World-Changing Work: The Modern Nonprofit Professional’s Experience – Classy

nonprofit

Classy’s World’s Changing Work: The Modern Nonprofit Professional’s Experience Report collected opinions of more than 1,000 nonprofit executives about current difficulties, views and expectations for the future of nonprofit organizations.

Some main findings from this report include:

  • A majority of nonprofit employees are satisfied with their current job at their organization with only 8% of them are not satisfied. Especially employees that have fundraising as the main focus in their job are highly satisfied.
  • More than half of employees who are satisfied at work donate weekly, monthly or yearly to their current organization. If employees are not satisfied with their job, they are less likely to donate to the organization where they work. Executive nonprofit professionals have a higher tendency to donate more than employees who work in programs. Additionally, employees who work with fundraising are also more likely to donate more regularly than those who don’t. 23% of respondents admitted that they’ve never donated to their organization and 3% of them claimed that they never donate to any nonprofit organization.
  • Overhead Costs was ranked as the top concerns for nonprofits by more than half of professionals, followed by donor retention and an increase in employee compensations. On the other hand, employee salary was considered to be the top personal concern for nonprofit professionals, followed by donor retention and overheads costs.
  • When asked about their opinions for the most important investment priorities, nearly half of respondents identified alignment between leadership and employee as the key priority, while some others think their organization should also prioritize advanced technology, recruitment and online fundraising.
  • 84% of nonprofit professionals feel that they are aligned with their organization’s leadership vision. Employees who are satisfied with their job also think that they are aligned with leadership vision while 40% of people who are not satisfied in their role don’t feel the same. IT, executive leadership and development departments rate their alignment with leadership higher compared to those in programs or marketing departments.
  • It appears that nonprofit professionals often seek inspiration for improving organizational effectiveness ideas from other nonprofit organizations or their friends working at other organizations. Not many of them turn to other for-profit organizations or friends and family for this.
  • Nonprofit industry news is most commonly obtained through colleagues, social media and industry conferences. However, 12% of professionals admitted that they don’t read industry news.
  • Most nonprofit executives are not confident about their organization’s level of advanced technology adoption. Employees from bigger organizations seem to be more positive about technology leveraging at their organizations compared to those working at small nonprofits. People who work in IT departments are most confident about technology in their organizations compared to those in leadership or marketing.
  • Social media, worth of mouth and email is not surprisingly the most commonly used marketing channels at nonprofits, with more than half of traffic to campaigns and fundraising events come from these platforms.
  • While in 2018, online individual donations, mail-in individual donation and major donors donations are the most common fundraising approach, in 2019, nonprofit executives will put more focus on website donations, fundraising event campaigns and social media.

Full report here.