We have already talked about the importance of the Big Idea and how the first test of whether or not your organisation has a really powerful concept is how many people are drawn to it. The second test is how many are willing to work for submarket wages or even nothing, accepting instead a "psychic" paycheck, to advance your mission.
In my experience, people who work for nonprofits follow a normal distribution: those demanding full market compensation and those willing to volunteer for zero monetary compensation fall at the extremes, while those willing to take equal parts cash and psychic income form that big camel hump in the middle.
Where do you find good people? Or do they find you? While the nonprofit world is vast and the specialisations within it are many, the number of successful organisations within those specialisations is limited. When it comes to attracting talent, word of mouth is still a major factor. The lesson here is to treat your current employees well, whether you view them as long-term prospects or not, because they will be out there talking to your potential future hires about the positives and negatives of their experience at your organisation.
Satisfied employees will also be your ace recruiters. Both of my deputies were brought in by other FINCA employees. But don't leave it to chance: offer a recruiting bonus to your existing employees if someone they refer gets hired and makes it to the six-month mark.
These days, your website is the second most important way to attract new talent, and it's the best investment you can make, both in fundraising and in recruiting. Every candidate I have interviewed in the past several years replied to my opening question, "What interests you about this opportunity?" with: "Well, I visited your website and ... "
A tireless, 24-hour workhorse who lurks in cyberspace like a giant sea anemone, your dot-org casts its tentacles across the globe, pulling in good people and money. Make sure it tells your story as well as any of your best field people can. Furthermore, post videos of your beneficiaries explaining, in their own words, how your organisation has directly helped them.
In the course of your talent hunt, beware of the fake crossover. This is a person who presents an impressive résumé and during the interview tells you that after a long, distinguished (and by the way, very lucrative) career in the for-profit world she wants to give something back. She stays in the recruiting and interviewing process to the very end, sometimes even to the point of accepting your offer. Then she doesn't show up.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Rupert, but my current boss gave me a big raise I just couldn't refuse." Or: "I got another offer that was just too good to turn down."
Congratulations. You just got shopped.
Others, it turns out, are just window shopping like people who look at houses they never intend to live in. Some will even work for you for a while, to avoid a gap on their résumé, until something better comes along. This could be one day (it has happened) or even several years. While this probably happens to every business now and again, for the resources-strapped organisation, this can be especially egregious.
Even for those who seem like they will be dedicated to the organisation's mission, psychic income doesn't work in all cases, or if it does, it can't always overcome the pull of good old-fashioned greenbacks.
To lessen the chances of people bailing, be transparent with your prospective employees at the hiring stage as to what they're signing up for. You don't just need "self-starters": you need "self-finishers" who can do everything in between.
Explain to candidates that the only resources they will have are those they obtain through their own efforts. When and if resources do begin to trickle in, they will never be sufficient to get the job done in the normal meaning of the word done. Be clear that this period of austerity can last a long time in a nonprofit, possibly forever. In the meantime, they will get little or no support from headquarters, because everyone there is underpaid or volunteering as well. If they can work under these conditions, they are either truly committed to the mission or insane.
Once you have them on board, continue to use the mission to retain your best people. But if you use psychic currency to make payroll, don't make the mistake of assuming everyone in the organisation is paid equally. People on the frontlines have the benefit of working shoulder-to-shoulder with the company's beneficiaries and seeing the impact of their work. A FINCA employee once summed up the impact of our work as "the smiles on the faces of the women". Having a FINCA client grip your hand, look you in the eye, and say "God bless you!" can be worth a lot more than the biweekly credit to your bank account.
The folks who toil in the boiler room at headquarters, however, are not so fortunate. It can be difficult to feel the reward when you aren't seeing it firsthand. To help share the wealth, try to move people between headquarters and the frontlines as much as you can, even if it's only as a tourist. In an international organisation, this can be expensive, and you'll think you can't afford it, but just watch the productivity of that person soar. Watch the morale in the back office rise as she relates her experience to the rest of the team.
If you can't bring the people to the field, bring the field to the staff. Profile a successful client or beneficiary at the monthly staff meeting. Use pictures, video and personal testimonials. People from the field probably come through headquarters all the time for different reasons. When they do, grab them and corral them into a brown bag lunch to relate stories from the front. Make your work come alive for those who also serve, or wait, on the home front.
Bottom line: Your mission is, literally, worth money. In the long run, it will save you millions, because people who want to participate in accomplishing your mission, and feel that they will be effective and appreciated, will come to work for you at a deep discount. Other people will give you their valuable time and expertise for free. Use it. But take good care of that halo you have built around the organisation's head: if you tarnish it, all that good can disappear overnight.
The mission is the glue that will help you retain your best employees. It serves as the Teflon to ward off appeals from their former employers who, if your new hires are good, will keep in touch with them, asking every six months if they aren't tired of the nonprofit thing and want to come back and earn some real money.
What if these new hires succumb to their former bosses' siren songs? I don't know a single manager who doesn't view the departure of a key employee as the rankest of betrayals. Bite your tongue. Give the traitor a big send-off. Celebrate his contribution. After he discovers the grass wasn't actually greener back in his old job, maybe he'll come back. Many have returned to FINCA over the years.
Rupert Scofield is president of Finca International, a microfinance organisation with a loan portfolio of more than $300m (£183m). He has experience as a social entrepreneur in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East
© Social Entrepreneur's Handbook: How to Start, Build, and Run by Rupert Scofield published by Mcgraw-Hill at £19.99. To order a copy for the special price of £15.99, including UK p&p, click here or call 0330 333 6846
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