Report: Finding Leaders for America’s Nonprofits by The Bridgespan Group
Despite tightening budgets, nonprofits foresee a need to fill 24,000 vacant or new roles in 2009, according to the Bridgespan Group report, “Finding Leaders for America’s Nonprofits.” Over 400 U.S. leaders of nonprofits with $1 million or more in revenues were interviewed for the report, which offers perspective on organizations’ hiring needs and plans, what they find most valuable in candidates for senior leadership positions, and more.
Many of those surveyed cited a need to fill roles such as finance and fundraising amid increasing management complexity and baby boomer retirements, yet they foresee challenges in finding candidates who are both qualified for the roles and who are cultural fits with their organizations.
Other key findings include:
- Respondents reported that actual senior job openings in 2008 were running at 77,000, or 43 percent above the leadership gap previously forecast in Bridgespan’s 2006 study, “The Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership Deficit”.
- Twenty-one percent of those hired between June 2007 and December 2008 were “bridgers”—people transitioning into the nonprofit sector for the first time. Only 15 percent went in the reverse direction, indicating a net gain for non-profit organizations relative to their for-profit counterparts.
- Twenty-five percent of nonprofit leadership vacancies in the past 18 months were filled through career progression, 41 percent through in-sector hiring. Seventy-three percent of the survey’s respondents affirmed they value private sector skills. Yet, despite a tide of corporate layoffs in the managerial ranks, 60 percent of respondents also believe they will face a shortage of qualified candidates.
- Job boards surpassed external networking for first place as a way to reach candidates, with 49 percent of organizations using job boards versus 44 percent using external networking to identify their candidates. Thirty-eight percent of respondents also used general print advertising, but it was reported to be among the least effective tools. While only 13% of the organizations surveyed said they employed search firms, those that did found them highly effective.
Commissioned by American Express, the survey and resulting report explores the nature and dimensions of the evolving nonprofit leadership deficit and looks at how managerial skills from the business sector can boost leadership capacity among nonprofits and ways in which nonprofit organizations are filling their most critical senior leadership roles. Download the PDF version of the full report to learn more.
Click here to download the full report.
Source: The Bridgespan Group
