Nonprofit Job Descriptions: The Complete Guide for Success
While your nonprofit likely relies on dedicated volunteers and donors to keep your mission moving forward, the importance of having a talented and passionate paid staff cannot be understated. Your organization’s staff, from your executive director to your social media manager, keeps both your organization’s internal and community-facing operations running smoothly. In other words, they help lead the charge on your mission, carry out your fundraising strategy, and make a great impact on your constituents!
Because your mission relies on talented staff members who excel in their roles, it’s critical to get the hiring process right. The term “hiring” itself might get you thinking about sifting through resumes, conducting interviews, and reference-checking, but there’s another, often-overlooked step in the hiring process that lays the foundation for finding (and retaining!) excellent workers: writing strong nonprofit job descriptions.
A job description is a written document that describes the responsibilities of and qualifications for a paid role in an organization. Job descriptions give a candidate everything they need to know about a job before applying to it. They also help your organization set expectations for incoming staff members and monitor performance throughout a staff member’s tenure at your organization. But it isn’t enough to simply jot down a vague description of duties and create a short list of required qualifications. In order to find the best possible candidates, your nonprofit has to put its best foot forward by crafting thorough and informative job descriptions that can guide the rest of the hiring and employment experience for everyone involved.
That’s where this guide comes in. In it, we’ll walk you through the nitty-gritty of nonprofit job descriptions and set you up to create your own! Specifically, we’ll cover the following:
Whether your nonprofit is expanding from just a few volunteers and hiring for the first time or you’re looking to add to an already well-established team, this guide can help you master the art of writing nonprofit job descriptions. Let’s begin!
Nonprofit Job Descriptions: How They Help You Hire The Best
A job description is more than a quickly drawn-up “help wanted” advertisement that is just a means to an end. When written well, a nonprofit job description can be a guiding document for both the leaders of your nonprofit and the employee who is hired to work under those leaders. Let’s dig into how job descriptions benefit both prospective employees and your nonprofit.
Benefits of a Well-Written Job Description: For Job Seekers
Picture yourself as a prospective employee. What would you need to know before applying to a role at your organization? What would you like your organization to be clear about upfront? How could a job description help you understand what was expected of you and how to excel in your position?
It’s easy to get wrapped up in thinking about nonprofit job descriptions from the employer perspective, but taking the time to think through these questions can help you understand why job descriptions need to be thorough and clear. A well-written job description for prospective (and current!) employees:
Clearly states what the responsibilities of and qualifications for a role are. Job descriptions provide clarity about what qualifications an employee needs to have and the duties an employee will perform. This will help the right job seekers find your organization’s open position. The description will also help prospective employees understand how their role fits into the hierarchy and reporting order of your organization and establish the boundaries of that role.
Establishes expectations and parameters for ongoing performance management. Laying bare how a new employee’s success will be measured will help them get started off on the right foot and perform to the best of their abilities. When employees can return to their job description after being hired, they can monitor their own progress and set new personal performance goals to keep providing value to your nonprofit.
Provides context for compensation. From salary to benefits, employees need to know what their compensation looks like and how their earnings are measured. Providing clear information about compensation can help justify the amount of responsibility you ask your employees to take on and provide a baseline when considering future compensation changes.
Benefits of a Well-Written Job Description: For Employers
Job descriptions aren’t just for prospective employees. They’re also important documents that can help your nonprofit stay organized, work toward growth, and be a great place to work. Let’s look at the specific benefits of a well-written job description for nonprofit employers:
Protects your nonprofit from legal liability. A thorough description will include non-discriminatory criteria, which can be a defense for your organization to provide justification for why someone is or isn’t hired for the job. Job descriptions also justify what compensation an employee is entitled to and why, and can also help you support an employee’s exempt classification (see the Fair Labor Standards Act for more information).
Creates an understanding of organizational structure that can guide how the nonprofit will continue to grow. Knowing where a new employee will fit into your current operations is essential for providing a positive employment experience not just for the new employee, but for everyone they will report to or interact with.
Helps guide training, activities, and performance management for each role. Recording everything an employee will be responsible for and what they are expected to learn in order to do their job will help managers know how to best onboard and train employees. Plus, a job description can be a guiding document for measuring employee effectiveness and success come performance review season as you measure an employee’s actual performance against the expectations laid out in the job description.
A nonprofit job description is something to be taken seriously, as it provides a wealth of information, clear expectations, and even legal protection to both nonprofit employees and employers. Now that you understand the benefits of writing thorough and clear nonprofit job descriptions, let’s jump into the “how” of writing them.
How to Write a Nonprofit Job Description: 10 Elements to Include
Whether your team or a third-party consultant will be creating the job description for the role you need to hire for, knowing what to include in a job description is critical for creating a useful tool for prospective employees and your current team. In this section, we’ll describe the 10 elements you should include in each job description and how to make each element clear, informative, and useful.
1. Job Title
The job title will typically be the first thing a prospective employee will look at when they see your job listing, and you want the title of the job to be as specific as possible to your organization and the nonprofit sector. You should also optimize your job titles for search engines, since job seekers will Google certain terms to find positions they’re interested in.
This means, according to Connecteam, that the job title you choose should be based around fundraising planning, planning programming, connecting with constituents, securing donations, creating events, and other projects related to furthering your organization’s mission. However, you have to balance being generic so that top talent with relevant qualifications and experience will be able to easily find the job listing and description, even if they’re coming from the for-profit world. Let’s take a look at some common types of nonprofit job titles that you might use for your job description:
C-suite titles: chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO)
Director titles: executive director, development director, major gift director, planned giving director
Administrative titles: nonprofit project coordinator, compliance coordinator, volunteer manager, public relations manager
Marketing and communication titles: director of communications, community outreach coordinator, grant proposal writer, fundraising coordinator, campaign manager
Human resources titles: human resources officers, policy analyst, social worker
This is by no means a comprehensive list of all possible job titles or roles a nonprofit might have, but it should give you an idea of how to phrase different job titles in different positions or areas of expertise in your organization.
If you’re tempted to forego the process of carefully choosing a job title for the position you’re hiring for, think again! A carefully-chosen job title can:
Help your nonprofit maintain a clear organizational structure and understand how the job you’re hiring for fits into that structure
Give prospective employees a clear idea of how they may be able to progress in the role
Empower new employees to take on authority and confidence in their new duties
Taking the time to really nail down the title of a role can set the tone for the rest of your job description and the hiring and employment experience. Choose your titles carefully!
2. Intro Paragraph
The intro paragraph should be a few sentences describing your nonprofit’s mission and vision, work culture, and need for the role in question. Think of it as an elevator pitch for the role. Your intro paragraph should catch top candidates’ eyes and get them interested in learning more and applying while remaining concise. Too much to read may drive some candidates away from reading the rest of the job description, even if they would be a great fit for the job.
There are a variety of ways to approach the intro paragraph in your nonprofit job description. Here are a few of our favorite strategies:
Start with your mission. By leading with your mission, you’re communicating that your work is what you’re all about. Try opening your intro paragraph with a sentence like, “At PetsFurEver, we’re passionate about connecting shelter animals with loving families.” A sentence like this brings into focus what really matters — your cause! This also gives candidates a chance to see if your cause resonates with their interests and values.
Lead with a rhetorical question. “Are you looking for professional opportunities to educate teenagers about the risks of texting and driving?” Leading with a rhetorical question like this encourages job seekers to immediately engage with your job description and picture themselves working to further your cause.
List the shared qualities or interests your current team has. This strategy can give job seekers an idea of what your nonprofit’s internal culture is like. For example, you might say, “Here at OceansBlue, when we’re not organizing beach cleanups or fundraising campaigns, we’re at the beach. You’ll find us surfing, scuba diving, and enjoying the sun and sand.” This strategy can help you communicate to job seekers what their coworkers might be like and how they could fit into your work environment.
State what you’re looking for right off the bat. If you’re looking to be crystal clear from the get-go, simply start by saying exactly what you’re looking for. This no-frills approach makes it easy for job seekers to know exactly what you’re looking for quickly and to judge if they’re interested in learning more. Here’s an example: “The Akron, Ohio-based Shoes For All team is hiring for a grant writer position and considering highly-qualified candidates who have four to six years of grant writing experience.”
As you consider how to word your intro paragraph, consider your nonprofit’s brand. Do you approach your work with enthusiasm and joyful energy? Or is the nature of your mission one of seriousness and gravity? This will help guide how you should word your intro paragraph and portray your working environment.
3. Mission, Vision, and Values
Some nonprofits dedicate an entire section of a job description to their organization’s mission, vision, and values. This can be especially helpful for job seekers who might not be familiar with your nonprofit and its work, but want to learn whether your cause resonates with them and if they want to be part of it. This is also a proactive way of helping individual job seekers know whether or not they would fit well with your current staff members and overall internal culture.
To write about your mission and vision, rely on what you usually tell donors and volunteers. This should be a quick explanation of what you do, why you do it, and what the end goal of your cause truly is. You can also write about your mission and vision from an insider, role-specific perspective. For example, you might say, “At Tiger Conservation Corps, our team of major gift officers work hard every day to connect with donors, raise awareness about Bengal tiger conservation, and secure support for our programming.”
For your nonprofit’s values, you’ll list the values that guide your staff’s work every day. A list of values allows a job seeker to see if their personal values align with your organization’s. Here are some possible values you might include:
Inclusivity and open-mindedness
Thorough and detailed work
Respect toward and genuine connections with donors and volunteers
Making a difference in the lives of constituents
A section dedicated to your mission, vision, and values can get job seekers excited about your cause and eager to learn how they can be a part of it through the role in question. If you choose to include this section on your nonprofit job description, consider how to talk about your mission and values from an insider perspective and in a way that will get job seekers interested.
4. Duties/Responsibilities
Once you’ve written your intro paragraph and detailed your mission and values, you’ve arrived at the heart of your job description — the portion of your written document where you actually describe the role and the required skills and qualifications. You’ll start by walking through the duties and responsibilities of the role.
With this section, it’s best to list duties and responsibilities in a bulleted list, starting with the most essential or time-consuming parts of the job. For example, if your nonprofit wants grant writers to pitch in for your biggest annual fundraising campaign but expects they’ll spend a majority of their time writing proposals, the first bullets should be writing-focused, with a mention of ad hoc fundraising responsibilities and duties at the end of the list.
Here are some additional tips for creating a solid list of duties and responsibilities:
Lead with action verbs. Each bullet point should begin with an action word, like develop, oversee, supervise, coordinate, approve, or ensure. This will help you get to the main idea of each responsibility or duty faster, thereby providing job seekers with more clarity and keeping your list concise.
Provide a percentage that indicates each task’s importance. Explain, for example, that one task will take up 70% of a prospective employee’s time while a less important task will only take up 15% of their time. This provides job seekers an easy way to visualize what they would be responsible for if they get the job.
Keep the list of duties and responsibilities brief. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm job seekers with every nitty-gritty part of the job they’re interested in before they’re even hired! Keep your list general enough that smaller responsibilities fit into one bullet point. For example, for a grant writer, “Write 8-10 grant proposals a month” could also indicate that planning, editing, and revising are part of that writing process.
If you’re short on time, focus on the duties and responsibilities section. This is what job seekers will be most interested in if they want to apply for the job. Knowing what they would be doing every day during the workweek is essential for getting people interested!
5. Skills and Competencies
Skills and competencies are the know-how a candidate should be able to bring to the position. If, for example, someone is applying to manage your organization’s social media accounts, they should know how to use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and other major social media platforms. Like duties and responsibilities, skills and competencies should be listed in a concise, bulleted list. Also, there are clear differences between skills and competencies you should be aware of when writing about the requirements of your job candidate:
Skills: Skills are learned and applied abilities that allow a person to perform their job. These are sometimes referred to as “hard skills” and are specific and able to be verified with specific evidence, like experience or a degree, certificate, or course. Here are a few examples of skills:
Proficiency in Google Workspace
Literate in Spanish
Typing speed of at least 40 WPM
Certified in CPR
Well-versed in HTML coding
Competencies: Competencies are the traits, attitudes, behaviors, and characteristics a job candidate needs to have to perform their job successfully. These are sometimes referred to as “soft skills” and aren’t as simple to quantify as skills. Here are a few examples of competencies:
Adept at communication
Creative problem solving
Able to lead a team
Self-starter
Attention to detail
By listing specific skills and competencies that you’re looking for in a job candidate, you can find the right person for the job faster. A specific list will give job candidates a clear picture of the type of person you’re looking for and the knowledge they need to succeed in the role you’re hiring for. As you design your list of skills and competencies, it may be helpful to sit down with staff members who are currently performing the role you’re hiring for and get their perspective on the knowledge and abilities they use in their everyday work.
6. Qualifications and Experiential Requirements
The qualifications and experiential requirements section goes hand-in-hand with the skills and competencies section of a nonprofit job description. In this section, you list the experiences and qualifications that a job candidate should have to back up their skills and competencies. While there are a variety of ways a person can gain relevant experience for a job, you’ll want to once again be specific in what you believe prepares someone to succeed in the position. There are three categories of these requirements you might pull from for your description:
Education: Education includes everything from a high school diploma or GED to an undergraduate or graduate degree. It can also include vocational or trade milestones like certifications and licenses.
Workplace Experience: Workplace experience includes any relevant paid positions that are similar to the position you’re hiring for.
Volunteer Experience: Paid workplace experiences aren’t the only way to develop expertise. Be sure to list any volunteering expectations or requirements your nonprofit has for the job, as well.
Depending on your nonprofit’s needs and internal culture, it may be helpful to include a note at the end of the qualifications and experiential requirements section that lets job seekers know that you’re willing to consider candidates with similar or alternative qualifications and experiences. Even using the phrase “Preferred Qualifications” can indicate that you’re flexible about different types of experiences. This will leave the door open to qualified candidates who may not seem “by the book” at first glance, but could still be assets to your nonprofit. For example, someone applying to be your volunteer manager might not have volunteer management experience but might have been a middle school teacher for 10 years. The skills that this candidate developed while teaching could translate well to the volunteer manager position.
7. Relationships
The relationships section is important for helping job candidates know how the role in question fits into the larger organizational structure of your nonprofit. This is an important section for leaders at your nonprofit, too, who can use a position’s job description to conceptualize how your nonprofit might evolve as it grows and more people join your team.
In this section, note who the staff member will:
Be training with
Report to after being fully onboarded at your nonprofit
Report to for annual performance reviews
Be responsible for hiring, managing, disciplining, terminating, training, and evaluating, if applicable
8. Salary and Benefits
This section is your chance to list what compensation you provide to your staff members in return for their dedication and work. This section will also justify the responsibilities and duties you require of the person who will assume the role. Here is what you’ll need to include:
Salary or Hourly Compensation (and Additional Financial Compensation): Clearly state the compensation for the position and the pay schedule. If the position is salaried, it may be more beneficial to list a salary range in your job description. This gives you a chance to show that you’re willing to negotiate salary in order to recruit top talent. Also, if your nonprofit offers annual bonuses or commissions, list that as well.
Insurance: Include information about health insurance (including dental and vision, if applicable) or any insurance stipends your nonprofit might pay out to those who choose not to enroll in your organization’s offered plans.
Retirement Plan: List whether or not your nonprofit provides 401(k) matching.
Paid Time Off: Job seekers will also want to know how much vacation time, sick time, and bereavement time you offer.
Other Perks: Perhaps your nonprofit provides every employee with two free tickets to your annual gala, or a new work laptop. Listing these unique perks can help you stand out.
9. Work Hours and Work Setting
In this section, list the expected hours for the position. For example, you might specify that a social media manager is expected to work 40 hours a week, Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. Be specific about the work setting, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as working from home is becoming the norm. Let job seekers know if the position will be remote, hybrid, or fully in-person. This information can affect their decision to apply.
10. Call to Action and Application Materials
Once a job seeker has read through your job description and is interested in applying for the open position, you want them to be able to quickly take action. This will be hard for a job seeker to do if you don’t provide the right information. End your job description by encouraging interested people to reach out to your HR department, Board of Directors, or to apply on your website. It’s also helpful to include information about what you expect to see in the application, such as a cover letter and resume and any relevant portfolios or transcripts.
Nonprofit Job Descriptions: Tips for Equitable Hiring
An inclusive, equitable, and fair hiring process starts with writing an inclusive, equitable, and fair nonprofit job description. This is something that a majority of job seekers will be looking for. In fact, according to Glassdoor, 76% of job seekers and employees say a diverse workforce is important for evaluating organizations and job offers. In addition, the Glassdoor team goes on to say, “This means that, whether or not your company is interested in increasing its diversity, most candidates are nevertheless evaluating diversity when they research your company and during the interview process.” That process includes looking through your job descriptions.
But where do you begin when it comes to championing diversity in a job description? Here are three tips to help you get started:
1. User gender-neutral terms.
Ensure your job description doesn’t include terms such as he, his, her, or hers. Even unintentional use of gendered pronouns can signal bias to job seekers who don’t identify with those pronouns. In addition, be mindful of female and male-coded words. Some words simply have different meanings to different audiences and can hint at gendered stereotypes. According to Monster.com, some female-coded words include “agree, empath, sensitive, affectionate, and feel,” and some male-coded words include “aggressive, confident, fearless, ambitious, and decisive.” These words can isolate those who feel their lived experiences don’t align with those terms and who see these terms as inherently indicating your open position is meant for a specific gender.
2. Remove racial biases.
Some language can also leave a job description looking racially biased, even if it’s unintentional. For example, a requirement like “fluent in English” may deter non-native English speakers from applying to the open position. Likewise, requiring a degree from a “top U.S. university” could also alienate some candidates who haven’t had the same experiences as more privileged or U.S.-native job seekers. Be conscious of the racial makeup of your current staff and the privilege White staff members might experience. Think of ways to word requirements, responsibilities, and values in a way that communicates your organization wants to work with people from all backgrounds.
3. Consider people with disabilities.
There may be some job seekers who would be perfect for your open position but who are disabled and need reasonable accommodations to perform the required duties and responsibilities. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, most employers are required to provide these accommodations. Communicate on your job description that you’re willing and able to provide reasonable accommodations for anyone who is interested. According to the Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion, you should also describe the work environment an individual will be performing their role in, detailing, for example, whether it’s noisy and bright or dim and quiet. Also give a clear breakdown of requirements for jobs that are physically taxing, such as “Able to lift 15 pounds.”
These tips will help you approach the process of writing a nonprofit job description with an awareness of diversity issues. And when in doubt, don’t be afraid to ask another team member to give you their feedback on a draft of the job description. Another pair of eyes can help eliminate more bias.
Nonprofit Job Description Template
This template can help you get a jumpstart on creating your own nonprofit job description. It combines all of the necessary categories described in the “Elements” section above to give you an idea of what your finished product should look like:
Wrapping Up
Every nonprofit’s recruiting and hiring process will look a little different, but the importance of writing a clear and thorough nonprofit job description cannot be overstated. Job descriptions lay the foundation for a successful employer/employee relationship and help connect your nonprofit with talented individuals who care about your cause and want to help you reach your goals. Use this guide to ensure you include all of the right elements in your own nonprofit job descriptions and are proactively opening the door to equitable and fair hiring.
Ready to learn more about nonprofit hiring or streamlining other aspects of your operations? Check out these additional resources:
Five Tips for Equitable and Efficient Nonprofit Recruitment. Want to learn more about equality in hiring? At Donorly, we’ve been working hard to become an anti-racist, multicultural organization. Read about our own approach and best practices.
Creating a Fundraising Strategy: 12 Steps for Your Nonprofit. Whether you’re experienced in fundraising or not, it can be a challenging part of running a nonprofit. This guide can help you create a sustainable and effective fundraising strategy.
Hiring a Fundraising Consultant: 5 Steps & Top Firms. Some aspects of nonprofit work require the help of an outside hire. Learn how to find the right fundraising consultant.
