Eighty-four percent of nonprofit managers are satisfied with their current roles, according to a new study by Classy, an online fundraising company. The rate of satisfaction among managers involved in fundraising was even higher — 92 percent.
The company surveyed 1,002 nonprofit managers nationwide about their level of satisfaction with their work, as well as their perceptions about how their organizations are performing in terms of online fundraising.
Soraya Alexander, senior vice president for marketing, said 45 percent of respondents work for a small nonprofit with less than $1 million in annual revenue, 45 percent work for a nonprofit with annual revenue of $1 million to $20 million, and 10 percent work for a nonprofit with more than $20 million in revenue. (Seventy-six percent of respondents are female and 22 percent are male. The remaining percentage chose not to disclose.)
The top areas of concern cited were low employee wages (50 percent), donor retention (45 percent), overhead costs in general (39 percent), and fundraiser turnover (31 percent). Managers responding to the poll were allowed to choose more than one area of concern for many questions.
Optimistic Picture
The survey results paint a more optimistic portrait of nonprofit workplace satisfaction than some other studies and reports. Eighty-two percent of managers said their board members are supportive, although 45 percent said better leadership and employee understanding of organizational goals should be a top priority.
Alexander said researchers chose to survey manager-level employees to receive feedback directly from decision makers within nonprofit organizations. She indicated that the survey results do not reflect overall satisfaction at nonprofits among all employees.
“The surveyed individuals did not answer any questions that would indicate job satisfaction among their colleagues, so we are unable to draw conclusions about this based on our data set,” Alexander said.
Online-Fundraising Needs
Forty-three percent of managers who work in fundraising said a stronger focus on online fundraising should be a top investment priority, compared with 27 percent for managers who are only somewhat involved in fundraising. Managers who oversaw information-technology units were highly supportive of online fundraising; 53 percent said it should be a top priority, as did 44 percent of managers in marketing.
Other findings include:
- Managers cited a wide variety of fundraising sources for their organizations; 58 percent said their nonprofit got online donations from individuals, and 57 percent received mail-in donations from individuals. The other top sources were major donors (56 percent), foundation grants (54 percent), government grants (50 percent), corporations (46 percent), and bequests (36 percent).
- 37 percent of managers said their organization wasn’t making good use of technology compared with other nonprofits. However, 65 percent of managers in information technology said their organizations were probably or definitely more technologically advanced than other nonprofits.
- The favored approaches nonprofit managers used for marketing were social media (78 percent), word of mouth (74 percent), email (69 percent), and community outreach (64 percent). Direct mail ranked last at 43 percent.
- 58 percent of people in executive leadership roles said they gave to their organizations weekly, monthly, or annually. Sixty-five percent of managers involved in fundraising gave regularly. People who worked in programs were the least likely to give regularly — 43 percent. Twenty-three percent of nonprofit managers had never donated to their own organization.
- 59 percent of managers said they got their news about nonprofits from colleagues; 57 percent from social media, 51 percent from conferences, and 34 percent from trade publications.
