NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The Trump presidency has caused nonprofit donations to surge, with more people giving in ways that protect social justice, equality, and women’s rights, all of which appear threatened by the administration’s agenda. So you might think that nonprofits themselves, flush with cash, might be staffing up quickly to take advantage of the climate and the financial infusion.

But according to a new report, while 51% of all nonprofits expect to increase their staff size in 2017, they might have trouble filling those roles with the best candidates. More than half of the sector doesn’t have a formal procedure in place to recruiting top talent, and most groups don’t see the need to change that either, according to the 2017 Nonprofit Employment Practices Survey, a report from Nonprofit HR, a human resources firm.

The analysis is built on a survey of 420 groups within the sector. While the number of organizations expecting to hire has actually climbed for the last few years, this year it didn’t. (See the chart below.) According to the report’s fine print, the number of organizations expecting to hire dropped 7% year-over-year, while it rose 4% among social enterprises in the private sector. And that changes the stakes of the hiring game a bit. It’s no longer nonprofit versus nonprofit. Not surprisingly, “nonprofits are facing increased competition for talent from the corporate sector, driven in part by the growth of . . . purpose-driven businesses,” notes the report.

Photo courtesy of Ted Lee.