Fifty-eight percent of nonprofits in the New York and Washington metropolitan areas plan to add staff this year, according to a new survey of organizations in those cities.
The annual survey has tracked a steadily increasing hiring trend: Fifty-six percent of groups increased their staff in 2015 and 52 percent in 2014.
The strong job market presents some challenges to charities in attracting and keeping talent, say the researchers. It also heralds a demographic shift: With the baby boomers finally retiring in droves, millennials now make up half of the work force at organizations in those cities.
Boomers, people in their 50 and 60s, now make up only 16 percent of the work force at nonprofits in New York and 15 percent in Washington.
In response to the demands of hiring in a sellers’ market, half of the organizations surveyed said increasing salaries for key positions was a priority for helping them recruit. Just behind that top goal, cited by 48 percent of nonprofits in both cities, was making the public and job seekers more aware of what the organization does.
“Recruiting and retaining talent is now the most important thing, because there is far less supply in the market than there is demand,” says Gayle Brandel, chief executive officer of PNP Staffing Group, formerly Professionals for Nonprofits, the recruiter that conducted the survey. Competition for the best workers, she says, “is really the issue for the upcoming year and for years after that.”
Organizations also expressed a willingness to recalibrate their expectations when considering potential new hires. A history of job-hopping, for instance, is not a deterrent for recruiters: Just over three-quarters of employers in both cities said they might mention in a job interview if a candidate has held three or four positions over the past 10 years but that they recognize such moves are not unusual.
About 21 percent of managers in Washington and 21 percent in New York said they seek only three years of service from the people they hire.
More than 1,100 organizations participated in PNP Staffing Group’s annual survey of salaries and employment trends. The company collected salary data on 42 nonprofit positions. Besides the reports on New York and Washington, PNP released a report on hiring and salary trends in the Philadelphia market.
CEO Salary Ranges in 2015
| Organization’s budget size | New York | Washington |
| More than $50 million | $320,000 to $380,000 | $300,000 to $350,000 |
| $20.1million to $50 million | $260,000 to $320,000 | $250,000 to $300,000 |
| $10.1 million to $20 million | $220,000 to $270,000 | $200,000 to $250,000 |
| $5.1 million to $10 million | $170,000 to $220,000 | $150,000 to $200,000 |
| $5 million or less | $140,000 to $170,000 | $130,000 to $160,000 |
Chief Development Officer Salary Ranges in 2015
| Organization’s budget size | New York | Washington |
| More than $50 million | $220,000 to $270,000 | $180,000 to $230,000 |
| $20.1million to $50 million | $180,000 to $220,000 | $150,000 to $190,000 |
| $10.1 million to $20 million | $150,000 to $180,000 | $130,000 to $160,000 |
| $5.1 million to $10 million | $120,000 to $150,000 | $110,000 to $130,000 |
| $5 million or less | $110,000 to $130,000 | $100,000 to $120,000 |
Note: Survey included data from more than 1,100 nonprofit organizations.
Source: PNP Staffing Group, formerly Professionals for NonProfits
Wanted: Writing Skills
In both the New York and Washington markets, an overwhelming majority of organizations said fundraising was their top priority for 2016 — 70 percent of groups in New York and 68 percent in Washington said so. But nearly half of the nonprofits in both cities also said such positions are hardest to fill.
Only 13 percent of employers in both cities said they were confident they would be able to hire new staff members for all kinds of positions.
Among other findings:
- Roughly two-thirds of employers in both cities citied inadequate writing skills as their greatest challenge in finding suitable employees. New York organizations next pointed to candidates’ lack of a strong work ethic (cited by 42 percent of respondents); Washington employers complained about job seekers’ “unpolished interpersonal verbal skills” (41 percent).
“This is the generation that’s grown up texting, and it’s beginning to make a difference,” says Robert Duvall, PNP’s director of special projects and the study’s author. Nonprofits may need to rethink how they work to accommodate digital natives, he suggests, such as increasing social-media activity at the expense of other forms of communication. “Maybe those long-winded writing skills that I take pride in aren’t going to be as necessary anymore.”
- Training and professional development was named as the benefit most often requested by people applying for nonprofit jobs, the organizations said, the first time that perk has held the number-one spot in PNP’s annual survey. Though 58 percent of Washington employers and 56 percent of New York groups said job candidates ask about training, nearly 70 percent of the organizations said they seldom or never provide such benefits.
