Should I Switch to the Nonprofit Sector?
People regularly ask me if they should switch to the nonprofit sector.
After all, the nonprofit sector has much to recommend it. You get to:
Work for a cause you feel passionate about
Interact with people who share your passion, and
Make the world a better place
Should you make the switch? Maybe.
Leaders who have built their careers in the for-profit sector potentially bring many skills, perspectives, and relationships that can help an organization multiply its impact.
However, to succeed, those same leaders need to carefully navigate their blind spots.
Is there a need for my skills?
You can probably answer that better than I can.
If you haven’t had enough exposure to the sector to have a clear sense of whether a need for your skills exists, then get more personal experience before proceeding (more on this later).
Is there a demand for my skills?
Great question! After all, although a need exists, that doesn’t mean that nonprofits will recognize the need, prioritize it, or pay for it.
Some skills, like strategic planning, likely have an over-saturation of practitioners. I helped to build the world’s largest database of nonprofit consultants and around 25% of our listings were from strategic planners. My personal experience also aligns with that.
I am, however, aware of very strong demand for accounting, fundraising, and top leadership skills.
How can the Entrepreneurial Spirit Benefit Nonprofits?
Many of the people who have worked at small and even mid-sized nonprofits for their whole careers lack exposure to other ways of getting work done.
Large businesses, especially, tend to handle things like human resources, marketing and communications, professional development, technology, and personnel management very differently. While some of those differences should probably stay different, quite a few could show a way for nonprofits a way to increase their impact without detracting from their mission and values.
Keep the Entrepreneurial Spirit in the “Goldilocks Zone”
The Entrepreneurial Spirit only helps when you keep it in the Goldilocks zone: not too little and not too much.
“Too much” can take many forms, especially in small to mid-sized nonprofits (and typically less in the larger ones):
Profit over mission. For nonprofiteers, the mission always comes first. Always. If you say anything that suggests the opposite, it could torpedo your credibility.
Profit over people. People always come before profit. See above.
Vocabulary. Take care with your word choices. While 99% of the time it makes little difference, that 1% can loom large on any day you say 100 words or more. So get to know the lingo and what words that work fine elsewhere can backfire at a nonprofit. At the top of the danger list: calling the organization a “business” instead of “nonprofit.”
Culture. Nonprofits tend to run best on a strong supply of warm fuzzies. This can feel great for a while, especially if your previous job felt cold and impersonal. But it might also feel excessive.
Biz ‘splaining. You have important fresh ideas to share; ideas that can help the nonprofit multiply its impact. But if you present them as anything that sounds even remotely like “businesses do this and so your nonprofit should too,” many people will close their ears, hearts, and minds to you. Instead, after you’ve learned the lingo and developed strong relationships of trust, repackage those ideas (preferably with a welcoming outer layer of warm fuzzies).
What about too little entrepreneurial spirit? Don’t bury and forget about what you’ve learned in the business sector. It would be a shame to lose that and for the nonprofit you serve not to benefit from it.
How can there be too much of a good thing?
A mega-dose of many things can hurt.
We dump a few gallons of water on ourselves daily to stay clean and fresh but a few thousand gallons all at once can drown us. A little jalapeño can add zip to your meal while a Carolina Reaper can send you to the emergency room.
I’ve gotten to see how a mega-dose of entrepreneurship put a nonprofit in the metaphorical emergency room:
The board became radically divided
The mission became unclear
Conflicts developed between highly entrepreneurial board members with a strong hunger for risk versus staff leadership who preferred a slow but steady approach
All tenured staff left
Remaining staff experienced high turnover
The disruption allowed unhealthy behaviors to take root in the organizational culture
1,000s of hours, that previously would have gone into delivering on the mission, got redirected to inward-facing meetings
Organizational revenue fell by nearly fifty percent
Understand Risk Aversion
Most nonprofits have strong levels of risk aversion.
While some of this may relate to the nature of the people who get drawn to the sector, much also boils down to money. Low profit margins and small reserve funds represent just part of the story.
The Overhead Myth, the misguided belief that the most impactful nonprofits spend the least on administration and have zero “waste,” make it nearly impossible to take meaningful risks.
Many nonprofit staff and board take very seriously the trust their donors put in them. That’s a good thing. But that seriousness sometimes goes well beyond the Goldilocks Zone, leading to penny-wise and pound-foolish behaviors.
As someone who aspires to switch sectors and lead, the more you understand the risk aversion, the more you can navigate those waters and potentially help the organization you serve get to a healthier, more balanced approach to risk.
Get Experience
The more experience you get, the more likely you can enter the world of nonprofit employment or consulting with your eyes wide open and appropriate expectations.
That experience can take a variety of forms, including:
Befriending nonprofit leaders and learning from their experiences
Serving on a nonprofit board
Providing pro bono volunteer services to a nonprofit (using your professional skills)
Is Nonprofit Work Slow?
Yes and no.
Certainly, most nonprofit staff and leadership keep busy. Often extremely busy.
But, when it comes to decision making, that can absolutely feel slow indeed.
Many nonprofits like to run on a consensus model, which means that they try to get everyone into agreement before making any big decision.
For example: I was talking with some colleagues a few months into the Covid pandemic and several of them made a comment along these lines, “we must have had a dozen meetings about whether or not to allow remote work over the past few years. Someone always had questions, concerns, or more information to gather. Then, all of a sudden the pandemic hit and we figured out how everyone could work from home in 48 hours.”
In addition to the general desire for consensus, many executive directors need to get their board’s approval for certain decisions. The smaller the organization, the more likely the board will want to weigh in on smaller stuff. I know an organization, for example, that has struggled to fill vacancies because their treasurer refuses to entertain the idea of allowing remote employees or paying anything close to market rate.
Should you Found a New Nonprofit or Join an Existing One?
You should probably work with an existing one. That’s ten times as true if you’ve never held a leadership position in a nonprofit.
Startup nonprofits take an incredible amount of time, especially if you’re bootstrapping it.
Although our country has hundreds of wealthy grantmaking organizations, they already get requests for funding that far exceed what they will award each year. You may have deep passion for your mission and a very compelling story to tell, but you’ll be getting in line behind hundreds of other organizations who have the same.
Chances are, a nonprofit already exists in your area that does work in your passion area. In large cities, you might find dozens of such organizations.
Instead of founding another nonprofit, go to work for a couple of years at one or two of those nonprofits that generally align with your passion areas. That way, you can learn an incredible amount about what it takes to run a successful nonprofit from fundraising to programs to administration. That experience will help inform your decision about whether to found a new nonprofit and seriously increase your chances of success if you do it.
Not all nonprofits are made alike
Dynamics and culture change significantly at different organizational sizes. You’ll find big differences between organizations with 10, 50, and 100 staff. Although exceptions certainly exist, the smaller ones tend towards having more relaxed structures and more warm fuzzies. The larger ones tend to look more like a corporation with stronger human resources departments, professional growth opportunities, and highly-defined roles and responsibilities.
Issue areas represent another area of difference. Schools, hospitals, churches, research institutes, museums, and human services organizations represent just a few of the very different missions you’ll find in the world of 501(c)3 organizations. Each need different skills, operate in different ways, and can have very different organizational cultures.
So, the more you can get specific about the experience you want, the more you can focus your energy on the kind of nonprofit that will make the best match.
I’m burned out from corporate work. Nonprofit work will be nice and relaxed, right?
I wouldn’t count on it.
While you will typically collect more warm fuzzies at a nonprofit, nonprofiteers can experience plenty of stress. In fact, burnout happens all the time.
If you’re feeling burned out right now, the more you can recharge your batteries before taking a nonprofit job, the better.
Come prepared for burnout triggers that could take a different form from the ones you’ve known. While a compelling mission and coworkers who share your passion can nourish your spirit, other things can drain it. Nonprofits, just like for profits, sometimes have unhealthy cultures and unhealthy people working in them. A compelling mission can help you get up in the morning, but also drive you and your coworkers to work excessive hours. Certain missions and programs may expose you regularly to heartbreaking situations that are beyond your power to fix.
You can improve your ability to do this work long-term by:
Maintaining healthy boundaries
Maintaining good work-life balance
Working for a nonprofit with a healthy culture and healthy coworkers
Get a mentor
A coach or mentor can make a big difference in your success. They can help you understand the sector’s many idiosyncrasies, navigate difficult situations, and answer questions for you that might feel silly.
Additional Resources
Paul Konigstein’s blog post on switching sectors - with additional perspective on how this work is different from a big for-profit.
Leigh Tucker’s Nonprofit Executives Group – this is a monthly online networking group. Free. Friendly. Great place to interact with other sector switchers and other nonprofit leaders.
Consultants for Good – The world’s largest community, capacity builder, and directory of nonprofit consultants. Great place to meet peers, get trained, and get a sense of what other nonprofit consultants do.
Resources for Beginning Nonprofit Consultants – Article with links and additional tools.
Webinar: Getting started as a nonprofit consultant – I do a regular webinar on this topic through Consultants For Good.
Grateful Acknowledgement
Thank you to my colleague Elizabeth Schuster of Sustainable Economies Consulting for suggesting the section “Is Nonprofit Work Slow” and to Sarah Loghin for the mentor suggestion.