Your organization needs a new development director. In the first planning meeting, the list grows fast: build donor relationships, write grants, manage events. Someone adds communications experience. By the end, the posting describes three jobs, and the budget covers one.
For nonprofits with tight budgets and small teams, that wish list makes sense. Every hire carries weight, and there's plenty of work to share.
But an overloaded role makes every later step harder. Strong candidates may decide not to apply. Interviewers end up judging people against different parts of the list. Vague impressions of "fit" fill the space that clear criteria should hold. And the process can drift away from the values your organization works to uphold.
A more focused search starts with a few shared decisions: what this person needs to accomplish, which experience counts, how your values show up in interviews, and how your team weighs what it hears. Here's how to work through each one.
Before drafting the job description, agree on the three most important outcomes this person should deliver in their first year.
For a development director, that might mean strengthening relationships with current donors, creating a consistent follow-up process, and helping the executive director build new connections. Those priorities give you a practical basis for deciding which skills deserve the most weight.
Sort the qualifications accordingly. Some will be essential from the start. Others can develop through training, coaching, or experience. A few may belong elsewhere on the team.
Be honest about the support available. Calling something a skill someone can learn only works if they’ll have the time and resources to learn it.
Make the process match your commitments
Candidates are learning about your organization throughout the hiring process. Share the salary range, explain the steps, invite accommodation requests, and keep assignments manageable.
Be candid about the job’s challenges, too. If the new hire will inherit an outdated donor database or need to rebuild a volunteer program, give them that context alongside the support they can expect.
A focused recruitment process takes some upfront conversation. It’s worth having before your team is sorting through applications with different ideas about what matters.
Start your next search by agreeing on the work that needs to get done, the skills it requires, and how your values should guide it. When your team agrees on what matters, you can spend less time debating who “feels right” and more time discussing how each candidate would handle the work.
Once your priorities are clear, reconsider the credentials you’re using to assess them:
Someone who has organized neighborhood initiatives may know how to build trust, coordinate volunteers, and bring people together around a shared goal. Someone from another sector may bring strong budgeting or team leadership experience.
During the resume review process, avoid using AI to filter potential candidates. Your interview process should give candidates room to connect that experience to the work. Ask for examples, explore their decisions, and consider what they accomplished with the resources they had
Hiring well on a tight budget depends on a few decisions your team makes before the first application comes in.
Most of this work happens in conversation, before anyone opens a resume. When your team agrees on the work, the criteria, and how you'll weigh what you hear, interviews turn into discussions about how each candidate would approach the job. Your team makes a clearer decision, and the person you hire starts with a realistic picture of what success looks like.
Stay tuned for Nonprofit Hiring Pt. 2: How to Interview and Decide with Clarity.
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