Like most people, you might have a mental image of someone working as a “temp” as an individual who fills in at the last minute, most likely as a receptionist, the proverbial “Kelly Girl”. It’s time to evolve your thinking. Without attracting a lot of attention, evolution has certainly been occurring in the staffing industry — especially within the nonprofit sector. Like its corporate brethren, nonprofit temporary staffing started with the need to fill last minute requests, the “one day assignment” to cover for someone while ill or on vacation. College students jumped onboard, using temp placements as an opportunity to gain visibility and to get the proverbial “foot-in-the-door” with preferred employers. Shift forward through a recession, add the evolving desire to create societal change, often after a long-career in the corporate sector, and you find high value, mid-career candidates increasing turning to nonprofit staffing firms for contract, temp-to-hire, and full time employment opportunities. There are full time temp employees, complete with a benefit package. These candidates are experienced in nonprofit management, field ops, operations, HR, financials, and more. Nonprofit staffing agencies have responded to the changing market condition by becoming an advocate-for and the champion-of candidates as well as…

Every New Year’s Eve millions of us tune in to watch that illuminated ball descend upon Times Square — and even more of us make a list of resolutions intended to better our lives. With a deep breath, a clear mind, and committed intention, I’m taking a dive into my collection of favorite posts around the subject of leadership. More specifically, effective leadership. We could all name “leaders” with, or for, whom we’ve worked who were not effective. They just had an executive title and a lot of power. Effective leaders manage in a style that inspires everyone around them to do their best work. Sometimes we make the assumption that a person with a resume highlighting a long list of accomplishments or certifications will make a great leader. Not true. Accomplishments and certifications are reached by hitting objective benchmarks. Effective leadership, on the other hand, is a bit more subjective and harder to define. But we all know it when we experience it. It is special. It compels us all to try a little harder and to give our best. Inspiring speaker and nonprofit leader Joan Garry breaks it down further. She lists just two basic needs in The…

January, 2016. Traditionally, this is the time of year when many of us write up, or at least mentally note, resolutions that will make us better humans in the coming year. My list typically includes promises to work out more frequently, eat more healthily, read more….that kind of stuff. It’s also an ideal time for us to consider actions that will help our nonprofit organizations flourish. Much like a list of resolutions, I find that checklists can be easy tools for keeping me on task and, in some cases, offer objective evaluations. Those little check boxes don’t provide much room for explanation or excuses…just enough space for a check mark! Checklists are also excellent motivational tools. They help us identify and quantify accomplishments and successes. And, as you probably know, positive reinforcement of jobs already well done can go a long way in the morale department. Since many of us who work at nonprofit organizations find ourselves multi-tasking, we always run the risk of letting little details fall through the cracks – or the possibility that someone may “drop the ball.” The beauty of checklists are their simplicity; at once keeping us honest, accountable and organized. Here are some of…

From late September until mid-April, one of the most frequently asked questions is “Is-all-of the-data-entered-yet?”. It is such an endearing question. Is it in DonorPerfect? Is it in Quickbooks? Is the gala auction balanced? Is our CRM data clean (the most dreaded question of all). Before marketing and before those lovely souls in donor development get giddy about Big Data, before the financial year is closed, before you even know for sure how many program participants accessed how many levels of service, there’s the big, time-sucking task that no one likes to talk about: Data Entry. Don’t diss data entry. You’ve heard the saying “garbage in, garbage out” and it certainly applies here. With data coming from so many different resources it’s hard to keep it clean—and by clean I mean standardized, usable and reliable. It’s also very easy to assign the task of entering (and quality review) to someone who seems to have “spare time”. In today’s economy, however, I don’t see many employees who have “spare time”. “No time” seems more appropriate, especially in the nonprofit sector. Fortunately, there is PNP, specializing in providing temps who not only understand the caffeine laced question, but understand the CRM and…