Do any of these
practices describe what happens in your organization?
You advertise an open position as half-time, even though the
job description outlines a list of responsibilities that would be difficult
for a person to do as a full-time employee.
Your fund development coordinator position isn’t a
coordinator position; it’s a development director position.
According to the job description, your organization's resource development director must:
- Work with board of directors and
management to create a fund development plan
- Work with board and management to
acquire new donors, and retain and upgrade existing donors
- Help board secure major gifts
- Assist board with planning and
putting on annual gala
- More fundraising stuff...
- More fundraising stuff...
- More fundraising stuff….
- Recruit volunteers and board
members
- Screen and place volunteers
- Orient and train all volunteers and board members
- Produce monthly newsletter
- Maintain website
Your list of required qualifications for the development coordinator
position includes:
- Superior writing skills
- Proven track record soliciting gifts of $25,000
and more from individual donors
- Proven track record obtaining grants of $500,000 and
more for organizations opposed to deep-water drilling based in Montana
- Experience with successfully patching the ozone layer
- Fluent in both English and Swahili
Your organization pays a living wage...provided the employee in question lives in a studio apartment, is childless, and has no plans to retire. Or eat.
Do you ever go to the grocery store - the bulk section - to
buy a couple pounds of flour or whatever? And you copy the five
digit number (shown on the bin) onto the twisty that binds your bag shut? Would you copy the number from the
conventional flour bin onto your bag of organic flour to save money?
That’s the grocery shopping equivalent of what you’re doing if you call your development
director job a coordinator job. Ditto the three-in-one job. And the full-time
job you prefer to think of as “part-time.” And the job for the bilingual person with
ozone-patching experience.
"But," you say, "my organization is a nonprofit. We help people in need. The more money we save on salaries and benefits, the more we can help people who need our services."
Walmart defenders often make the same claim (except for the nonprofit part). Why is it okay for your organization and not for Walmart?