Job satisfaction has become an increasingly important issue for staff recruitment and retention. So what can you do to make your organization a great place to work? Offer flexible work hours. Flex hours help staff balance work and personal life, and demonstrate trust in your team. Provide a career pathway. The best organizations to work for provide coaching, career development, education and networking opportunities to help individuals grow. Encourage new ways of doing things. Create an environment where employees are encouraged to take responsible risks. If you want your team to accomplish great things, you have to give them permission to fail as well. Be a great boss. Help your employees apply their talent and to stretch their skills. Be clear when setting goals and how performance will be measured. Recognize everyone. Acknowledge individual achievements and contributions to the cumulative goals and reputation of the organization. Encourage vacations. Nonprofit staff and management are notorious for not taking time-off. Everyone needs some time for the brain to clear. Getting out of the office provides space and time to think. Deliver on values. Build policies and make decisions that are respectful to employees and customers. Be fair with every stakeholder because, honestly,…

With few exceptions, no hire is more important to a nonprofit organization than the individuals tasked with keeping the money flowing: the development team. Yet, the average length of employment for a development professional is 277 days. Why is this? A study from CompassPoint and the Evelyn and Walter Hass, Jr. Fund, “Underdeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising” found that 25% of respondents with development directors on staff had fired their most recent development director. Half of chief development officers plan to quit within 2 years. Why the revolving door? Although leadership, strategy and structural fundraising issues are frequently at fault, there is another reason often overlooked: leaders lump too many skill sets into one job description. Development professionals, like physicians, are either generalists or specialists. Understanding the difference is important—in experience, focus, and pay. Are you cramming too many skills into your job descriptions? If so, you are setting the candidate and your organization up for failure. Who are Development GENERALISTS and what should they do? Chief Development Officer A Chief Development Officer should have at least a ten year track record of stewardship, solicitation, board development, strategic planning, donor relations, leadership, and management skills. The…

No one wants to believe that they or their company has bias, especially nonprofit organizations whose purpose is to do social good. But, it happens. Conscious or unconscious bias reduces your openness to people who are different from you, and in turn, can dramatically affect your hiring process. Research over the past eleven years has repeatedly demonstrated a tilted field in nonprofit hiring, especially in senior executive and development level positions. Despite this knowledge, the percentages have shown little movement. So instead of rehashing the statistics, we’re offering some immediate, introductory steps that can improve diversity within your nonprofit organization now. These steps don’t require a major financial investment. They do, however, require sustained commitment from top leadership. We recommend that you start with identifying your own biases, and have your team do the same. The Implicit Association Tests cover topics including age, gender, sexuality and disability. You’ll find it at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html. To learn more, please download Recruiting for a Diverse, Multicultural Team: An Introductory Executive Action Blueprint for Nonprofits. Introductory steps to overcome bias in hiring and to build a more diverse workforce Identify, commit and prioritize a culture of diversity and inclusion. Picture what your current workforce looks…

It’s that wonderful time of year when students of all ages head back to school. Behind the frenzy of registrations, books, class assignments and parking passes is a well-oiled machine of administrators, executive directors, teachers, facility managers, system specialists and other professionals who have been hard at work long before the bell tolls. They make the first day, and every day, look easy. But even the best plans can go awry because schools, just like any other organization, experience staff disruptions. The “secret sauce” is to have a process that kicks in automatically to keep all cylinders pumping. Many schools are relying on temporary or contract workers supplied by staffing agencies to fill immediate, short-term and even long-term gaps. More than three million temporary contract employees work through staffing companies in an average week, with about 6% working in education services. Experienced temps fill not only administrative and executive assistant roles, but help with registration and admissions, marketing, IT, bookkeeping and facility management. As more and more parents and alumni are unable to serve in volunteer roles, many schools now routinely hire professional temps to handle fundraisers and development activities. Temps provide not only an immediate answer to an early…