Recruiting On a Budget: Do’s and Don’ts for Nonprofits

Title of the post "Recruiting On a Budget: Do’s and Don’ts for Nonprofits" next to an image of people sitting in line waiting for an interview

As a nonprofit professional, putting every dollar raised toward your cause is tempting. However, money and resources aren’t the only determinants of your success. After all, the effectiveness of your funds hinges on how well they are utilized—in other words, you need the right team to allocate resources effectively.

That’s why investing in your recruiting strategy is a game-changer, especially for nonprofits that don’t have a centralized strategy. After all, you don’t need a large budget to execute winning recruitment practices and track relevant data. In this guide, we’ll review recruitment do’s and don’ts for organizations with tight budgets.

Do: Use a Small Business ATS

If you haven’t allocated resources towards recruiting, chances are you haven’t considered elevating your recruitment approach with custom tools. You might think you don’t need a dedicated solution and continue relying on free tools like Google Sheets. While this is an acceptable recruiting process as you adjust your budget, you’ll need custom tools to scale up your hiring efforts. That’s where an applicant tracking system (ATS) comes in.

An ATS is a type of software built to centralize recruiting data to give you a full picture of your candidates and processes at any given moment. For instance, you can use an ATS to:

  • Communicate with candidates
  • Store candidate information in profiles
  • Visualize where your candidates are in the hiring funnel
  • Create reports based on recruiting data

Even nonprofits with small budgets can benefit from using an ATS. Solutions like JazzHR are built for small businesses and charitable organizations, meaning you can achieve your hiring goals without a major financial investment.

Do: Use Volunteer Networks

As nonprofit marketers know, word-of-mouth is a great promotional channel, especially when endorsements come from people passionate about your mission. This makes members of your volunteer program perfect contenders to not only apply for your open positions but also spread awareness about your recruitment to others.

Before you turn your volunteers loose to promote your recruitment efforts, keep the following best practices in mind:

  • Ask volunteers with connections to help. Let’s say you represent a nonprofit that provides low-cost sports camps to at-risk youth. If you have volunteers who are teachers, communicate with them separately to ask if they know any gym teachers or educators passionate about sports who would be interested in joining your organization.
  • Provide a cheat sheet. Having many voices for your cause can be a blessing and a curse—you can cover more ground, but information can get lost in translation. Clearly articulate the details and talking points of your open roles in an easily digestible cheat sheet so everyone’s on the same page.
  • Attribute leads to the volunteer. Understanding which demographics pull the most leads will help you refine recruitment efforts down the line. Just ensure you use an applicant tracking system to easily pull actionable insights from your datasets.

Whether your volunteers source qualified candidates or not, be sure you thank them for their time and effort and emphasize the impact their work has on your mission.

Do: Leverage Referrals

Your employees are another group you can tap into for recruitment purposes. As members of the team, they can provide candidates with useful perspectives about what it’s like to work for your nonprofit.

To incentivize your employees to spread the word, consider using a rewards-based referral program. Here’s how these programs usually work:

  1. The employee identifies a good fit from their network of colleagues, friends, and family, based on their traits and skills.
  2. The employee sends the individual the link to your job application form, asking the candidate to put them down as their referrer.
  3. The candidate undergoes the interview and hiring process.
  4. If the candidate joins the nonprofit, the employee gets a reward.

Establish clear expectations and guidelines for your referral program before rolling it out. For instance, set a cap on the number of rewards an employee can receive and what kinds of rewards you’re offering. This could range from an extra day of paid time off to a small bonus to a gift card to a popular local restaurant.

Don’t: Overlook Your Employer Brand

Your employer brand is how your nonprofit’s workplace environment is perceived by outsiders.

Much like the brand you leverage for marketing or fundraising, your employer brand should reflect your nonprofit’s values. Unlike your fundraising brand, though, the focus is your company culture rather than your beneficiaries.

To gauge your current employer brand, you can survey your employees and use workplace review sites like GlassDoor to pinpoint common praises and complaints from staff. You can then enhance your employer brand with  employee feedback, pinpointing any areas for improvement, and working with employees to progress your workplace over time.

Don’t: Rely on Monetary Benefits

In the current hiring landscape, candidates aren’t just interested in salary as a benefit. In fact, 81% of employees said an employer’s benefits package (meaning more than just salary) is an important factor in whether or not they accept a job. Here are some other benefits you should consider promoting:

  • Paid time off
  • Designated sick time
  • Workplace giving opportunities
  • Sabbatical opportunities
  • Parental leave
  • Professional development opportunities
  • Flexible working schedule or format

Even if you can’t offer these benefits now, you can still prioritize them in your future plans. For example, you might decide to begin offering 20 paid days off annually rather than 15, starting next year.

If you’re constrained by your budget, you might not be able to take on all of these strategies right away, and that’s okay. However, if you’re to start doing one thing immediately, it’s to stop compromising on organizational fit. No matter which talent acquisition strategies you use to find candidates, the very best additions to your team will be those who resonate with your story and are passionate about your mission. As long as you have that baseline, your recruitment strategies will fall into place over time.

/by