The nonprofit world has a certain reputation: slow-moving, low-paying, and providing little room for advancement. And a report last month from Nonprofit HR shows that the conventional wisdom is persistent. A survey of more than 1,000 workers in both nonprofits and for-profits found that half of them would be seeking work in the next five years, and that 23 percent of those wouldn’t consider work at nonprofit. Among the most common reasons given for that were the low pay, lack of advancement opportunities, and a sense that nonprofits are “not well-run businesses.” Time for everybody in nonprofitdom to do another walk of shame.
But hang on. All is not lost.
Polls have shown for some time that disengagement in the U.S. workforce is pervasive, and that half of all employees are actively looking for a new job. So the finding that workers feel comfortable holding tight for five years is no indictment on nonprofits’ ability to attract and retain employees. Nor is the idea that three-quarters of the people who are thinking about leaving their jobs would consider working at a nonprofit. After all, according to some measures by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nonprofit workers earn as much if not more on average than their for-profit brethren.
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