logistics such as driving directions, parking, public transportation, expected arrival time, dress code, plans for lunch on the first day, person to ask for on arrival, etc.

The First Day

The first day of a new job can rattle the nerves of even the most experienced professional. The better prepared you are to welcome the new hire on his or her first day, the easier this transition will be for everyone.

Schedule a particular staff member to be available to greet the new employee and give an office tour. During the office tour, introduce the new hire to all staff members as well as pointing out the copy machine, mail room, employee mailboxes, lunch room, and restrooms. Remember that new hires are asked to absorb a lot of information in a short amount of time, so encourage them to take notes and expect that they will have questions about these things later.

Balance the first day schedule between orientation, meetings, and less formal gatherings. If possible, arrange for the new hire to be treated to lunch on the first day by a group of staff members.

Schedule a meeting with the employee’s supervisor for the first afternoon. During this meeting, the supervisor should review the responsibilities of the position and give an overview of what the first 30-90 days in the position will look like.

The First Week

While the first day entails presenting basic information to the new hire, the first week focuses on setting expectations and developing relationships with staff, particularly the supervisor of and any direct reports to the new hire.

During the first week, the supervisor and new hire should meet to discuss desired management style and information about typical processes, such as how decisions are made. This is also the time to begin the most important aspect of on-boarding, which is setting expectations about deliverables, timelines and performance metrics. It is essential that such plans and goals be clearly communicated at the outset of the relationship in order to position a new hire for success in his or her role. The two most common errors when on-boarding new employees are: (1) expecting higher performance and faster learning curves than is reasonable, and (2) leaving employees to wonder what they should be doing and what is expected of them by their new managers.

If the hire is in a supervisory role, also ensure that he or she meets with any direct reports one-on-one and as a group within the first week. These meetings will help build the new team and allow the new hire to get a sense of the work style of each team member.

It is also important for the new hire to interact with other staff members who may not be on his or her immediate team. Schedule at least one meeting per day with different staff members. This gives the new hire time to learn about the whole organization from many different perspectives and to create new relationships with key staff members.

In addition to interacting with internal staff, if it is appropriate for their role, ensure that the new hire is scheduled to meet in person with any necessary partners, funders, Board members or other constituents within the first month. Encourage new hires to notify their personal and professional contacts of their new role, thereby providing a marketing opportunity for your organization.

The First Three Months and Beyond

The output expectation for the first week should be nominal so that the time can be most effectively used for learning and settling in. During the first month, it is traditional to expect modest deliverables in which the new hire can learn by doing and be positioned for success and confidence building. By the end of the first three months, the new employee should be getting up to speed and should be expected to be evaluated on a normal workload.

After 90 days, have the supervisor provide formal feedback on the new hire’s performance, while also soliciting feedback from the employee. Depending on the organizational culture and policies, this meeting could involve a representative of the human resources department. During this meeting, any issues should be addressed and all parties should be confident that the new hire is poised for success in their role.

Remember to build opportunities for feedback into the on-boarding process. Encourage the new hire to note any ideas that they have for improving the operations, strategy, or culture of the organization. The new hire may or may not feel comfortable sharing these immediately, but it is important that the organization be open to the impressions of someone with fresh eyes.

Throughout the first three months, stay mindful of opportunities to integrate new hires into their work groups and into the organization as a whole.

Conclusion

Although all of these steps require an investment of time and resources, it is an investment whose cost / benefit analysis is clear. The potential downsides of failing to effectively on-board an employee include that individual’s failure in the role, potential embarrassment to the organization, resignation or termination, and a new hiring process with an estimated total expense to the organization of three times the position’s annual salary. On the positive side, implienting these suggestions will increase employee satisfaction, speed of getting to full performance levels, quality of ultimate performance, and long-term retention in the role. Effective on-boarding is also a fantastic way to show all of your employees that you value their happiness and want them to succeed.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

In the job application process, the cover letter often represents the first opportunity you have to communicate directly with a hiring organization.  Smart jobseekers take advantage of this opportunity to engage the hiring organization and establish themselves as strong candidates, both through the content and the style of the letter.  The content of the letter will communicate the functional aspects of your interest and fit with the position; the style will demonstrate your writing skills and passion.  Neither content nor style can stand alone in an effective cover letter.

This article explores five easy-to-follow strategies for writing a winning cover letter.

Tip #1: Get In, Get Noticed, Get Out

The goal of a cover letter is to give a hiring manager enough information to consider you a qualified and appropriate candidate.  A common pitfall of cover letters is giving too much or irrelevant information.  A good cover letter is economical at three paragraphs and includes the following:

• First Paragraph - Introduction and connection to mission
• Second Paragraph - Summary of your skills/background as they pertain to the position
• Third Paragraph - Thank you, contact instructions, and closing

Sticking to this format ensures that you are providing all of the key information sought by the hiring manager, while keeping it to a length that is accessible and easy to read.

Tip #2: Personalize Your Opening

The golden rule of cover letters is simple: create a personal and unique cover letter for every job application.  A one-size-fits-all approach to a cover letter is sure to land your application at the bottom of a hiring manager’s pile.

Personalizing your letter begins with the greeting.  If a specific contact name is not provided in the job description, do not open your cover letter with “To Whom It May Concern” or, even worse, “Dear Sir.”  Do research on the organization’s website to find the right contact.  You may find the name of the director of the department in which the your desired job is located or you may find someone in human resources.  As a last resort, address your application to the Executive Director of the organization. This shows that you took the time to research the organization and will always be viewed more favorably than an impersonal greeting.

From there, explain why you are passionate about the mission of the organization.  Communicate the substance behind your passion; instead of stating, “I always wanted to help people,” try “Because I was raised with amazing educational opportunities, it’s personally very important to me to make sure that other people have access to those opportunities as well.”  The more personal and compelling your connection to the organization’s mission is, the more likely your cover letter will be read in its entirety.

Tip #3: Connect the Dots

In the second paragraph, create a connection between your skills and background and the job requirements.  Remember that your cover letter accompanies your resume, so do not simply re-state all of the information already listed on the resume; use your critical thinking skills to really analyze the job description.  Beyond the specific qualifications listed, what can you determine about what this organization is really looking for in this role?  Use your cover letter to demonstrate how your skills and experience match with what they are looking for, both the specific qualifications listed as well as the more holistic vision.  Avoid general statements like, “I know I am the best person for the job.”  It is more effective to let your skills and experience demonstrate the strength of your qualifications.

Remember to also address any cultural or personality attributes sought by the hiring organization.  Include examples that illustrate personal traits such as leadership, teamwork, flexibility, or other qualities valued by the organization. As many hiring organizations value diversity, freely identify yourself as a person of color, having multicultural experience, and/or possessing language skills if you feel comfortable doing so.  In many cases, illustrating your fit with an organization’s culture is just as important as your skills and experience.

Tip #4: Close with Style

The third paragraph is all about wrapping up your cover letter neatly and elegantly. Use this opportunity to thank the organization for considering your application and to reiterate your enthusiasm for the position, organization, and mission. This is also where you can provide instructions on how and when to contact you.

Remember that something you might not even think about could send the wrong impression.  For example, you must ensure that you have a professional email account.  A creative or expressive email handle may be fun in your personal life, but more than one otherwise-qualified candidate has not been interviewed simply because the use of an unprofessional email account demonstrated poor judgment.  If you do not have a professional email account to include, create a free account at Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail.  Generally, your first and last name or initials (or some combination of both) are acceptable.  This is the contact email address you should include in both your cover letter and resume.

Tip #5: Do a Test Run

Before you send your cover letter to a potential employer, check the job description for any specific instructions.  At the bottom of every job requisition, there are generally instructions for how the organization would like to receive applications.  For example, does the organization want to receive cover letters as attachments or in the body of the email?  Does the organization want you to include a list of references with your application?  Or does the organization want you to answer a specific question in your cover letter?  Be sure to follow the specific instructions for how to submit your application and what to include in your cover letter; this demonstrates your attention to detail, another very important characteristic for most hiring organizations.

Now comes the time to employ your “editor”—ask the best writer you know to proofread your cover letter for typos, grammatical errors, and any inappropriate wording such as humor, slang, or emoticons (happy faces have no place in a cover letter or any other professional communication!).  Also check for adequate variation in sentence structure; do not begin every sentence with “I have…”  Remember, this is a real-life example of your writing ability, a skill that is highly valued by almost every nonprofit position.

Finally, test sending the cover letter in the format desired by the organization to your own email account.  This will allow you to make any adjustments in formatting before sending your application to the actual organization.  As a general rule, keep formatting to a minimum so that it will be preserved across different email or word processing programs.

Final Thoughts
A thoughtful and well-written cover letter is a very important piece of your application and is taken seriously by organizations.  A good cover letter can strengthen your application and help you get to the next stage of the process; a poor cover letter can result in the instant disqualification of your candidacy.  Take advantage of this opportunity to make a great impression!

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Every day, we talk to jobseekers who are seeking to transition into careers at socially entrepreneurial organizations. Some come from the corporate world, some are recent graduates, and others are teachers. Whatever the specifics, there is one key factor to these jobseekers’ capacity to catch the eye of a nonprofit employer: the ability to identify, demonstrate, and market their transferable skills.

Transferable skills are skills that are useful and essential to most jobs. They are competencies developed in one situation that can be passed along to another, and are key to career changes across sectors or job functions. According to John Liptak and Laurence Shatkin, creators of Transferable Skills Scale, 75% of skills used in the workplace are transferable. Knowing your transferable skills allows you to explore career opportunities based on personal qualities and abilities, not necessarily what titles you’ve held or where you’ve worked in the past.

The Softer Side of Skills

Soft skills are the personal qualities and interpersonal skills that are needed to perform a job. In the social sector, candidates’ ability to demonstrate their transferable soft skills is extremely important. For example, in a 2005 study conducted by Commongood Careers, a group of 20 nonprofit hiring managers prioritized cultural fit and personality traits above more traditional hiring considerations of experience, skills, and education.

When it comes to soft skills, there is no one-size-fits-all requirement for nonprofits. However, there are some personal qualities commonly sought by socially entrepreneurial organizations, including:

• Being entrepreneurial
• Being a self-starter
• Having a positive attitude
• Being resourceful (or, as we often call it, “roll-up-your-sleeves-ness”)
• Working collaboratively
• Being creative, particularly in a resource-constrained environment

To identify these or other transferable soft skills, think broadly about your past experience in work, school, and civic life. Then, prepare examples of situations when you used these skills—the more specific and factual, the better. As hiring managers often look for candidates who have worked in environments similar to their own organizations, be explicit about your past experience in an environment similar to the one at the organization to which you are applying.  For example, try to demonstrate your experience in a start-up organization or a company experiencing major growth.

Nonprofit hiring managers also seek transferable skills that illustrate connection to the organization’s mission. For some candidates this connection is clear, such as for individuals who have volunteered, interned, or worked at organizations with similar missions. For jobseekers with less familiarity with a specific mission area, there are ways to position your transferable skills to reflect a genuine interest in and connection to mission. When researching organizations that pique your interest, request annual reports, videos, or other collateral from the organization. By studying these materials, you can then identify and communicate your connection to the organization’s mission.

The Hard Facts

Hard skills describe the technical requirements of a job. In some fields, hiring requirements for hard skills are set in stone. For example, most tax accountants are required to have a CPA or other financial training. For many roles in the social sector, however, these requirements are not black and white. Some organizations welcome individuals with nontraditional backgrounds. In fact, many hiring managers embrace the value of these hires’ transferable skills and the diversity of experience they bring to an organization.

Here are some ideas of what kinds of skills are transferable to the nonprofit sector:

• Sales and Marketing – Skills learned and honed in the fields of sales and marketing can be easily transferred to the field of nonprofit development and fundraising, which is the area of most need within the sector.  Even if you don’t have direct experience in development (e.g. fundraising, grant writing, event planning, corporate partnerships), look to experiences where you were called upon to build high-touch relationships, produce collateral, give presentations, and/or “make an ask.”  People with sales experience, particularly those with a background in identifying prospects and cultivating relationships, can often make a smooth transition into the field of major gifts fundraising.
• Writing and Research - Individuals with experience in journalism, corporate communications, and other fields that require strong writing skills can often leverage their transferable skills into other types of development and fundraising roles. Additionally, recent graduates from MPA or MPH programs typically possess the research and writing experience needed to break into development.
  
  Regardless of your background, you can build hard skills in development by volunteering to plan a nonprofit event, joining a nonprofit board, becoming a peer reviewer for grant applications, working with your corporation’s community relations department, or being involved in philanthropic circles in some other capacity.
• Consulting – Management consulting experience is sought after in the nonprofit sector because of the analytical, research, project management, and client management skills that people with this kind of experience bring.  Consulting experience transfers extremely well to certain roles, such as Portfolio Managers at a social venture fund or other areas where a nonprofit organization provides professional services to other nonprofits.  Corporate partnerships, community outreach, and board relations are other roles in which consulting experience can be valuable.
  
  One challenge of transitioning from a management consulting (or other corporate) background to a role at a socially entrepreneurial organization is the shift from working for an internal client to an external one. For example, some management consultants focus on industry research and analysis, but do not interact with clients face-to-face. When considering these roles, be prepared to back up why you are able to move from internal to external (or vice versa in some cases), and provide specific examples of your transferable skills.

Other nonprofit roles that leverage jobseekers’ transferable skills include those in information technology (IT), accounting, and general management. In IT, former technical support managers or system administrators find themselves able to leverage their broad backgrounds in technology to be hired as the sole IT member of a nonprofit organization. Accountants can typically transfer their hard skills directly across sectors, but may require additional training in nonprofit-specific accounting. Similarly, management roles require hard skills that span across sectors, but managers new to the sector must be able to demonstrate a strong cultural fit with the hiring organization.

Finally, many graduate degree programs—particularly MBA, MPH, and MPA—provide excellent training in hard skills that can be transferred into a range of nonprofit roles. For example, most MPH and MPA programs require coursework in grant writing and nonprofit finance; be sure to highlight this knowledge when applying to jobs that require these skills.

In closing, recognize that there is room for people with transferable skills in the nonprofit sector.  The personal qualities and the technical competencies that you have developed over the years can make you a very strong candidate for a variety of positions.  It is your responsibility, however, to think critically about how your transferable skills can be used within the nonprofit sector and make a compelling case to hiring organizations.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

The resume is a key part of any job application, and applying for a nonprofit job is no different. The question is, how is writing a resume for a nonprofit job different from writing one for a corporate position and how can you create a resume that effectively markets yourself to a nonprofit audience? This article will provide tips and advice about how to tailor your resume to nonprofit organizations.

Tip #1:  Focus on Culture Fit
Nonprofits look for different types of information in a resume. Like all organizations or companies, nonprofits look for evidence of relevant skills and experience that will help the candidate to be successful in the position and add value to the company. Nonprofits, though, look beyond specific skills and qualifications; they are particularly interested in how a candidate is going to fit within their unique organizational culture.  Therefore, a good nonprofit resume will include key personality traits and a connection to the organization’s mission as a first step in demonstrating culture fit.
Tip #2: Opt for a Chronological Resume
There are generally two distinct resume formats: functional and chronological. Functional resumes group skills by job function and therefore highlight skills over employment history. Chronological resumes present information using a timeline approach, grouping experience by job title and employer. Chronological resumes are generally the best choice, as they illustrate job growth, are easy to follow, and don’t require the reader to hunt for basic information like specific places of employment or dates employed. A resume should clearly and concisely tell your “employment story”; if the story is not clear, the reader will assume that there is something you are trying to hide.
Tip #3: Tailor Your Resume to the Position
Don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach with your resume. Tailor your resume for every job application. This includes mapping your past experience to the specific requirements outlined and using key words and phrases from the job description, as well as addressing unique cultural competencies required by each organization.  For example, if the organization values teamwork and collaboration, make sure you include examples from your work history that illustrate these traits. Remember to include relevant or exceptional leadership roles, committee assignments, fundraising, or community involvement activities.
Tip #4: Demonstrate Your Connection to the Organization’s Mission
As noted above, nonprofits are looking for evidence of your connection to their mission in all parts of your application.  On your resume, be sure to list all past experience, paid or volunteer, that you have with organizations working in a similar mission area. If you don’t have any such experience, begin your resume with an objective statement that concisely describes your interest in this area.
Tip #5: Use Accessible Language
In many cases, the person receiving and screening your resume may not be the hiring manager for the position, so craft your resume for a general audience; any reader should be able to look at your resume and have a clear picture of your experience and interests.  Avoid jargon or terminology that is not widely recognized.  For example, in describing your experience in education, use phrases like “increased 80% of students’ reading levels by two grade levels within one school year” instead of referring to state-specific tests such as the MCAS. 
Tip #6: Quantify and Qualify Your Experience
As much as possible, use data to show exceptional results, such as specific amounts of funds raised or specific operational efficiencies instituted. When describing management experience, include the number of direct reports. In addition, use examples that will illustrate universally sought cultural competencies like flexibility, teamwork, and leadership.
Tip #7: Choose Every Word Carefully
Your resume is an example of your writing ability, a skill required by almost every role at every nonprofit. Use active language, write in a style that is easy to follow, and avoid including irrelevant information; as you re-read your resume, make sure that every single word is important to the message that you are trying to communicate. Candidates early in their careers should limit their resumes to one page; those with more experience can use two pages, but no resume should be longer than two pages.  In fact, hiring managers will often treat long, wordy resumes as a demonstration of poor writing skills and therefore discount the candidate immediately.
Tip #8: Keep Your Format Simple
Do not use excessive fonts, styles, or colors and have a good balance of white space on your resume. Before sending to organizations, send your resume to yourself or other friends and family to see how the formatting transfers across different computers.  For example, a resume using a font that isn’t recognized by the recipient’s computer will never be read. 
Tip #9: Include Current Contact Information
Be sure to include your current contact information. If you are a graduating student, include your permanent address and a permanent e-mail address.  Avoid listing unprofessional email addresses or phone numbers with unprofessional voicemail messages.
Tip #10: Proofread, Proofread, Proofread!
Having typos or grammatical errors in your resume is a sure-fire way to ensure that your application ends up in the garbage can.  Make sure there are no errors at all; have two or three strong writers review every version of your resume before you send it out.

Taking the time to create a targeted and polished resume can make all the difference in your nonprofit job search. A thoughtful and well-written resume helps a potential nonprofit employer evaluate your application against the qualifications and requirements of the position and decide whether to pursue your candidacy further. It is your job to make sure they have plenty of reasons to invite you for an interview!

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

The job interview can be a stressful experience if you’re not prepared. Interviewing in the nonprofit sector is no exception - especially as every organization has its own unique mission, culture, and expectations. That’s why the staff at Commongood Careers has compiled their expert advice to help you put your best foot forward when interviewing with a nonprofit organization.

Tip #1: Connect with the Mission
Gone are the days when just wanting to “do good,” “give back,” and “have a positive impact” were acceptable reasons to pursue work in the nonprofit sector. Today, hiring managers value true commitment; candidates need prove their individual connection to the organizational mission with specificity and demonstrated action. Think about the real reason you are applying to the position and be thoughtful about communicating that. Describing volunteer work or board affiliations can be a great way of illustrating your commitment to a mission.

Tip #2: Do Your Homework and Prepare Questions
Many hiring managers base a great deal of their decision-making on the questions a candidate asks during the interview. Come prepared with questions for each of the interviewers with whom you will be meeting. Make sure the questions are ones that will demonstrate the research you have done on the organization/field and showcase your critical thinking skills. “What is your budget?” is a question that a good candidate would already know the answer to after having done some simple on-line research. A question such as “I recently read that the state is considering cutting its funding for after-school programs. How is your organization prepared to handle this development?” shows that you are up-to-date on developments in the field and have made the connection between something you read and the potential impact on this particular organization.

Tip #3: Practice Responses Ahead of Time
Hiring managers are smart and savvy people who are trying to uncover every stone. If you are currently employed, they will likely ask why you are interested in leaving your current position. If you are not currently employed, they will likely ask you why you left your last position and what you have been doing since leaving. If you are switching careers or sectors, they will likely ask you about this decision and your motivations. Think ahead about what questions the interviewer(s) might ask you about your career progression, gaps in your resume, and other experiences. Be prepared to answer these questions in a manner that is honest, positive, and forward-looking. Put yourselves in the interviewer’s shoes and decide whether your planned responses would seem logical and plausible.

Tip #4: Inquire About the Interview Structure
Every nonprofit organization will structure their interview processes differently. It is important to get a sense ahead of time about how the interview will work: with whom you will be meeting, how the interview will be structured (one-on-one, panel, case, etc.), and approximately how long it will last. Arrive early, making sure you know exactly where to go and planning enough travel time. Remember that you never know who you are talking to when you arrive; the person behind the reception desk could be the Executive Director or another important decision-maker.

Tip #5: Dress to Impress
There is a wide variety of dress codes among nonprofit organizations, ranging from jeans to suits. For any interview, unless specifically told otherwise, it is best to dress professionally in a tailored suit or professional separates; it is better to over-dress than to under-dress. Keep everything subtle: perfume/cologne, clothing, makeup, and accessories. If time permits, go to the restroom upon arrival to ensure that you look presentable. If part of the interview includes visiting the program site, for example, you may ask an organizational representative prior to the interview what would be appropriate attire.

Tip #6: Bring the Goods
Bring at least 2 copies of your resume and cover letter, a list of references, and 2 - 3 work or writing samples. You never know what the interviewer will request. Also, having work samples available can be a good visual to demonstrate your competency in certain areas.

Tip #7: Sell Yourself
Know exactly why you want this specific position and exactly why you want to work at this specific organization. Be able to outline clearly and concisely the skills, experience, and value that you will bring to the position.

Tip #8: Illustrate a Can-Do Attitude
While hard skills are very important to nonprofit hiring managers, personality and culture fit are equally, if not more, important. Being positive, smart, articulate, energetic, thoughtful, flexible, and passionate are crucial characteristics in most nonprofit environments, so maintain your confidence and positive attitude. Job searching is difficult but no one wants to hire someone who seems unenthusiastic, demoralized, or defeated. Remember that body language is an important technique for communicating interest and engagement.

Tip #9: Be Discreet About Past Employers
The nonprofit environment is small and close-knit. It is likely that the person with whom you are interviewing knows one or more of your previous employers or organizations. Be prepared to give thoughtful and professional answers if an interviewer asks you about your experience with a certain person or organization. No one will want to hire someone who criticizes or gossips about former employers, as they will expect that you will do the same to them or their organization.

Tip #10: Highlight Your Flexibility
Nonprofit hiring managers are very busy and unexpected situations arise frequently. Your reaction to unexpected circumstances will say a lot about how you might handle such circumstances if employed at the organization. At the same time, you want to make sure that you are being treated professionally. If it looks like an interview isn’t actually going to happen, or if the hiring manager seems too distracted to have an effective interview, offer to come back at a more convenient time.

Finally: Remember to Follow-up
Just as many hiring managers decide not to proceed with a candidate because of typos in a cover letter, they also may not proceed with your candidacy if you do not send a thank you note after your interview; this is viewed as a professional courtesy as well as an example of your ability to identify and execute effective follow-up. While hand-written notes are still ideal, email thank-yous have become generally acceptable.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

A job posting often comes sans the name of a contact person at the organization to which you are applying. Considering the trend toward personalizing every aspect of the job search, do you surrender to the generic, but encompassing, To Whom It May Concern, or do you launch an all-out reconnaissance mission to find out the whom?

The golden rule of the application process, according to experts, is to follow the instructions as closely as possible. But if no contact name is given, James Weinberg, founder and CEO of Commongood Careers, a nonprofit search firm in Boston, MA, advises doing a bit of research.

“I think ‘To Whom It May Concern’ is an act of last resort,” said Weinberg. “That just shows you don’t have a personal connection with the organization.” Weinberg added, “The ubiquity of the Internet makes researching organizations easy and expected.”

If you can’t find the name of someone at human resources, Weinberg recommends addressing your application to the executive director of the organization, asking the person to forward it to human resources or the appropriate person. It shows that you took the time to find something out about the organization.

To personalize your cover letter beyond the salutation, Weinberg and other recruitment experts offer the following:

Open with and state strongly your passion for the organizations mission and why specifically you share that passion: Instead of stating, “I always wanted to help people,” Weinberg suggests something more personalized, such as the following:

“Because I was raised with the educational opportunities, its personally very important to me to make sure that other people have those opportunities as well.”

Identify yourself as a qualified candidate; show that you read the job description carefully and address how your background meets the majority, if not all, of those criteria. Connect your skills to every single qualification they are looking for.

If there is a gap—if you cant make a connection to a qualification they are seeking—address this and explain how you have different, but comparable, skills.

Stay away from statements like, “I know I am the best person for the job.” It is more effective to state your skills and experience, and let them do the talking for you.

If you have a mutual—and willing—contact at the organization, mention the person in the first paragraph. Supplient this by inviting the executive to call the mutual contact to inquire about you.

This article was originally printed in Nonprofit Times Jobs, Vol. 2, Issue 4, February 22, 2006. Once a week, NPT Jobs will helps all levels of nonprofit executives looking to advance their career prospects by providing featured articles on employment trends and highlighted job opportunities in the nonprofit sector.

The informational interview can help further define what you’re looking for in a job. It can give you a sense of who are the major players in a particular segment of the nonprofit community. And ultimately it can lead to consideration for a specific position within that community. But if you’re looking for a job at the place where you conducted the informational interview, things can get dicey.

According to experts, informational interviews are especially helpful if you’re switching careers and don’t know the types of experience, education and skills required. “I think it’s better for just building a general knowledge of practice and preparing yourself,” said James Weinberg, founder and CEO of Commongood Careers.

Weinberg recommends an informational interview for job seekers who are trying to figure out exactly what role they want to play at an organization, and moreover, for which type of organization they want to work. He emphasizes its importance “especially early in the job search process, getting out there to similar peer organizations and speaking to people who are doing the job you are interested in getting.”

Weinberg and other recruitment experts advise that you limit this type of interview to 20 or 30 minutes, and be prepared with specific questions, including:

• What’s the position like on a daily basis?
• How do you think I should position myself for a job like this at another organization?
• What jobs and education prepared you for this position?
• What aspects of your job do you love and why?

The jury is still out on whether dropping off an unsolicited resume during an informational interview is a good idea. Although Weinberg said that, no matter what, you should always carry a resume, he advised waiting for the interviewee to request it.

“But,” warned Weinberg, “if you’re looking for a job at the place where you conducted the informational interview, it can become an uncomfortable situation because (the person you’re interviewing knows) they aren’t supposed to be meeting with you. You’re supposed to go through the (human resources) department.” Things can get even dicier when the person you are interviewing that has the job you want realizes this is the case, he added.

This article was originally printed in Nonprofit Times Jobs, Vol. 2, Issue 7, April 12, 2006. Once a week, NPT Jobs will helps all levels of nonprofit executives looking to advance their career prospects by providing featured articles on employment trends and highlighted job opportunities in the nonprofit sector.

Networking is a strategic component of any job search. Studies have shown that networking can be 12 times more effective than answering job advertisements. This is particularly true in the nonprofit sector, where under-resourced hiring managers frequently look to their networks for candidates. As a result, the ability to successfully build and cultivate relationships is a vital part of advancing your career, and in many cases, landing the ideal job.

In jobseeking, there is an old adage: “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.” Making connections with a targeted set of people can result in the acquisition of new information about a specific type of work, organization, or job opportunity. These connections can further your career, both in your search and after you land the job.

This article explores some simple yet effective ways to build a robust and targeted personal network, and then leverage that network in your job search.

Building Your Network

Networking is a social skill. Luckily, we are constantly in social settings that promote networking opportunities. As a general rule, make yourself as visible as possible. Go to every social or professional gathering you can, such as conferences, career fairs, alumni activities, professional association meetings, and fundraisers. Participate in volunteer opportunities at organizations that interest you. You never know when a hiring manager will be volunteering next to you at a soup kitchen or a homebuilding event.

When it comes to building your network, begin with your inner circle and move outwards. Make a list of your family and friends who work in particular fields, organizations, or roles that interest you. Initiate conversations with these immediate connections, and at the end of every meeting, request introductions to at least three of their colleagues. This is how your network grows by degrees—by connecting with the people who know the people you know.

Beyond your immediate network, conduct research to identify people in positions and/or organizations that interest you. Online resources such as Guidestar and the Foundation Center and sector-related publications like the NonProfit Times and Chronicle of Philanthropy may be helpful to this end. After you conduct your research, create a comprehensive list of people with whom you plan to conduct outreach.

Strong organizational skills are the key to managing the building of your network. Besides contact information, record relevant information for your contacts such as industries, interests, professional associations, and even personal information like birthdays and anniversaries. Organize your network in a contact management system like Outlook. There are also web-based contact management systems like Plaxo that allow you to email the people in your network directly. If you prefer to rely on a hard copy organization system, place business cards in a binder for easy reference.

Networking 2.0: Leveraging the Internet

It’s no secret that web sites like MySpace and Friendster are incredibly popular. In the past ten years, online social networking tools have exploded. What started as a way for former classmates to find each other has grown into a widespread forum for anyone to connect with people they already know and people they want to know. Today, there are over 200 social networking sites, many of them devoted to connecting professionals to each other. How can social networking tools like these help you make valuable connections and further your job search?

Professional social networking sites provide great opportunities to make connections. Since this type of networking is done online, there are no restrictions of geography or “being in the right place at the right time.” On these sites, jobseekers can create a personal profile, including information about yourself such as what your core competencies are, what kinds of organizations are of interest to you, and what type(s) of position you are seeking, and then build a network by searching for people by field of interest, organization, position, or any other search criteria. This is especially helpful when trying to connect with someone to whom you may not have a direct connection, as it eliminates the need to know someone in common.

Some of our favorite sites for professional social networking are LinkedIn, Ecademy, and Ryze. Social networking sites that serve individuals interested in the social sector include 1Bloc and Omidyar Network.

Blogging is another web-based strategy for making connections. Free blogging software like Blogger and WordPress make it easy for anyone to share information and connect with like-minded people online. Although blogging is a less direct form of networking, it has already become a valuable way for jobseekers to get their name out there and attract new people into their networks.

Cultivating Your Network

Once you’ve identified and started to build your network, it’s time to cultivate those relationships. Reach out to people by e-mail, provide a brief introduction to your background and interests, attach your resume, and request fifteen to thirty minutes by phone or in person to discuss your search. Make it clear that you are looking forward to your contact with them for information and advice (NOT for a job, in which case they may just try to route you through human resources). You will be surprised by how many people are willing to take a quick call to help a jobseeker, especially in the nonprofit sector.

In preparing for each informational interview, develop a list of ten questions that you could not have answered on your own. A few good examples may be: What are the largest challenges currently facing organizations like yours?  How do you see macro-level changes in the sector impacting your work?  What do you find to be the most and least enjoyable aspects of your work?  Additionally, remember that these meetings are also an opportunity for others to get to know you. Make sure that you have a personal positioning statement prepared, including information that you may have used in your personal profile (described above).

After you’ve had a meeting or informational interview with anyone in your network—whether it’s your Aunt Sally or the head of an organization you’re hoping to join—remember to send a personalized thank you note immediately. A hand-written note is a traditional touch that many people still appreciate, although e-mail is also an acceptable format for thank you notes and it travels more quickly. In addition to your gratitude, offer your assistance to the people in your network. Networking is all about fostering goodwill and shared knowledge; be prepared to reciprocate in any way possible.

Final Thoughts

Networking is an ongoing activity. Smart professionals are constantly developing networks throughout their careers. This can lead to additional employment opportunities as well as making you more effective in your job by providing you with professional associates, mentors, partners and resources. Making the effort to network early and often provides jobseekers with a leg up before they even embark on a job search. If you invest in building relationships to gain information about work that interests you and to connect with others, you may network your way into an ideal position sooner than you think.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

What makes one jobseeker more appealing than another in the eyes of a nonprofit employer? While skills and background certainly play an important role, many hiring managers place just as much emphasis on the fit between an individual’s personality and the organizational culture, most directly regarding a candidate’s commitment to the group’s mission. Being able to present these qualities in a meaningful and professional manner can give you a competitive edge in the hiring process.

The following article explores some proven ways to increase your nonprofit marketability.

Lesson 1: Know Yourself

Never begin any job search without carefully evaluating your past experience, current goals, and future direction. Map out your skills and abilities. Define your value proposition. Narrow your search. Write down every possible characteristic of your ideal organization and position. Consider how this role fits into a long-term strategy. Talk with friends and peers about your ideas and get their feedback. Your goal is to develop a detailed understanding of yourself, what you want, and how to best represent yourself to hiring managers.

Lesson 2: Know Your Audience

The next step is to understand your target audience. Begin by gathering as much information as possible about the fields and organizations in which you are interested. When researching, consider questions such as the following: What is important to this organization? What does it value? What concerns its leaders? What are its challenges? What are its strategies?

To gather this information, study the organization’s website, read recent press, and research vital statistics on websites such as Guidestar. Keep up on news in the nonprofit sector by reading publications like the NonProfit Times and Philanthropy News Digest. There are also a number of blogs devoted to commenting on happenings within the nonprofit sector.  The Nonprofit Blog Exchange is a great place to find out who is blogging about a particular topic, field, or organization. Social networking sites like Change.org can also help you connect with people who share your passion and learn from their experience.

In addition, participating in informational interviews, volunteering, and attending events hosted by organizations of interest are great ways to get to know your target audience first hand. You may even make some great personal connections to help you in your search.

Lesson 3: Personally Reflect Nonprofit Hiring Values

With a sector that is comprised of over a million organizations in the U.S., nonprofits do not come “one size fits all.” It is important to stay mindful of the diverse range of organizations within the sector, and that each nonprofit will have its own set of hiring requirements. There are, however, several common traits that most nonprofits desire:

Cultural Competence - Most nonprofits value resourcefulness, flexibility, multi-tasking capacity, self-directed leadership, a “can do” positive attitude, and, above all, passion for a mission.  Your job is to learn as much as you can about the organization’s culture, decide if it is the right place for you to work, and then mirror back your cultural competency to the hiring manager, demonstrating exactly how your personality is a great fit for their culture.  Methods for learning about an organization’s culture include general research, informational interviewing with peer organizations, and soaking up as much as you can ascertain during the interview process.

Commitment to Mission - Having a personal and meaningful connection to an organization’s mission is a hiring requirement of almost every nonprofit organization. It has to go beyond just wanting to “do good” or “help kids.” Take some time to figure out the specific reasons why you are interested in a particular organization’s work, as well as what skills you have to help further their goals. The most compelling candidates are those who can relate their competencies, experience, and personal connection to the organization’s mission.

Skills and Potential - Organizations want to meet candidates who not only posses a specific skill set, but also those who have the potential to learn new skills and demonstrate growth in a new position. Before you apply for a position, make a list of your marketable skills and then match them up to the requirements of the job description. If you do not have experience in a given area, think through your comparable or transferable skills.

Experience - Requirements for experience vary greatly depending on the nature and level of the position. For all positions, nonprofits seek individuals who have track records of success in similar roles, organizations, and fields. Savvy nonprofits value professional experience that transfers across sectors and roles, especially management experience – be it managing staff, budgets, projects or just multiple priorities in a given role.

Lesson 4: Make an Impression in the Application Process

Now that you have researched your target organizations and understand what is important to them, it’s time to begin the job application process. In this process, you get three chances to market yourself: in your cover letter, resume, and interview.  As previously discussed, organizations seek candidates that personally reflect their hiring values.  Remember to illustrate these in each part of your application.

Your first opportunity to share your knowledge of the organization and reflect its values is in the cover letter. Make an impression by explaining your passion for the mission and the reasons behind your passion. Then, explain what makes you an excellent candidate by connecting your skills and experience to information in the job description.

In your resume, focus on information that is valuable to a nonprofit employer, such as accomplishments that highlight sought-after traits like leadership and being a self-starter. If you are new to the nonprofit sector, focus on your transferable skills. For example, you may not have led a letter-writing campaign to raise money in the past, but you have strong writing skills and experience in managing direct mail projects.

The interview is your ultimate opportunity to make a positive impression with the organization.  Come prepared with your knowledge of the organization and intelligent questions for the interviewer. Reiterate why you are passionate about the organization’s mission. Illustrate your cultural competence by interviewing with high energy, confidence, and a positive attitude.

Final Thoughts

Marketing yourself to nonprofits requires a diligent approach to unearth information beyond the job description. Taking the time to dig into what an organization does and values, as well as exploring your own personal connection to an organization’s work, will pay off in the application process and help you stand out as an excellent, committed, and well-matched candidate.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

The reality of baby boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—approaching retirement age is causing a stir in most industries, and the nonprofit sector is no exception. While some fear an exodus of retirement age employees from their current nonprofit leadership positions, others predict an opportunity to attract a new crop of talent, specifically retirement age adults who are now seeking a “second career” in the nonprofit sector.

Factors like the amount of savings needed to retire comfortably certainly weigh into the decision to pursue a second career. However, a desire to foster social change is also driving this phenomenon. For example, a recent study conducted by the MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures found that 58% of those currently in their 50s are interested in pursuing jobs that improve the quality of life in their communities and contribute to the greater good.

The opportunity for people nearing retirement age, particularly professionals from the private sector, to make significant contributions to the nonprofit workforce has huge potential, according to David Bank, Senior Vice President of Civic Ventures, an organization helping society achieve the greatest return on experience. “There is evidence that older adults bring a certain work ethic to a job, by virtue of having so many years of experience in the workplace,” said David. “A number of employers have found that older workers have better attendance and lower turnover, making them a more reliable and cost-effective group to employ. These benefits of an older workforce also apply to professional positions in the nonprofit sector.”

Making the decision to pursue a second career in the social sector is one thing; landing the right job is another. To prepare for a successful transition, the staff at Commongood Careers suggests the following ten strategies:

Tip #1: Leverage your transferable skills.

One of the first stages of any successful job transition is to identify, demonstrate, and market your transferable skills. This is especially true for older adults who have developed a tremendous skill-set over a 30+ year career. The nonprofit sector is full of people with skills developed in other work environments and sectors. Understanding the personal qualities and the technical competencies that you have developed over the years can make you a very strong candidate for a variety of positions. It is your responsibility, however, to think carefully about how your transferable skills can be used within the nonprofit sector and to develop this rationale into a compelling case for hiring managers. Read Using Transferable Skills to Make a Career Change for more information.

Tip #2: Give your resume and cover letter a makeover.

Depending on your work history, it may have been a while since you updated your resume. Start by making sure all of your work history and other factual information is up to date. Then, take a look at the overall tone and writing style of your resume. Use active language, write in a style that is easy to follow, avoid including irrelevant information, and make sure that your resume is formatted in a clear, concise, and professional manner. Most importantly, use your resume to tell your professional story in the way that you would like it to be told. For other best practices for creating strong resumes, read Ten Resume Tips for Nonprofit Jobseekers.

In your cover letter, avoid statements such as “I am retiring from my current position and now want to seek opportunities in the nonprofit sector so I can give back to my community.” Rather, state that you’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy a full career in your field of expertise and that you are now looking to leverage your experience through a nonprofit opportunity. Be specific about your connection to both the particular position and organization you are interested in, and the reasons why you are uniquely qualified to succeed in that position. For more information on writing targeted cover letters, read Writing a Winning Cover Letter.

Tip #3: Create pathways into the nonprofit sector.

Networking is a step for any nonprofit jobseeker, regardless of age. Older jobseekers, however, have the advantage of a lifetime’s worth of business and personal connections. Make a list of everyone you know who has a connection to the sector and set up informational interviews or request introductions as appropriate. Remember that you may have private sector friends with strong nonprofit connections from board service, volunteering, or philanthropy. While networking and exploring inroads into the sector, use every available opportunity to learn about the missions and cultures of a variety of organizations, as well as to build new relationships that might lead to an ideal position. Read It’s Who You Know: Networking for Jobseekers for more on this topic.

Other tried and true pathways into the social sector include serving on a nonprofit board, taking classes in a public service field at a local college, or volunteering at an organization that interests you. Some private corporations, such as IBM, offer “bridge programs” that connect retiring employees with volunteer opportunities.  Abundant connections to volunteer opportunities exist at web sites like Idealist, HandsOnNetwork, and VolunteerMatch.

Tip #4: Be prepared to make a real (and realistic) commitment.

For some, a second career is envisioned as a more meaningful, but ultimately less demanding opportunity. Most nonprofit positions, however, require a substantial commitment of time and energy (often 50+ hours per week). Approach your second career as carefully and professionally as you did at any point in your career. When speaking with a prospective employer about your availability—both short and long-term—be clear and honest about your expectations and availability. Although many organizations are not able to offer short-term, flexible or part-time employment opportunities, if you are clear about your working goals, you will eventually find a nonprofit employer that is able to leverage your experience while also accommodating your current lifestyle considerations.

Tip #5: Sell your experience.

Throughout the application and interview process, remember to present yourself as a person with experience. Besides the inherent knowledge and skills earned through a full career, people with vast experience in a given field are more likely to get up and running more quickly, thus saving an organization valuable time and money in training and novice mistakes. At the same time, it is important to recognize that, even with all the skills and experience you bring, you are new to the nonprofit sector and will have a learning curve. This learning curve will likely be in areas such as organizational culture (See Tip #6 below), decision-making processes, and working with limited resources. Communicate your confidence to add value to the organization combined with the humility to accept that you still have things to learn.

Tip #6: Be aware of the importance of cultural fit in the hiring process.
In the nonprofit sector, cultural fit is one of the most important criteria for hiring managers. While culture varies from organization to organization, many nonprofits value attributes like collaboration, teamwork, flexibility, entrepreneurial spirit, “can-do” attitude, optimism, and exuberant enthusiasm. The existence of a cultural bias may mean that you will have to actively rebut assumptions that you will not be able to “fit in.” Demonstrate your ability to thrive within nonprofit culture by exhibiting the previously mentioned personality characteristics at every opportunity, citing direct nonprofit experience such as consulting or volunteering as evidence that you have experienced and understand the cultural elients in question, and directly address elients of personality/culture fit in discussion with hiring managers.

Tip #7: Prepare for the challenges of a multigenerational workplace. 

In the social sector, career advancement can often be accelerated, meaning that nonprofit managers may be significantly younger than their counterparts in the private sector. You may want to prepare yourself for reporting to someone 10, 20, or even 30 years younger than you. Collaborate with your manager to structure a role that leverages your experience while respecting your manager’s role and the organization’s overall hierarchy. Recognize and embrace the inherent differences that exist between generations in terms of approaches to work and social interactions. There have been several good books written on this subject, including When Generations Collide by Lynne Lancaster and Generations at Work by Ron Zemke, Claire Raines, and Bob Filipczak.

Tip #8: Tackle the digital divide.

The digital or technology divide spans more than economic groups; it also tends to span generations. Unfortunately, the perception that older adults are less familiar with—or even scared of—office technology can result in unwarranted ageism in some work environments. To address these misconceptions, be sure to state your technology skills clearly on your resume and during the interview process. If you are someone who has not embraced the technology-enabled workplace of personal computers, Blackberrys, email, and more, take a course or read a guide to increase your knowledge and comfort level. By gaining technology skills, you will become a more attractive and employable nonprofit professional.

Tip #9: Consider being a consultant.

There are many reasons for professionals to explore consulting opportunities as opposed to full-time, permanent employment. This is a decision that you should carefully consider.  Some of the benefits of baby-boomer consulting include: (1) allowing for greater flexibility in scheduling and commitment terms; (2) removing many of the cultural concerns about “fitting-in” with the team; (3) enabling experienced professionals to spend more time as a “thought leader” and reduce their administrative tasks; and finally, (4) making it possible to have an impact across multiple organizations and mission areas. For older adults, these opportunities may be especially attractive. Also, for those used to private sector salaries, consulting in the nonprofit arena can be more remunerative than full-time, permanent employment.  If this path interests you, consider connecting with other professionals already offering consulting services to nonprofit organizations. Not only will this save you the start-up costs of incorporating yourself as a consultant, it will also allow you to build a network among peers and find consulting projects more easily.

Tip #10: Take advantage of online career support and resources.

Whether you are starting to explore second careers or you are well on your way, there are a number of online career resources to help you. Here are a few of our favorites:

AARP: Money and Work
A section of the AARP’s web site focused on employment opportunities and advice for retirement age adults.

Civic Ventures
Through research, publishing, conferences, and outreach, Civic Ventures is reframing the debate about aging in America and redefining the second half of life as a source of social and individual renewal.
Encore
An online guide of career resources geared towards finding work that matters in the second half of life.

Eons
An online social networking site that calls itself ” the largest online gathering of people who are lovin’ life on the flipside of 50!” Need we say more?

Executive Service Corps Affiliate Network
A nationwide network of thirty-three nonprofit consulting groups that provide services to nonprofits, schools, and government agencies. These services are performed by volunteer consultants who have had senior level positions in business, government, and nonprofits.

Idealist.org
A virtual clearinghouse of nonprofit career, consulting, and volunteer opportunities. This vast web site also has a number of articles on a variety of nonprofit career related topics, as well as the opportunity to network and connect with socially-driven individuals.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.