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Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
Your Retention Starts with Your Recruitment Process
00:30:10
In today’s episode, Rob Harter is joined by Mariya Yurukova, founder of Charity Search Group (CSG), to discuss the essential connection between recruitment and ...
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- [00:02]
Dr. Rob Harder
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the nonprofit leadership podcast, Making youg World Better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All of these reasons combined led me to start this show. And it's my hope that through this series, people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are successful successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better. Welcome to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Well, we have another guest to talk about retention and recruitment. I know, I know we've had a lot of guests on the show about this issue, but I continue to hear from many of you that are dealing with this literally every day, every week. I mean, this is an ongoing challenge that you're experiencing right now in your nonprofit organization. It's a big deal. And this is nationwide, and this is for all types of nonprofits. Small, medium, large. They're all dealing with this. And so I thought this is very important. And actually, what's nice about having Maria on the show today, she runs an organization called Charity Search Group. And so this is a group that. That's what they do. They help you find the next person that you need on your nonprofit team. And so I think you're gonna really enjoy hearing from Maria and all the different insights she has on the recruitment side. On the one hand, onboarding how important onboarding is, and then, of course, the retention side, some of the facts they found around the retention issue. So, as always, love to have you tuning into the show. Thanks for being here. And now it's time to move on to the show. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox Donor Box, helping you help others with the best donation forms and in the business. Well, Maria, thanks so much for being on the show today.
- [01:58]
Maria
Thank you for having me.
- [01:59]
Dr. Rob Harder
You bet. Well, you have an impressive track record in the nonprofit sector, from raising over $20 million to helping organizations navigate complex leadership transitions. Can you start by sharing just a bit about your background? I always like to have my guests share a bit about what they do, why they do it, and specifically for your organization. What inspired you to help focus your efforts on helping nonprofits find top leadership talent?
- [02:22]
Maria
Yeah. Thank you. That's an interesting question. It always. I find it that if you spend a long time in the nonprofit sector and you talk to other nonprofit professionals, everybody has this shared story of how you fell into it somehow, and it wasn't the original plan. You know, that actually dovetails to some of our talent pipeline issues that we have, because there isn't really a natural talent pipeline for nonprofit professionals, especially if you go back 25 years or so. There wasn't really nonprofit management programs as much and all that. Anyways, I'm digressing. So I fell into it. I think I got a student job where I was working in my college, and I was asking people to support scholarships, I think it was. And there was one particular project about the library that we were raising funds for. And as I was graduating, the library renovation was done, and they had this huge donor wall. And one of the gifts I had solicited, I remember it was like a very memorable. Different name actually ended up being on that wall. And I was like, I made that happen. And that's when things clicked for me, is that I can be that conduit of people' intentions and real change and sort of tangible impact that they could have. And so that's sort of what sparked the interest in the nonprofit sector for me. And I spent like, a good decade and a half fundraising for various projects. And, like, I've done some really cool things in the nonprofit space, where I've raised small donors and mega gifts and anything in. In between. And I've worked on a lot of different projects. One of that has been libraries, whether that's been scholarships and some really cool partnerships and. And sort of different kinds of ideas. But talking to donors is I spent the majority of my career doing. And so when it came to. But what I noticed as a trend even back then is that every time we had a role that we needed to fill in the nonprofit space, the hiring manager always complained. And there was never good people, and it was really difficult to hire. And roles kept on getting vacant more and more. And if you've ever read Penny Burke's, for example, research on if you lose your development person, you're going to lose $70,000 in revenue. And I think that that number is probably 20 years old now. So with inflation and money, it's high, right? So that was just building up on it. And I was like, well, okay. Well, I got also lucky to be able to manage a whole bunch of people. And so I was like, well, I can combine my passion for fundraisers and my leadership skills into helping organizations hire better, right? Like, let's go find these people and like, let's help people see the opportunity of folks. And I think that's sort of where I contacted A recruiter that had been working with on a role I didn't end up getting. And I think this is one of those stories of where not everything that doesn't work out necessarily means it's a failure, sometimes comes back as a boomerang, and it works out really great for something else. And so I was like, hey, do you need help? I kind of, I know fundraising and I like hiring. I can help you find people. He's like, funny you ask. I was just thinking. And so I ended up doing a lot of work in the nonprofit space where I was helping organizations find folks, right. And then one thing led to another, and then I. I started my own company. And I think what really drove me was the fact that it gave me an opportunity to impact multiple organizations all at the same time. Because as a fundraiser, I could only raise money for one organization I'm working with. But as a recruiter, I can find 10 development directors or 10 executive directors to advance 10 different missions. And then I don't have to just care about education. I could also care about healthcare and women's health and the local pet shelter, a circus school, and a whole bunch of other things. And so that's sort of what. What excited me and, and got me into this in this world and what we do. And I think what makes us different is that we specialize in small to medium sized nonprofits. So when I say small to medium size and, and I talk to some really small folks, some of our clients are sort of have a budget of a million dollars or less. Some of our clients have budgets of 50 million and they still consider themselves small organizations. Somewhere in between is where we do a lot of our work for two reasons. One, because they don't always have the household brand names of like a St. Jude's for example, or something that everybody has always dreamt of working at. Right. And that's one. And then the second one is their HR departments are not set up to do hiring so often that they know really what they're looking for. Like, I talk to lots of HR folks who have never done fundraising and have like one role a year to fill. Right. And so trying to get that learning curve going every time, it's a lot of resources for an organization. And we can come in with all of the knowledge that we bring, do what we need to do and get out and let the HR people and the hiring managers do what they need to do in the meantime.
- [06:58]
Dr. Rob Harder
Now, I've had several guests on the show to talk about recruitment and retention. These are Huge issues right now. So when it comes to the recruitment landscape, maybe there's two parts to this question. How have you seen that recruitment landscape evolve for nonprofits in recent years and particularly since COVID and the great resident designation, what are some of the biggest challenge that we are all facing now in the non profit sector?
- [07:20]
Maria
So. So I think that things have really shifted. I was talking to my team yesterday and I said, you know, every year this time of year I make this, you know, 10 predictions for what the talent recruitment space is going to look like next year. And every like three years in a row now I've talked about this whole hybrid versus remote versus on site thing. And every year I say it's going to resolve itself next year and then it doesn't. And it's. I think it's really shifted. There's a lot of burnout in our industry and people are just not willing to stick with the job. So many times they're not leaving for another role, they're just leaving, leaving the sector or taking a break. Like we're seeing a lot of that and it took a little bit of time to show itself on people's resumes and whatnot. But on a practical sense, I think what's happened is, particularly post Covid, we had a whole bunch of organizations that scaled because their need, the needs for their services just blew up. Like think mental health space, right? Like, there's so many community organizations that are in that space. There was also, and this is one of those things that, you know, if we look at how nonprofits are funded, like, I appreciate a sort of a large gift that comes out of nowhere, but sometimes that also is like the flavor of the week. So whatever folks really wanted to invest in, like it created a whole bunch of opportunities for some organizations, feast or famine, right? And so what we're seeing a lot of now is just growing pains and folks trying to scale and figure out how to go a little bit higher and scale their services or their fundraising efforts and whatnot. And so when you have that much change, guess what? Humans are not great at it. Like, we hate that. Having to constantly be at a trying something new. And we just came out of a pandemic where we had to learn how to be at home and work at the same time. And now you're telling us we have to get back to the office and learn that again. It just goes on and on, right? So there's a little bit of crankiness happening where people are just not tolerating a whole bunch of change all the time, which would have happened anyways. On the plus side, I think there's also a lot of opportunities. A lot of small nonprofits are doing some incredible work and they've gotten some funding to be able to do more of it and scale it. And I think that's where they now have. There's just more opportunities, especially at the executive director level. Like if you want to be an executive director of a small nonprofit that has a very, a niche mission, I would say there's lots of opportunities out there because their founding directors are retiring, for example, or they started as a founder, now the founder is ready to step back and they want a full time executive director on staff. And like so it's just going on and on. So that's where there's just more opportunities than there were five years ago, which then the ripple effect of that is we don't have enough talent to fill those opportunities. So there's people who can be choosier about some of the roles and that impacts retention and that impacts compensation and a whole bunch of other things too.
- [10:10]
Dr. Rob Harder
Okay, so the other side of this, as we talk about recruitment. Well, retention is such a huge topic, right. We talked before the show just about how important this is and how many nonprofits are dealing with it right now. And it wasn't just because of the great resignation. This has been an issue that nonprofits have been dealing with for a while. But you also add the high cost of living, inflation, all these things have contributed to what I would say almost now is a near crisis in many nonprofit organizations where we're just losing so many staff. And as mentioned, people are leaving not just their job, but they're leaving the sector altogether and going into a for profit job or sometimes just taking a break. So in your opinion, from your experience, why are we having such a hard time keeping people at our non profits?
- [10:54]
Maria
So I mean, okay, personal example I can give you, that was a few months ago, A long story short, I saw my first job out of university that was in fundraising, posted again, right. And I was like, well, let me see what it pays now because I accept specifically remember exactly how much money I was making in my first job, right? And it came down to it had grown over, you know, two decades at 2% annually, right? Like the very standard step salary increase type of thing. The reality however, is that the market rate for that role had actually gone up a lot higher than that, more like five or seven. And so here you have a role that if I had stayed in it, let's say, and it doesn't have to be 20 years. You can make that same argument with three or four or five. Right. I would have been growing at 2% a year and the market would have been growing at 5% a year. And so I'm incentivized to leave because I will make more money down the street than I would if I stayed. Right. And so when my clients and my candidates, when we're negotiating an offer, my question is not just like, how much are we putting an offer out for, for this particular rule? My question is, and when is this salary being revisited? Is it six months down the road? Is it 12? How are we incentivizing this? Are there performance based bonuses? Are there retention bonuses? What's the growth trajectory for this role? Because it's not about how much are you going to make in your next role when you get the offer. It's more like, are you going to be able to grow in it? Right. And not just sort of reinvest in professional development. That's great. But what does that look like financially? I think that that's really important and that's sort of where a lot of the grumblings and unhappiness that causes people to leave jobs is when they just feel constantly like they're underpaid and they're asked to do. The other thing that happens is, well, so okay, you leave your job and now it's going to take me six to nine months to fill that. And what happens to your colleague that was sitting next to you is now they're doing two people's job, getting paid for one and getting burnt out at the same time. So guess what happens? They leave too. Right. And so then we just kind of perpetuate the problem. So that's the other piece that we constantly see. And so, for example, when I work on executive search and we sometimes would have an internal candidate, and my advice to a lot of my clients is make that internal candidate interim for six or 12 months and see how they do in the job. If you think that they have a potential, that's very low risk for the organization to carry. But if you're going to do that and you want to set them up for success, think about how you're going to backfill their job. Because the point is not for them to do two people's jobs and then not be good enough in either one. Right. So that's, I think, is how we also have to think about retention. It's not just about the person that's leaving. It's also who else around them is going to get impacted by that? And then the third one that I think is really important, and I understand it could ruffle some feathers when I say this, but we don't invest enough in leadership and management training and nonprofit managers. Your and I have spoken to many C suite candidates who will tell you they've never hired an executive coach. They've never had an opportunity to work on management skills. And I, from my personal experience, will tell you even though I was managing lots of people, I can easily get approved to go to a fundraising conference that will get me to meet my goal faster or make larger gifts. But if I had said that I want to go to a conference on staff management and emotional intelligence, I don't know if it's the same thing. Right? So I think we just don't invest enough in being good managers and then that I think trickles down to staff.
- [14:26]
Dr. Rob Harder
Well, this is so important to talk again about the retention and recruitment side, both sides to this. And another thing that you really highlight in your work there at CSG is within the recruitment process is specifically ensuring that equity, diversity and inclusion are woven into every step of the recruiting process. So talk about that. How do you make sure that happens with the nonprofits you work with?
- [14:47]
Maria
So I'm very fortunate to have a team that represents a broad range of different lived experiences and communities, and many of them are experts in the DEI space themselves. And I think what's really important is that, like, our role is to ask the questions. We cannot possibly all have the answers, but it's really important that we ask the questions. And so when an organization comes to me, as they did yesterday, I believe, and they said, you know, we need to hire a new executive director, it's really important that this person represents the community that we serve. And we are in a very diverse community. I hear that, like, every week. And my first question is, okay, so what does the board look like? Is your board representative? Because we're not going to put a person of color, for example, to report to an entirely white board and then set them up for success. Like, how, how much cultural awareness do you have as a board and how ready are you for that hire? Have you done any DEI training, for example, like unconscious bias training? Like, have you external consultants and like, how are you? What kind of connection do you have to the community already? What, how diverse is your staff? And like, all of these, how diverse is your donor pool? Etc? So before we even get to the hiring part of the person, we want to make sure that we're going to set somebody up for success and the organization is ready for this person. So that's, that's one aspect of it. And then you break every part of the recruitment process down and make sure that there is somebody in the room. And that's usually my search consultant. Be like, well, what about this? Have we thought about that? So to give you an example, we would look at a job description and say, okay, does it have enough call in language? Because putting at the bottom of your job description that says organization, XYZ is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome people from blah, blah, blah. That's not helpful. That is not how we do calling language. If you don't know your values and if you don't, if you can't appreciate lived experience the same way that you appreciate someone's fundraising results, we're not going to get very far. So that's step one, right? Step two is how can we be proactive in the outreach that we do? And so like I do, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, for example, and LinkedIn is really interesting. So like a funny part about diversity on the opposite end of the spectrum, when I do sourcing for a role and like, I'm like, I've created a pool of 150 people I want to reach out to and be like, hey, here's a, here's a potential job for you. Right? LinkedIn inevitably would send me this little message that says, hey, by the way, we noticed you pool is primarily female. Do you want to reach out to more guys? Because race is primarily female. And so, but that is, that is how LinkedIn recruiters thinks of diversity, by the way. But anyways, jokes aside, so I think it's really who you reach out to from the get go I think is really important, but also understanding sometimes, well, are you creating a job description that has systemic bias in it? So like, are we really stacking on so many credentials and so much experience? Like, are we looking for unicorns? Because that's not helpful. Whenever I talk to boards, the first thing I ask is, okay, I know you're going to give me a checklist of 10 or 20 things you want this person to be doing. What are you willing to compromise on? And then it gets like quiet. And so that's when we think through these things. Then you have to support the candidate and the board or whatever the search committee and hiring manager looks like to create as bias free of a recruitment process as you possibly can. So, so there's that and then sort of work through every stage of that process. And then you need to make sure that the organization is actually ready to onboard this person properly. And I think, you know, if going back to retention, NDI or anything else that you're trying to do differently about hiring, it goes back to not just hiring the right person, but are we actually going to onboard them? Because I will tell you, nine times out of 10 it's onboarding is an afterthought and folks are like, well, the person. By the time I started, the person had already been gone for three months and there was no one in the organization to tell me I had to go and find out all these things. Right? That's not that piece doesn't make people feel good about the job that they're going to have.
- [18:45]
Dr. Rob Harder
We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to boost your nonprofits donations? Look no further than DonorBox, the online fundraising platform that streamlines your fundraising efforts, maximizes donations, and simplifies giving for your supporters. With Donorbox, you can create beautiful donation forms, accept digital wallet payments, track donations, and send auto receipts. And the best part? There are no setup or monthly fees and no long term contracts required. So what are you waiting for? Visit donorbox.org today to get started. That is donorbox.org hey friends, thanks so much for listening to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Many of you know that I provide leadership and life coaching. With my 30 years of nonprofit experience, I know firsthand how hard leaders like you work. I also know how important it is to have someone you can call on and to get help with the barriers and leadership challenges you will face both professionally and personally. I really want to help people thrive and become all they were meant to become by providing coaching and consulting services. And it's been so much fun working as a coach, working with clients who are leaders just like you, looking to grow personally and professionally. What you may not know is that I also provide consulting services currently. In fact, I'm working with an organization to help them create a clear strategy and plan to raise $3.5 million to expand their organization. So perhaps you're an executive director and you sense your organization has hit a lid on growth and you need a strategy as to how you can scale your nonprofit. Or perhaps the culture you set out to create is not the culture you have currently and it's impacting your staff retention. Or maybe you're facing a major resource challenge and you don't know what to do. That's where I can help. I come alongside leaders and organizations to create strategies to grow their organizations and maximize their impact. If your nonprofit needs help with fundraising strategy or operational effectiveness, reach out today. You can simply email me@robparter.com you can go to my website robharder.com or you can call me 435-776-5173. I would be happy to provide a free sample coaching session or a consult to see how I can best be of help to you and your organization. Well, thanks again for listening. Now back to the show. Well, I know a lot of the things that you do when you do your work is collaborating with other organizations. And I know for any non profit that's so critical is to collaborate well with others. So when it comes to working with others in collaboration, what types of organizations do you typically partner with to make a meaningful impact in the non profit sector?
- [21:30]
Maria
Yeah, I mean, so we work nationally, right. And we do a lot of work on the east coast. We do a lot of work on the west coast. And then we've done work in 25 different states. And so we've spend, you know, quite a bit of time in a place like Texas that is booming with nonprofit organizations that are scaling. And also lots of our national partners that are looking to have regional representation would go to a place like Texas. But not just Texas, Arizona is another one, and so many more. But I think that what all of our clients have in common is the fact that they're very well aligned with the missions. Their mission is very well aligned with our values. So our team is really, I mean, every client that we have, we actually miss them when we're done talking to them and like we've finished like, hey, by the way, like we get into a groove of talking to you every other week and now all of a sudden we don't anymore. But we really care about their missions. And I'm very fortunate that 60 to 70% of our searches are repeat clients. So like we tend to stay with an organization. And you know, there's one particular one where it's been sort of the, the hire becomes the hiring manager and then the hire of the hiring manager becomes another hiring manager. And like, I love that and I think that so mission alignment is really important to us. The other part of this is we want to work with organizations that are somewhat overlooked or are easily intimidated by large search firms. So sometimes they feel like they don't have the budget and they're a little bit intimidated. And sometimes honestly their roles are such that are a little bit trickier. And a large busy firm may not have the time and resources to dedicate to them. And so this is where sort of the local arts center is our, like, a favorite client of ours. Right. Those kinds of small, small teams and small shops that need a lot of help. And they. Their boards have never hired an executive director before, for example, or something like that. That's where we come in. The last other part of this is work that's really important to me and to my team is for us to be able to advance our organizations that are bring about a more diverse nonprofit sector broadly. And so a lot of the work that we do is with marginalized communities where looking for fundraisers that intersect their cultural background and cultural awareness with the work that they need to do is where we come in. And so being able to make fundraising professionals who may not necessarily have worked in their communities be seen and be sought after by a recruiter the way you normally would be, is really important to us. And so sometimes we help bridge that gap as well.
- [24:05]
Dr. Rob Harder
Well, when it comes to the future of nonprofit leadership, what would you say when it comes to board leadership, specifically board leadership and board engagement is so critical. It's one of the most critical factors, in fact, in a nonprofit success, especially during a leadership transition. So when it comes to the role a board can play, what is the most important thing for them to know in the recruitment process? How can nonprofit leaders ensure today that their boards are actively engaged and aligned with the organization's goal during these key moments?
- [24:37]
Maria
Yeah, so. So a lot of this rests on the shoulder. The most important job a board has is to hire an executive director or CEO, depending on the. On the organization. That's the most important thing. Right. The funny thing, they most of the time only have to do it once in their term. If they have terms. That's a different questional. And. And so the most important thing they can do is just be present and engage in the process. If you're not there, if you're not engaged in the process and you just want to delegate it, like the worst kind of recruitment, what I've seen is an executive director of 15 or 20 years is about to leave the organization, and they build a board that basically says, oh, you know Judy, she knows what she's doing. We just kind of rubber stamp whatever she wants us to do. All of a sudden Judy says, I want to retire. And they're like, okay, Judy, go find your replacement. And so what do you get? Judy 2.0. Kind of. Is that what the organization needs? Who knows? Is that what the staff wants? Who knows? Right. We see that a lot. So I think being present and showing up is really important. When I talk to boards before we engage with them, I tell them, listen, this is going to take 30 to 40 hours of your time, and I'm grateful that you're going to spend this time volunteering and engaging in the process. But I also need you to plan to be present for it, because the last thing you want is a board member that's not engaged in the process to meet a candidate that's gone through four rounds of interviews, and then they start asking questions that were already figured out three months ago. But the other piece to this, which I think that we need to do a lot more work in, is, so most board members are not nonprofit professionals. And so we as nonprofit professionals have to take the responsibility for educating them. And. And so. But we also got to believe in ourselves a little bit more. Like, we. Just because someone is really successful in running a tech shop, for example, doesn't necessarily mean that they know everything there is to know about running a nonprofit. And we have get out of our own way and understand they're the expert there. This is a new job. Here's how you're going to get trained in it and continue to be developed in it. Here's what your job description is going to look like, and are you meeting expectations or not? Right. If we continue to believe that board members know it all and we just kind of go along with it, that's not going to work. But the other piece of this is there's a power dynamic there that's really important to consider, and I think we don't do enough talk about sort of how people who are not nonprofit professionals view nonprofit professionals. So a typical scenario that always gets me maybe a little bit in trouble is, okay, we need to talk about the compensation of the executive director. And I have a whole bunch of board members sitting there going, but this is a nonprofit role. People should just be passionate about it. My passion doesn't pay a mortgage. And by the way, board member number xyz, like, you make half a million dollars a year, like, you're not the nonprofit professional. So. So that's where I don't actually think that I've ever told someone how much money they make, because I don't most of the time know, but you could tell sometimes where. We can't continue to perpetuate that myth that nonprofit professionals are not as. Should not be as well compensated or should not be as professionalized. Sort of do this off of the goodness of their heart. I think that just diminishes the skill that it takes to. To lead a non.
- [27:55]
Dr. Rob Harder
All right, so for my listeners who maybe are hearing this, and they're like, we need a search firm to help us find the next development person or marketing person or next executive director. How can people get a hold of you and how can they learn more about you and your work at CSG?
- [28:08]
Maria
Yeah, I mean, I live on LinkedIn, so I think following me on LinkedIn, following CSG on LinkedIn not only will tell you what kind of clients we work with and some of the roles that we're looking to fill, but I think I also really take my responsibility seriously when it comes to generating a dialogue and trying to advance the nonprofit profession more broadly. It's not just about getting a hire in this role and whatnot, but I really want to make sure that we're continuing to have these discussions because if we don't talk about it, there's. We're not going to change minds. And sometimes it's the. We're not going to get it right the first time. We're not going to figure it out. But if we continuously keep at it, I think eventually there'll be a breakthrough and we'll. We'll slowly change things. So. So that sort of is some of the content that I generate and some of the questions that I try to pose. And I always like connecting with nonprofit professionals because I'm a fundraiser at heart. I like to talk to people. So I never shy away from anyone that says, hey, can we, you know, talk shop about fundraising strategies? Like we're hiring, for that matter.
- [29:05]
Dr. Rob Harder
Well, Maria, thank you so much again for taking time to be on the show. I can't say enough how important this issue of recruitment and retention are, so thanks for what you're doing to help nonprofits find the talent they need.
- [29:16]
Maria
Thank you.
- [29:18]
Dr. Rob Harder
Hey, friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google podcasts, and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to, like, subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast community, find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website. Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Well, thanks again for listening, and until next time, keep making your world better. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Go to YouTube and look up Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. We'll see you there. This podcast is sponsored by donorbox Donor Box. Helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.