Nonprofit Adviser

Illustration by Alan Nguyen for the Chronicle

Nonprofits offering remote or at least hybrid work arrangements have a leg up in recruiting and retaining staff. Job seekers are increasingly looking for flexible work arrangements, my colleague Eden Stiffman reports. And while corporate and government employers are issuing return-to-office mandates, many nonprofits — especially those in the knowledge sector — are going all-in on remote work.

Remote work may be what many employees want, but it’s still challenging to do right. Eden spoke with leaders and experts about what works in remote work — and what doesn’t. Here are a few of her tips.

Make Time for In-Person Connection
Candid, which formed in 2019 through the merger of GuideStar and the Foundation Center, landed on an arrangement CEO Ann Mei Chang calls “activity based.” About half the staff live in the greater New York City area, and the rest are spread around the country.

One week each month is designated as “connect week.” The executive team, along with people in the New York area, are encouraged to work from the office on Wednesday and a few other days that week. A subset of other teams that have some purpose for being together are also invited in.

“We didn’t want to just say, ‘You have to come to the office on these days,’” Chang says. “We want to bring people together because there was something that we wanted to do that would benefit from people being in person.”

Create Opportunities for “Water Cooler Conversations”
Remote work “can be pretty isolating if you’re in a role where you’re not collaborating with a lot of other staff,” says Maya Simpkins, development director at the Redress Movement, a fully-remote nonprofit that launched in 2022 and works to stop residential segregation.

Simpkins works from home in Baltimore, and the nonprofit’s organizing staff is in Charlotte, N.C., Denver, Milwaukee, and Omaha. She met her colleagues in person for the first time at an annual retreat in September. Other times of the year, informal conversations happen in video meetings or on a Slack channel called the #proverbial-water-cooler.

Staff members want ample opportunities to offer feedback and ideas to shape how work happens in a remote environment, she says. Fully remote workplaces succeed when “it’s not just people at the top, or people randomly chosen on a committee, who make the decisions about how the organization is going to be run.”

For more insights into how your peers are handling remote work, read Eden’s full article, “For Nonprofits, Remote Work Offers a Competitive Edge.”

If you can’t offer remote work to everyone at your organization, you might find ideas and solutions in Nonprofits That Can’t Offer All Employees Remote or Hybrid Work Still Have Options.

Finally, for more expert advice on hiring and keeping staff, watch our webinar, Attract, Motivate, and Retain Top Talent, which is available at no cost thanks to a grant from William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Have a great week,
Emily Haynes
Senior Editor, Nonprofit Intelligence

When your nonprofit is experiencing financial stress, don’t try to sweep it under the rug. Rather, tell your donors and grant makers how your financial situation is affecting your ability to meet your mission. Grant makers say that the earlier their grantees alert them to cash-flow issues, the better they’ll be able to help them. Some updates to consider sharing with the grant makers who support your organization include the challenge of higher costs for goods and services and the need to increase salaries to keep pace with the cost of living. For more tips, read 6 Ways Nonprofits Can Take Action Amid Economic Uncertainty.

Your Chronicle subscription includes free access to GrantStation’s database of grant opportunities.

Archives: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Call for Proposals to Community-Based Archives will provide general operating support grants to community-based archives in the United States. The focus is on community-based archives that represent and serve communities marginalized due to oppression. These organizations gather and share materials as members of under-documented communities to preserve and celebrate their collective histories. Grants range from $25,000 to $100,000 over two years; application deadline is March 12.

The Outdoors: The National Park Trust’s Kids to Parks Day School Grants Program helps under-resourced U.S. schools and students to discover and explore parks, historic sites, public lands, and waters. Title I, pre-K through 12 classrooms in the U.S., including U.S. territories, are eligible to apply for grants of up to $1,000 for in-park experiences. Application deadline February 7.