Episode 144: Today's Nonprofit Hiring Issue - From the Organization and Employee Perspective

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I consider it a real privilege when you join me, not only on this but any addition of "Around with Randall." Today we take a leap up a few thousand feet into the conversation around our industry and then we'll leap back down into how this is tactically appropriate and necessary, and some things to deal with for you both on the side of the equation of the individual as well as the organization. What's the subject matter? Jobs. Had an interesting conversation here recently with a dear friend who is in the job placement area of the nonprofit world, and he talked about how they're really struggling on behalf of clients to find entry and mid-level jobs for that nonprofit candidates. And it led me to think about kind of two things. Number one, why is this happening? And we'll get to that at kind of the global and the tactically the two sides of the fence as an organization or as an individual, what you should be thinking about and dealing with in terms of looking at your career. Or if you're the organization, really looking at the concept of retention. Much like donors there's always the old adage it takes seven touches to attract a new donor. It's much easier to maintain and retain those great employees if you have a plan for them. So we're gonna to that as part of the Tactical.

How did we get here though? So let's kind of go up 10, 15,000 feet. I think two things are playing an enormous, are having an enormous effect on the jobs within the nonprofit sector. Number one is just the overall economic climate and the supply and demand of jobs in the United States. So if you are a nonprofit gift officer, let's say, or maybe you manage the database, or you have incredibly transferable skills, knowledge, wisdom that you can apply out into the for-profit world, and what we also know is that the for-profit world pays better. Now three-to-five years ago before the pandemic I don't think the difference was at times unless you're at the CEO level so grandiose. That was it, was just out of kilter. What I think is happening now is that it's way out of kilter. Two examples. Just recently had a friend whose daughter was working in a nonprofit and when I talked to him he says his daughter left that job, said really why, well she went to go do something very similar in a for-profit company and double their pay. And at some point while she loved the nonprofit and she loved the mission that it was bringing, she just couldn't afford to turn it down when she looked at all the retirement benefits, all of the different ways in which it was going to be paid, more the direct compensation or salary differences. She just had to go. I have another a long-time friend who has moved up in a mid-size National nonprofit, big fundraiser raising millions and millions and millions a year, and oversaw staff, pretty good-sized staff, who one day I got a text message saying hey I just wanted to let you know I'm leaving. Picked up the phone said hey are you okay, what's going on? He says no, I'm great. I'm going to become the head of Business Development for a fairly large construction company. When I asked why'd you do this he says, they're doubling my salary because I can't look at my wife and kids and say I shouldn't go do this. The skills and the thoughts are approximately the same. So that's one.

The second thing is, I think that inflation over the last two years if you are in a position where you're watching your apartment rental, or house cost, or your car payment, or groceries, utilities, taxes all going up because of inflation and you have an opportunity to go take another job in the for-profit market, even if it's not directly transferable, you want and need to go do that because you have less room in your economic, family, individual, budget process. And so I think these two things are causing some Exodus out of the nonprofit world, which is opening up all of these jobs. The second thing is because at least a part of this is entry-level professionals are getting paid more. So if you're coming out of college, let's say, and you are looking for an opportunity to start your career and in the nonprofit world maybe that's as an annual fund officer or, you know, maybe you're you're a special events person. Maybe you're starting off at kind of at a mid-level or low level in terms of the database and gift processing that pays Acts but you could go into the for-profit world and make X plus fifty percent, thirty percent, whatever. So not only are we losing jobs of good current people, the entry of new developing professionals isn't the same because again, the for-profit world can pay more. This is causing a challenge.

The number of places I have that I work with as clients who have job openings is almost a hundred percent of the, of my clientele. They are looking for somebody and they are struggling. They are struggling to find good candidates. In fact I have one client who's looking for a particular position, kind of the mid-level I'll call it in the gift acquisition process above an annual giving, not quite a major gift officer, and they are getting like one or two candidates and they're part of a bigger system and HR's throwing the gauntlet down like yeah they're not qualified based on what you've indicated in the job description. They're like but their skill sets are are good enough and I can train them and I gotta have this position. And so even if you have a job, you might only have a candidate or two which brings us back to the issue involving kind of the thought process of my friend who's in the job search, placement business. They're struggling to find candidates. Traditionally, when we think about this mid-level and low lower level entry philanthropy opportunity we kind of put it on a, at least in a former life, in a career path, I.E you start off as maybe an associate and then an assistant director, then an associate director, and then maybe, maybe Sergeant, coordinator, assistant director. associate director, senior director, director, then you move into executive director then an AVP or an assistant vice president, then a vice president, Chief development officer. And with each one of those comes additional responsibilities. You have to raise more. You have a bigger portfolio. Your asks are bigger. If you're internal like infrastructure, Finance, you you move into the responsibilities of actually producing the budget, managing the database, things of that nature. That's really old school. And the question becomes again that two sides of the fence, if you're an employer how do you keep your really good people? For the employee, what is it you should be doing?

So we'll start with the employee. So we're going to a little bit longer tactical here on this edition of "around with Randall" and talk a little bit about both of these. We'll start with the gift officer or with the the employee side of it. There are really seven things I think that are really important for you to consider when you think about your career. Where is it you want to be? Where is, what is it you want to learn? Where it is if you want to go, and how you're going to get there. And then you can match things, these things, up to the organizations in which you work. Or the maybe you're interviewing and for the places you might want to work, see if they have these. Are they part of their normal process? I'd like to think these things are revolutionary but they're not. This is what for-profit companies are doing to maintain their best employees.

So let's start with one through seven if you're the employee. Number one is to think a little bit about your current position, where are you in your career, and then inside of that which, I think is really important, what is it you like about what you do every day. I've had this discussion with a lot of individuals in my career where they're very young trying to figure out what they want to do and it doesn't make a difference if they have a little bit of an expertise in planned giving, grants, special events, operations, Finance, they're a gift officer. Doesn't make a difference. There is a point at which in the career where they have to make a determination, are you going to be in the acquisition piece of the world or the nonprofit entity, meaning you're going to go out and get gifts or are you going to be on the planning, internal side, meaning database, Finance, operations. It's not all that often that I've seen one go from, you know, a mid-level manager or an upper level manager as a fundraiser into operations or the other way around. There's a point at which you have to make that determination and those are different skill sets. And what we're talking about a moment ago, different things you could enjoy if you like the relationship pieces you're going to be more on the acquisition side. If you like the strategy and kind of building internally and don't want an external face, you're more on the infrastructure side.

It's important to think about those things because then the decisions you make about where that next job is, that next opportunity where you want to grow fit into one of those two models. so the first thing is to think about your current position and what you like about it, and where you kind of are in your career. You could be 55 and thinking about this. You could be 25 and thinking about this. Both ages are appropriate for this kind of thought process. The thing is is to consider what your goals are. What is it you want to do? Part of that is financial. I have a dear friend, a groomsman of my wedding whose son's going starting College this year. We just had lunch as we do about every three-to-six months, asked how you know it was going in terms of their first child going off to to the university and they went into the conversation, he and his son, about if you want these things then here are the things you're going to have to do. And what I'm referring to is a nice house, a country club, cars, vacations, those are important to some people. Other people will tell you yeah I know that's interested in fancy cars, and longer vacations, and distance, and country clubs. I want to do other things so part of this is when you think about your goals what are they financially. Part of this is also what you want to do professionally. What kind of impact you want your career to have on a small group of people, on a large group of people.

I'll tell you a little just short story about kind of the non-financial piece as it relates to me. When I got out of college and went to law school my career goal was to be either the president of the NCAA or a major college athletics director. I look back on that based upon where we're at in the crazy world of College athletics, and if you're not following many people probably aren't, there's chaos right now. Conferences are blowing up. Schools are moving. It's really destructive to the end-user, which is the student athlete, which nobody has them in mind at all. I can't tell you how glad I am I'm not in that world. But I started down that road 25 years ago and my goal was to do those things. So your goal about what you want to do impacts the decisions you make today, and in the near future for the achievement of that. And if you get disillusioned like I did, I was kind of blown away by some of the not authentic conversations that occurred and some of the challenging behaviors. I walked away. That's also okay. I found other goals. You can too.

Number two, where are your goals? Number three, what is your skill set? This is really important. If you want to be a gift officer being able to communicate in writing and verbally is critically important. If you want to be a finance person, understanding budgets and overall Finance and Accounting is critically important. So there are the hard skills, you can get that through education. Doesn't mean a master's or a doctorate in it, although obviously I know a little bit about some of those things. It can be practical education, but there's also the soft skills, the personality, the communication styles, the ability to be able to have interpersonal kind of a sense of security. Analyzing your skills is also. Then setting up a plan to fulfill the holes in those skills, so if you want to be in accounting but you don't have an accounting degree, probably need to go Community College, University, go get one. Or if you want to be in finance but I know something about Finance. Soft skills are no different. If you want to be a better communicator, knowing who you are and how you communicate is important. Things like Myers-Briggs and DISC are testing that allow you to know who you are. Then there's the emotional equivalency of who you are and how you deal with stress. That's also a little bit of DISC and it's also the Berkeley emotional test. There are opportunities for you to know where you are and how to improve if it fits with the goal and the plan that you're trying to develop. Analyze your skills.

Number four is brainstorm about your resources because sometimes these skills cost money. But more importantly, it's about who you know and what they can share with you. And this is about mentoring. I think the thing that I'm most proud of is that I have clients that I spend an immense amount of time with more on a mentoring perspective than I actually do the constructive tactical Consulting work that I am responsible for on a daily basis, contractually. So with my clients I view my relationships with them personally as a way in which hopefully I can, in many ways or some ways, help them grow. Who are the people if you're the employee that can help you do that internally, externally? Who do you trust?

Number five put all of this action, what you want to accomplish, into writing. Every study we know of says if you put it in writing it's more likely to happen. So as you talk about your goals, write that down, and the skills necessary, write that down. And then where do I have them? Write that down. Where don't I have them? Write that down on what you want to do about them. Put it in writing. Will give you a sense of a plan and really start to begin to lock you in, dial in as I tell my kids to what you want to accomplish.

Number six, that then gives you the work plan of how to grow. So once you've written it down you see the holes and what needs to be done, you can say oh I can go do this, and I can go do this, and I can go do this. And going back to number four you can use what resources you have to accomplish it. A lot of it is about individual learning opportunities, and listening, and wisdom ,and the rest, and the relationships that you have. It's not saying don't go back to school. I'm not saying don't get a master's or a doctorate or a JD or whatever. But what I am saying is that a lot of these things in terms of working towards your goal are actually low cost. And they're about interpersonal relationships and individual effort of learning and wisdom.

Lastly, number seven. Track all of this. I think about what I'm responsible for to maintain my CFRE accreditation, which I got back in 2005 or six, maybe even before that, 2004 when I was early on in my career. CFRE requires me to track the jobs that I have, and the education sessions that I've either taken or taught, or the the articles that I've written, or the book that I've written, as a way of monitoring my continual growth. That's how they reaccredit me every three years or anybody who has CFRE. That's a great pattern because I can see what I'm doing to grow. You can see if you write it down and track it where you're growing into that plan.

So number one if you're on the individual side is this kind of think about where you're at and what you like. Number two is to think about your goals. Number three is assess those skills against the goals. Number four is brainstorm about the resources that are available, in particular people, and communication, and mentoring. Number five is create that action plan and on that plan work towards your goal, with each individual one having a little bit of a plan, and finally to track those milestones. On the flip side are the responsibilities of the employer, the leader, the manager, the supervisor, to provide an environment where they might keep the best people.

Here's what I'd recommend for you. Not quite as long a list. There's five things that are critically important if you want to keep great people and it starts before they ever walk in the door, or at least the moment they do walk in the door, and that's onboarding you need to have an incredible incredible onboarding process. The organization may have a formal one with all the rules and regulations and policies. I'm talking about your department, your responsibilities, what is it you do, how do you do it, do you allow them to shadow, to learn as they go. Do they sit in meetings even though they aren't going to be important to them so that they learn and they're create, they're creating opportunities for osmosis in terms of of absorption of knowledge, and language, and personalities? Onboarding should be an ongoing process. It is not a one or a two day deal. I used to think about my onboarding process really being six months, and then almost every day if possible I was sticking my head in the office of the new employee every day for those six months. Now the last three months it was a check-in every day, how you doing. Anything you need? Sometimes the answer was no, I don't need anything. Some days the answer was I'm glad you really came in, I don't know what to do about this. If you think of onboarding like you know it's a couple hours and we just kind of give them the information and then I go back to my job and they got to figure it out, boy is that a bad taste in people's mouths because they don't think you care. Invest in them a little bit with some great onboarding.

Number two is mentoring, both short-term and long-term. Having internal mentors and external mentors you need to give them somebody that they can talk to. Close door at times to find out about the culture, the knowledge, and the direction of what's going on. Do you need to be possibly that Mentor or you need to assign someone a mentor and explain to them it's your job to make sure they feel great about what they're doing, even if they get it wrong. We want the effort even if they're not perfect. We want them to know how important they are, even if, even if they don't have a clear understanding of exactly where they are today. We're helping to clarify that both in the short and long term. Creating mentoring relationships is important. I think about the movie The Firm with Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman. I am your internal Mentor, Gene Hackman told Tom Cruise at the beginning of the movie. And then they went to lunch and he drank martinis. Who is it that can help someone guide into the career into the organization into the job to make them feel like they're worthwhile?

Number three is daily direction. This is tactical. Had a friend who had a son who took a new job and the job that they were coming from was very similar, at least they thought. They get into the new job they were given a quick orientation and literally they're not quite sure what to do day-to-day. So part of this is that onboarding process, and part of this is you need to be able to show and explain what things are so important to that job and the execution of it, and I don't mean just rely on the job description. Being able to explain we need X, we need y we need Z. This is your role in the bigger picture in making the ball move down the field. That takes time. That takes thought. That takes responsibility. If you just assume the new employee is going to know exactly what to do you're going to be disappointed by what happens.

Number four is reasonable growth in terms of expectations. When I was a chief development officer and I had new gift officers I always put them on a three-year plan. In the first year I was hoping they would raise. We used a lot of other metrics in terms of leading indicators calls visits things of that nature, but at the end it was, I need you to raise about your salary plus benefits or an additional 50 above that in Year One. In year two it's somewhere between three times. Really talented five times your salary and benefits. And by year three that's when we're really taking off. I put that in the upward front-end conversations before we ever even got into a job because I wanted them to know that there was a ramp up period. Now I also had a CFO who didn't like that because he was like well we need instant ROI and I'm like that ain't gonna happen. It maybe does every once in a while, but it's not the norm. Whatever that job is creating a two, three year growth expectation plan is important to know for them to know that when they go home they're not thinking, oh my gosh what did I get myself into. Keep that in mind. Growth opportunities.

Number five in the final, if you're the manager, leader supervisor, whatever, how are you going to help them grow personally and professionally. Development, whether that's conferences and having budget to send them or locally or online where there's a lot of free stuff are you giving them things to listen to. I'll use maybe as self-indulgent a suggestion here. These podcasts are designed for 20 or so minutes of education on different subjects. There's a lot of them out there. The question becomes are you giving them opportunities to learn and grow? Local presentations like AFP, AFP Association for Fundraising Professionals, does a tremendous job at the local level cheap easy are they involved with Kiwanis or the Lions Club or whatever local group so they grow their connections. And are you going along with them? I used to love to go on visits with younger gift officers let them take the lead kind of splice something in along the way then come back out, sit in the car and say, hey let me tell you what I saw so they could hear and feel that experience that they went through from someone else's perspective, mine. If you're not giving them professional development they will go find somewhere else to get it. People want to grow so if you're the leader, great onboarding, it's not just one day or two hours, it's a three to six month process of constantly checking in. Number two is mentoring. Who can they talk to? Be on the job, tactics. Number three, daily interaction of the tactical and direction. Where is it they have to go every day to feel like they accomplish something what are the direct responsibility that they have, and how you can help them learn them as they go. Number four is creating reasonable expectations over, you know, two-to-three year span not just all at once. And number five is giving them some professional and personal development opportunities so that's the leader we talked about, the individual. Either way we got a lot of holes in jobs and we need to do a better job as leaders and probably the employees and those looking for jobs and you do a better job of looking for the right things and knowing who they are and what their skills are. What their dreams are for us to match up so we have less holes, less job openings, and those job openings mean not meaning non-profit Mission expectations.

If you're interested in the blogs which I highly encourage, 90 second reads at hallettphilanthropy.com. Check them out, won't take you long. You can get an RSS feed and of course if you'd like to reach out to me that's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. It's an interesting time economically and all kinds of other things in which we have a lot of unknowns which means philanthropy has the ability to morph into what the community needs to help solve problems, and what you do if you're in the nonprofit world is exactly that. My all-time favorite thing some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. You are someone who's making something happen for those people and those things that are wondering what happened and that's joyous. I hope you feel that. I hope you know that and know the contribution you're making to the lives individually and collectively across the community. It's worth it and it's a great way to spend a career knowing that you're changing the world one moment, one person, one effort at a time. I'll look forward to seeing you next time right back here on a round with Randall and don't forget make it a great day.