As everybody has been told for, oh, the last six years, the economy ain’t doing so hot. This, of course, has had multiple stages: Covid part one; the work-from-home crisis; Covid part two (the back to work bust); our president is sunsetting, Democrat edition; our president is sunsetting, fascist edition; our fascist president is wrecking the economy with tariffs; the Artificial Intelligence bubble; Brat Summer withdrawals; our fascist president has started a war for no reason and it is wrecking the global oil market which, as we all know, impacts everything. I’m sure there will be more.
Nonprofits have decided now is the perfect time for getting very, very, very selective with hiring. Precious. Picky. Nasty.
To be clear, this fussiness with hiring is related to the long slow economic slump I just mentioned. The early-Covid flush of money, both from individuals who suddenly had more resources to give and from foundations seemingly committed to standing against Trump 1.0 police brutality and racial inequity, has dried up. Foundations, much like their corporate brethren, have abandoned anything where the letters D, E, and I stand next to each other, let alone taking on massive systems change. As much as the Democratic Party wants to conveniently condescend to its voting base, people are being squeezed more and more–wages are continuing to be outpaced by everyday essentials costing more and more, insurance premiums going up and up, mystery service fees out the ass, and companies charging exorbitant rates for diminished basic offerings. If your dollar is going 5, 8, 10 percent less far than it was a couple years ago, you’re likely going to cut back everywhere, including charitable giving. (In other words: yeah, for some people, it really was about the price of eggs, you dipshits.)
This is leading to very shitty hiring habits. There is now often less money to spare, and rather than go the route of hiring part-time or having a longer-term consultant, many nonprofits are asking their candidates to have more skills than what would be reasonable for the job at hand. Mind you, fewer nonprofits are even accepting that skills are transferrable–if they want major gifts or program direction, you better believe they don’t want anybody who spent years in grant writing or operations, even if common sense could tell you these skills are near-exact matches and most of the learning curve is adapting to a few platforms or protocols. (Which, news flash, you would be doing if you hired someone from an exact background. Not every house uses Salesforce!)
What’s worse is that there is always an unwritten list of actual desired qualifications. Listings that say 5-7 years’ experience for director roles want ten. If a fundraising gig desires seven-figure experience, they’d rather see eight. Having done the same gig twice before? Not enough. Oh you were focused on California? We needed national experience, even if this is a pajamas job that is mostly creative email badgering.
Jobs that would normally cull 200 or 300 applicants last year are now gathering 600, 700, 800. I’ve heard of “holding” emails from hiring managers–“please bear with us as we sort through this massive pile”–which indicate that some director positions are now getting well over 2,000 applicants, and not from delusional one-clickers looking to run 9-figure foundations. We’re talking about low-six-figure positions for sub-10M organizations.
It’s madness and it isn’t going to stop any time soon.
Given this glut of applicants, nonprofits have clearly been following the corporate playbook and saying they want one thing when they really want another. Or, in more economic terms: nonprofits, a field already known for recruiting talent at half their market rate, are actively trying to truly lowball middle and upper-level prospects at a moment where looming precarity gives them the perceived advantage in what little they’re offering.
“Take it or leave it,” they’re saying. “We got a thousand others just like you who will take this without second thought.” And they know most won’t even bother to negotiate.
It used to be common knowledge not to apply downward unless you have a clear reason. Usually, a director shouldn’t be looking at manager or coordinator roles unless they can clearly say why that makes sense for them in that moment–“I’m looking for a role that also allows me to care for my parents” / “I also have a career in the arts and I want a position that lets me continue to work in this field while also having space in my life to do this other passion” / “I worked in development for years and I am interested in pivoting towards more programmatic/operational work.” Put another way: apply for a position that would be the next logical step up. But, given the state of hiring, I wouldn’t be surprised if many more of us aren’t just taking the first place that bothers to call back.
If you are being extremely picky with hiring at your nonprofit, then you need to actually be specific and accurate in what you want in an applicant. Clarity helps. You can either embrace the idea that people usually bring a diversity of skills and experiences to a role, and that most nonprofit positions can honestly be filled with someone who has a college degree, a good calendar, and a lot of ambition. This will get you a lot of applications–but you’ll probably find the Swiss Army Knife-type person you dreamt of. Or, you can have extremely specific requirements, no exceptions, and get a narrow list of people who have had a fairly rigid career path. But you can’t talk a big game about “studies show that yada yada yada, so apply even if you only have most of the qualifications” and then hire a careerist who’s been in the same lane for nearly two decades.
That’s a waste of your time and ours. And it’s pretty fucking stupid.
Your Nonprofit Sucks 
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