Recruitment for Nonprofits 101: A Guide to Getting Started

All nonprofits need talented, motivated, and passionate additions to the team. But between fundraising, engaging volunteers, and delivering services to your community, dedicated recruitment efforts can fall by the wayside.

If your nonprofit needs a new or revamped recruitment strategy, you might use general resources—including those aimed at for-profit businesses—to brush up on your knowledge. However, there are some distinctions between nonprofit recruiting and for-profit recruiting that you should be aware of before you launch your efforts.

In this guide, you’ll learn the intricacies of nonprofit recruitment so you can build a strong, data-driven recruitment strategy and form the best team possible. As you better understand nonprofit recruitment, consider how your organization currently handles recruitment and if these strategies complement your unique needs and assets.

Recruitment for Nonprofits: More Than Filling Job Openings

Recruitment is your nonprofit’s strategic process to attract talent to fill job openings on your team. While it might seem straightforward enough, there are nuances of recruitment that your team should understand before planning and launching your efforts. Here are some important aspects of recruitment that you should consider:

• Recruitment and talent acquisition are different. While these terms are often used interchangeably, the concepts vary in scope. Talent acquisition is your nonprofit’s long-term approach to strengthening your team, whereas recruitment is focused on filling vacancies quickly.
• Your recruitment can thrive without a dedicated team. Your nonprofit might not have the resources or bandwidth to support a full-time recruitment team. If that’s the case, you should invest in the right tools and assign clear responsibilities to different team members based on the open roles and your desired turnaround.
• Recruitment and human resources work hand in hand. These two teams work closely together to send candidates through the recruitment funnel. Once you’ve successfully recruited and hired a new team member, your HR team is responsible for onboarding them.

Nonprofit vs. For-Profit Recruitment: Similarities and Differences

As with other aspects of nonprofit management, you can develop your recruitment strategy by learning from for-profit organizations that take on similar activities. But a process that works for a for-profit organization may not address all your needs as a nonprofit. Consider the similarities and differences between these two sectors when it comes to recruitment:

Similarities

• Recruitment tools. Both types of organizations should leverage people-first recruitment software to improve the experience both for staff and applicants.
• Focus on skills and experience. Nonprofits and their for-profit counterparts gauge company culture fit, professional experience, and technical skills during recruitment.
• Recruitment marketing. Nonprofits and for-profit organizations alike need to market appealing aspects of the organization (such as compensation and benefits) to successfully reach and recruit the best candidates.

Differences

• Mission- versus profit-driven purposes. Nonprofit and for-profit organizations inherently have different motivations when it comes to organization-wide purpose, which can impact the desired skills and experience required in an ideal candidate.
• Connection to the cause. Nonprofits are more likely to hire candidates who are motivated by their mission.
• Resource availability. Nonprofits tend to operate on tighter budgets than their for-profit counterparts, meaning that recruitment scopes might vary between the two.

How Nonprofits Can Align Recruitment with Mission

As the throughline guiding all your nonprofit’s activities, your mission should play a significant role in your recruitment efforts. Take these steps to ensure your recruitment activities and objectives remain aligned with your mission:

Create a mission-centric recruitment plan.

In your recruitment plan, detail how each activity or step directly contributes to your mission. For instance, you might detail how you plan to portray your mission in your recruitment marketing materials.

Gauge candidates’ passion for your cause.

Ask questions on the initial application and during interviews to assess if the candidate complements your mission. For instance, you might ask what the candidate knows about your cause and if they think it’s important.

Ask leadership for feedback.

Your leadership team and board members have a thorough understanding of your mission and needs, so you can ask them for feedback on how recent hires have measured up and how you can better integrate your mission into recruitment.

Collecting Data on Recruitment Efforts

Just as you use data to engage supporters, it’s critical for keeping candidates interested in working for your organization. Plus, knowing how to properly collect, analyze, and act on your recruitment data empowers you to improve your tactics over time. Consider tracking important metrics like these with your recruitment management software:

• Application Completion Rate
• Funnel Conversion Rates
• Candidate Feedback Scores
• Average Cost per Hire
• Sourcing Channel Effectiveness
• Offer Acceptance Rate
• Employee Retention Rate

These are only a few of the possible recruitment metrics your nonprofit can benefit from monitoring. To use your recruiting resources efficiently, you should pick four to five key performance indicators (KPIs) to track that best represent your organization’s needs, both as a whole and relating to recruitment.

Building a Mission-Aligned Team

While recruitment is meant to fill your open positions in the short term, improving your recruitment strategies takes review and iteration. When you’re planning your recruitment tactics, ensure that you establish a regular cadence for gauging their effectiveness and gathering feedback from other members of your team. Over time, you’ll start to develop the optimal recruitment solutions for your nonprofit and build (and retain) a team of passionate advocates.