Andrew Simon, the Chronicle’s editor-in-chief, offers a sneak peek at what’s in each new issue. Available exclusively to subscribers, this newsletter gives you perspective on the most important trends and developments we’re following — as well as background on how we report and analyze key issues in the nonprofit world. Delivered once a month. (Subscribers only.)
Rao was a junior in high school in 2016 when she founded New Voters, a charity that now operates in 400 secondary schools. The nonprofit offers volunteers two substantive ways to participate: They can register voters in their schools or they can work on research designed to shed light on the ways high-school students get involved in civic affairs.
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Rao was a junior in high school in 2016 when she founded New Voters, a charity that now operates in 400 secondary schools. The nonprofit offers volunteers two substantive ways to participate: They can register voters in their schools or they can work on research designed to shed light on the ways high-school students get involved in civic affairs.
Offering those options is crucial, Rao says. “Gen Z wants to get involved, and they really want to get involved in ways that are meaningful. They don’t want to be only doing the grunt work.”
That’s one of the reasons the nonprofit leaders and scholars Ben Gose interviewed for this month’s cover story declared the latest crop of young workers the trickiest generation yet to integrate into the nonprofit world.
Understanding Generation Z workers — and making the workplace attractive to them — is not optional: As nonprofits face a major challenge attracting talent, they’ll depend increasingly on people born from 1997 to 2012.
Some things about these young workers are very clear: They want more job security, and 9-to-5 schedules are more important than they were to workers in the past. And they won’t put up with what they perceive as hypocrisy when bosses demand more formality.
“Their perspective is, If you are going to use the way I write to gain more followers and put out cool messages on social media, then why do I have to transition to a more formal way of writing when you want it?” Linda Nguyen, founder of Movement Talent, told Ben.
But these Generation Z workers are also burning out many nonprofit leaders and prompting them to exit their organizations.
Bianca Casanova Anderson, co-CEO of ProInspire, says she sees this challenge at many of the nonprofits her organization trains to advance equity. “The message ‘Change it now or else’ can be dehumanizing for a leader. You can’t fix all these things overnight.”
Eden Stiffman’s profile of Crystal Hayling, who has announced she is retiring as head of the Libra Foundation, a family fund of San Francisco. As a Black woman from the South, Hayling diversified the leadership ranks of the foundations where she worked. She also pioneered approaches that gave grantees more power and more say.
Drew Lindsay distills the results of a new study of MacKenzie Scott’s giving. One notable finding: She embraces the South far more than other big grant makers. And a big share of her gifts are going to organizations with budgets of at least $10 million.
Susan King offers lessons from her experience as a dean at the University of North Carolina when she tried to hire the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and a major donor objected. She says that clash, as well as today’s donor revolt over the Israel-Gaza war, have demonstrated it’s time for development officers to ask big supporters to sign a “no-influence” clause.
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On Thursday, we’ll present “Proven Strategies for Connecting With Major Donors” so you can learn directly from two veteran fundraisers which strategies are working best to attract support from wealthy individuals. My colleague Eden Stiffman will also ask the fundraisers to share proven ways to keep big givers in the fold and how to deepen ties with them in the year ahead.
And on February 29, I hope you’ll join my colleague Alex Daniels to learn how to attract general operating support from foundations. Among his guests: Shireen Zaman, a program officer in Ford’s BUILD effort, which is channeling $ 1 billion in general operating support to nonprofits.
Let me know what you think of our new issue — and drop me a line anytime you want to comment on our coverage or suggest an idea for an article.
