Working Concerns: About Nonprofit Talent
What assumptions lurk behind public attitudes about nonprofit pay? A discussion between Jon Pratt and Paul Light from the NPQ archives illuminates the landscape.
Ever since the professionalization of the nonprofit sector that took place 30 years ago, nonprofit executive salary has been influenced by business compensation concepts—but for-profit pay practices cannot be indiscriminately applied to nonprofits. So what really powers executive pay in the sector? As it turns out, size does matter.
AN NPQ CLASSIC:
There are three key characteristics every organization should develop in order to create a fruitful environment for shared leadership: adaptability within the leadership spectrum; an orientation toward shared leadership; and a culture of trust. But in order to successfully incorporate shared leadership, organizations must be prepared to, among other things, commit to change, stress across-the-board engagement and accountability, and understand that the process requires an up-front investment of time.
What drives successful volunteer mobilization, and is it time for a reevaluation of the powerful potential of volunteers in and around your organization?
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
For-profits tend to accept the benefits of coaching as a given. Nonprofits, on the other hand, question whether or not coaching actually works, and are more concerned with return on investment. But, as Bill Ryan explains, rather than asking “Does coaching work?,” nonprofit organizations invested in the practice would be better served figuring out how to make it work in their particular situation.
We are apt to praise the entrepreneurial spirit, but entrepreneurship is not automatically tied to success—a fact that has not stopped proponents from prescribing it as a cure-all for our sector’s woes, and which may have blinded some to the very real challenges that await those eager to put the concept into practice. Until the value of social entrepreneurship has been empirically assessed and established, it would be wise to proceed with care.
Welcome to the summer 2011 edition of NPQ! This issue covers topics having to do with the nonprofit sector’s workforce—and our workforce is different from the other sectors in a number of ways. . . .
How do you determine if your board has a conflict of interest, and how can you ensure its practices pass the “smell test”?
Do we need a more intense academic focus on fundraising education? The authors make the case…
What do young people hope to gain from a career in community development? After interviewing a dozen young workers, the author came away with both an unsettling picture of the current community development landscape and a promising vision of things to come.
