Overrated Career: Nonprofit Manager

December 11, 2008 RSS Feed Print

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The Appeal: Many people want a career in which they can "make a difference." For many, that means a career helping manage a nonprofit organization that works, for example, on environmental issues, children's rights, or antipoverty campaigns.

The Reality: Many of your supervisees end up being volunteers, who, on average, tend to be less competent and reliable than paid employees. Also, much of the job often involves fundraising, which many people dislike. Plus, you're often expected to be so dedicated to the cause that you're willing to work long hours for little pay. Despite all that, nonprofit management jobs that pay a good salary are difficult to find, especially now in our slow economy—people donate less in tough times.

An Alternative: Do what Bill Gates and Warren Buffett do: Earn your pay in the private sector, and then donate time or money to your favorite nonprofit.

Tags:: nonprofits,; careers

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I have worked for different types of non-profits, for many years. Yep, this pretty much sums it up. And, you can still be proud of your achievements, know that you have done good work, and have fun and fulfilling experiences. However, the points in this article are very real and for those thinking about a career in the nonprofit world, should take them into consideration.

TamarJill of CA 6:04PM October 12, 2012

I am in the process of hiring a non profit manager, nowhere in the job description is fundraising, we've left that up to our volunteer board members! Our non profit manager will essentially run a retail business where the profits benefit our cause (which is providing spay/neuter vouchers to decrease animal overpopulation) we are offering our manager paid vacations, health insurance and a 40 hour flexible - even telecommuting - work week. I am commenting only to show that there are start ups out there who have jobs available that are both exciting and beneficial to a cause.

Jan of TN 4:47PM February 22, 2012

For anybody who is proud of achievements that s/he has made in the field of nonprofit management, this short essay is offensive and less than completely true. Many nonprofits have highly skilled professional staffs. Of course, fund raising can be one of the least enjoyable tasks, but at least it is preferable to many positions in the for-profit world that require convincing people that the product you sell is essential for their happiness or that your product is far superior to its competition, both of which are mostly false and dishonest the majority of the time. There are other modern democracies that rely on taxation to support doing good. By this method, a number of them really do avoid the development of an underclass of impoverished people, such as we do have in most parts of our nation. The nonprofit world is our characteristic approach. The main shortcoming in the field is that most nonprofits are governed by board composed of persons with scant actual knowledge of the complexity of the problems that the agencies exist to solve or the skills necessary to resolve them. Most boards also do not have a clear job description of their role, with the result that they attempt to do management, utilizing the knowledge they accumulate by an average of one hour a week of involvement, which is inadequate, or, conversely, leave everything to professional staff managers, thus unaware that their duty is to ensure that the agency is impacting the needs of those that it exists to serve, collaborating with other agencies having the same mission, and developing and utilizing appropriate methods of testing the agency's effectiveness, thereby having a basis for evaluating the work of the CEO.

Timothy Ray of FL 4:02PM April 07, 2010