Finding gainful employment in the nonprofit arena is different than landing a job in other industries. At nonprofit interviews, your employer needs to distinguish your job credentials beyond a simple skill set – they need to recognize both your professional potential and your passion for the cause.

If you’re a nonprofit job candidate considering a career change or an NPO major who’s apprehensive of graduating, take these three steps toward landing a job you’ll love.

Laura Gassner Otting, author of Change Your Career – Transitioning to the Non-Profit Sector, nonprofit leaders manage “up, down, and sideways.” Staff must have the ability to juggle the accessibility and needs of donors, partners, coworkers, community members and volunteers – all while delegating responsibility, commanding authority, and exhibiting empathy.

Cultivate and articulate your tech skills

In this down economy, most nonprofits are pinching every penny possible to stay afloat. Almost all nonprofit workers wear many hats in their all-inclusive positions, because downtime just isn’t in the budget anymore. And sure, a new mobile app would be absolutely amazing, but many nonprofits simply cannot afford it. So if you are a job candidate who’s also a tech guru, welcome to the front lines of ideal candidacy. In the months before the interview, try your hand at…

Courtney, a new executive director of a relatively small nonprofit, was anxious to learn as much as possible in order to manage her work. She knew intuitively, as well as through her experience as a mid-level manager in a nonprofit setting that board management would be a key element to her success. So Courtney enrolled in a workshop entitled “Volunteer and Board Development” at the community college nearby, and networked ferociously with her fellow directors.

After the 180-minute workshop and networking, Courtney was completely confused about one seemingly-vital element. “What is the ideal size of my board?” she wondered. Her workshop instructor firmly declared that “best practices” dictated a board of 18-25. A number of her colleagues espoused a smaller board, “no more than twelve,” since “they were the only ones who did any work anyway.” Still others declared, “the sky is the limit as far as number of board members.”

Courtney was aware of many concerns associated with board management. She knew about creating board job descriptions, heard terms like “give, get, or get off,” and knew having an orientation for new board members would be a good idea. But the simple question of optimal size of the board eluded her. So, she decided to weigh the plusses and minuses of her options.

A small board, she determined, would be nimble, easier to recruit, and would take far less of her time. A small board would allow members to meet with less…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

With the recent scarcity of grant funding, excellent program evaluation practices are becoming a distinguishing element of effective and grant-competitive nonprofit organizations. However, studies reveal that most nonprofits still view evaluation as exclusively about program outputs, and they often perceive data gathering as a resource drain and distraction.1 Even those who are eager to conduct evaluations often lack the funding and knowledge to evaluate their programs appropriately.

There are different approaches to evaluating a program. Some organizations gather data such as program expenditures, customer satisfaction or program outputs (e.g., the number of individuals receiving the services, number of trainings provided, number of animals rescued, etc.). However, increasingly nonprofits are moving to the…

Linton Weeks wrote an article on NPR back in 2009 on microvolunteering, and he said it right: we live in a micro world. “What began with microscopes and microbiology has morphed into microeverything.” Twitter is a microblogging platform, Kayla McKinney previously discussed the trend of microgiving, and now there’s microvolunteering.

Microvolunteering is an easy, commitment-free way to give back. Volunteers can choose the projects, causes, and organizations they help, and organizations can potentially get help from numerous volunteers. It can almost be seen as a form of crowdsourcing.

How does it work?

Sparked is a project-based microvolunteering site, where nonprofit organizations “challenge” the Sparked community, and the volunteers then respond. Volunteers may offer suggestions or solutions to the challenge, or they may give a “thumbs up” to other participants’ answers – either option will help the challenging organization get the best possible solution (or solutions) to their challenge.

I am relatively new to the Sparked community, having only been an…

Nonprofits can make a big difference in public schools, but that doesn't mean working with schools is always easy. Long-term partnerships with schools take a significant amount of time, effort, and flexibility to establish. Even hosting a one-time event at a public school can be a challenge. While school administrators appreciate the help from local nonprofits, they're often spread too thin and left with little time to coordinate schedules with your organization and help you execute initiatives. If your nonprofit is thinking about hosting an event at a public school or starting a long-term program in public schools, here's some advice to help you out.

Plan to be self-sufficient

Teachers and administrators have a million things to do each day. While they will often want to help your organization achieve its goals, they may not feasibly be able to provide you with a whole lot of assistance. Because of this, you should plan to be self-sufficient. The programs you establish should be able to run without the help of people who work at those schools. You should be able to come in before, after, or during school hours, and provide your service without interrupting the school's natural flow and schedule.

Get the word out

It'll be difficult to get kids and parents to participate in your public school initiatives without marketing those initiatives first. The more people your…