We just received a keyword research report from the company who is helping us redesign our website and one of the search terms for our industry that stood out to me was “I hate working for a nonprofit.”
It’s not even a search really. It’s just a statement: I hate working for a nonprofit. Like they just wanted someone out there to know even if that someone was Google.
Hopefully none of your staff are using Google to vent to, but just in case, let’s talk about some ways to hang on to your employees:
From Katherine Wertheim in 10 Ways to Improve Morale at Nonprofit Organizations:
- Give all staff off every federal holiday.
- Give people a nice title that they can be proud of.
- Set people up for success.
- Have a training budget.
- Be upfront.
- If there is a fundamental problem don’t expect someone new to solve it.
- Close your office for a week once a year.
- Expand paid vacation.
- Meet regularly with staff.
- Food!
For more tips on retention, see this infographic from Patriot Software and its accompanying blog post with more insights from their survey:
