People tend to overlook the importance of the experiences you go through in a nonprofit. During my college years, and for some time after, I was an active member (even leader at one point) in one of the most successful nonprofit youth organizations in the world. I won’t name the organization because I don’t want the article to sound like an ad. It’s not about the organization itself, it’s about the usefulness of those unique learning experiences in the business world.
But why would a nonprofit experience even compare to the everyday challenges of a company? It’s not like people get paid in a nonprofit right? Right. That’s precisely why these experiences are so valuable. You have to learn how to motivate others to support your cause, either with money or efforts, without any ROI. People used to say that advertising is the hardest thing to sell, well, try selling social responsibility, or convincing someone else to join you and work for free for a few hours each day, and you’ll see which is more difficult.
An active member of a nonprofit organization has to know how to sell everything the organization has to offer, as well as have the ability to zero in on other people’s interests and find common ground. If you get to that stage however, you develop a valuable set of skills, most of which will help you through your professional career as well. Because my activity revolved more around Marketing and HR, I will go over the most useful things I’ve learned during my journey in the nonprofit world, strategies that I still apply today with great success:
Recruiting
Keep the trends in mind and use them. Some campaigns had huge success, others were not so great, but whenever we based our plan and designs on current trends, we had guaranteed impact. You have to adapt the trend based on your target. If you’re trying to recruit senior CFOs, then you probably should steer clear of a Star Wars influence in your promo campaign. But there’s always a workaround. Keep in mind that a trend is basically already famous. It guarantees attention.
Get to the feeling part of the brain, rather than the rational part. Try to awaken a feeling of belonging through your campaigns. People will be rational anyway when they make a career choice, but if you manage to motivate someone to apply not just for the responsibilities and benefits, then you’ll get dedication.
Let them meet you. If you can’t organize an Open Day for the applicants, then make sure your online presence is rich and genuine. Promote everyday team activities, as well as employee events that happen outside the workplace. This reinforces the feeling of belonging that will get you consistent and dedicated employees – who will turn into brand ambassadors.
Interview and selection
They’ve heard it all before, come up with something completely new. Most of your applicants have been to interviews before, or have at least prepared for them. This means they know most of the standard questions, and already have answers in place for them. You should try to catch your applicants off guard, and get more honest answers out of them. This will give you a better idea of who they really are, and how they will act in critical situations. During my nonprofit experience, my team and I used to build and approve a brand new set of questions before each recruitment, for all the open positions. This way we always had original questions ready for the new applicants.
Look for commitment. One day we had two applicants who applied for the same position. One of them was better prepared, while the other was sort of average, but was so determined that he came at the interview with a burning fever. He didn’t want to reschedule because he thought that way he might lose interview points. They were both accepted. Can you guess which one of them became the more important member in the organization? If your guess was “the one with the fever”, you were correct. The moral of the (true) story is that most of the times someone who shows dedication is more valuable than someone who has great presence on the spot.
Induction
Keep the spirit alive. What you promote to the applicants about your company should always be true. If they find out on their own after they’ve become employees that the company isn’t what you made it to be, they will lose their motivation and won’t be as productive. You will basically get a mediocre employee instead of the excited and dedicated colleague you thought you were getting after the interview. Plan plenty of team activities, especially in the induction phase. You need everyone to start off on the right foot.
Get the newbies in the field. We’ve all been there – during those first few weeks, when you just learn the ropes and that’s about it. As a newcomer people tend to treat you as such – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you also want to feel valuable for the company. That’s what jumpstarts an employee’s motivation and initiative, the sense of importance. A nonprofit teaches you that newcomers can (and should) be focused on practice as much as theory. That’s actually what will motivate them to learn everything about their job even faster.
Even after several years of finishing my nonprofit journey, I still think of how many useful things that experience has thought me. Businesses can learn so much from organizations who have to get straight to the objective, no matter what obstacles they face along the way. One of the mottos we adopted (and I still go by) comes to mind: Obstacles are just opportunities for an individual to shine.
