News & Events

By Patty Hampton, CSP, Managing Director, Staffing Services/Executive Search Consultant

Do you know the skills that are most lacking in your workforce? Do you know who your nonprofit competitors are that compete in your space? As an organization, do you believe you can influence change for a greater good?

We live in a global world where there is a nonprofit for everything! As far as I’m concern, everyone that is a nonprofit could potentially be your competitor. This also means that you need to be prepared to not only lose your most talented employees, but have a talent strategy to replace, retrain and retain them.

My friends talk to me often about developing their skills and being the Subject Matter Expert (SME) on an issue that nonprofits need. Many of them have taken steps to research the needs of nonprofits, increase their competencies and become the SME on policy matters that will advance their own careers and the work of their organization. However, let’s not get it twisted, my friends choose to work for a nonprofit even after they’ve ratcheted-up their skills. They could easily earn more money with larger corporations or the government, but their passions are loyal and committed to the nonprofit sector.

One of the hardest decisions nonprofits had to face was reducing its workforce as the recession came knocking on front doors. For many of my friends this was also their wake up call. The nonprofit sector clearly was not and is not recession proof. I hear all the time from clients and my friends that their organization lacks the resources to move recruitment strategies, projects and policy issues forward to be competitive in the nonprofit sector. If my friends can take initiative to invest in their own careers to remain marketable in the nonprofit industry, then I believe organizations need to stop using the lack of resources as a badge of nobility or be prepared to replace a talented workforce.

According to a report from the Johns Hopkins University Listening Post Project, almost 40 percent of nonprofit organizations do not have adequate staff to deliver its programs and services. After reading the report, I thought to myself, the mission of these nonprofits didn’t change but the services and programs they offer most likely were either eliminated or refocused which may have caused the reduction in their workforce. Then I thought it could be entirely possible that the people in those nonprofits (including some of my friends) lost their jobs because many of them lacked the knowledge, skills and competencies to help the organization move forward. With that said, we could possibly come to the conclusion that those jobs that were “saved” and the people in them might need to be retrained and retained.

If it is a fact that the non-profit sector is the fourth largest industry in the U.S. economy, then why do we still struggle with talent management and retention issues that large corporations seem to have mastered? If your organization was one that had no choice but to downsize, then chances are you were probably also left with a workforce that lacked the skills necessary to continue to move the organization forward competitively. What is going to be your next move as the economy continues to recover? Is rebuilding your workforce on your radar?

Rebuilding your workforce is not going to be easy. However, the one thing I do know for sure is that we can no longer take a passive approach where we can be leaders in our own organizations and in the nonprofit sector. My friends have taken the initiative to rebuild themselves professionally. The leadership in nonprofits can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to retraining and reinvesting in their workforce either. We have to find the resources to not only be a global nonprofit sector but compete within our own backyards to be a united force that will influence policy on a massive scale. This work and process can only begin with a highly talented workforce.