2017 Nonprofit Talent
Management Priorities Survey

What is the nonprofit sector most concerned about when it comes to talent management? That's the question we endeavored to answer in our inaugural Nonprofit Talent Management Priorities Survey. We surveyed nearly 300 nonprofit leaders and HR professionals from organizations across the country (representing a diverse range of budgets, staff sizes and missions) about their priorities in areas such as talent acquisition to culture, performance management and total rewards. The results shape how we and others who serve the nonprofit sector respond to its unique needs. They should also shape the way your organization directs its efforts around talent and culture in the year ahead.

Scroll on or click below to explore key findings in more depth. You'll find the three top-ranked priorities in each area of focus below, as well as the percent of respondents who selected each of those priorities as their most important.

• Talent Acquisition
• Culture & Engagement
• Performance Management
• Learning & Development
• Total Rewards
• Talent-Related Analytics
• Primary Obstacle
• Primary Differences
• About the Survey

Talent Acquisition Priorities

A significant majority (43%) of respondents ranked attracting diverse talent as their top talent acquisition priority for 2017. Some sources point to the fact that a growing emphasis on workplace diversity among nonprofits and for-profits alike may be a reaction to early policy decisions from the Trump administration, which many perceive as a challenge to diversity and inclusiveness on a national level. Whatever the cause, the case for focusing on diversity is strong: diverse teams outperform non-diverse ones by 35%.

Culture & Engagement Priorities

Improving organizational culture is this year's top-ranked culture priority among nonprofits, with 34% of respondents ranking it as their number one priority. Assessing organizational culture ranked close behind, with 29% of respondents choosing it as their top priority. Measuring employee engagement levels did not rank in the top three, indicating that many organizations are still structuring their engagement and culture-building efforts based on "gut feel" assessments rather than hard data.

Performance Management Priorities

When it comes to performance management, 40% of nonprofits ranked restructuring existing performance management systems and programs as their top priority. This was followed closely by shifting from a traditional, event-driven performance management model to a continuous feedback model (31% ranked this as their number one priority). Both of the top two responses point to the fact that, as we and others have been emphasizing for some time, traditional performance management systems are no longer effective for most organizations.

Learning & Development Priorities

A majority (37%) of respondents ranked developing a learning & development program as their top priority in this area, indicating that many organizations don't have an L&D program at all, and therefore still aren't meeting their staff's basic learning & development needs. However, only 17% of respondents ranked expanding investments in leadership development programs as their most important priority.

Total Rewards Priorities

Benchmarking existing total rewards programs was the most commonly cited top priority among this year's respondents, with 32% of nonprofits choosing this as their number one area of focus. Developing a formal total rewards strategy/program ranked close behind, with 27% ranking it number one. This is one areas where organizations with small budgets differed significantly from those with large budgets (see below).

Talent-Related Analytics Priorities

38% of nonprofit respondents chose benchmarking existing talent/HR metrics as their top analytics priority for 2017, while implementing HR/talent metrics reporting ranked second, with 22% of respondents choosing it as their number one. As nonprofits continue to become more sophisticated in their use of data and analytics and move beyond the basics, we expect to see talent and HR metrics start to shift from reactive to predictive, though this shift will likely be gradual.

What's the primary obstacle to realizing your talent priorities?

Perhaps most telling of all were the open-ended responses we received to the question "what is the primary obstacle to realizing your talent priorities?" Respondents cited a wide variety of obstacles, but one theme was immediately apparent: more than anything else, nonprofits feel they lack the time, capacity and most importantly, the funding to realize their talent priorities.

The nonprofit sector has long suffered from inadequate talent investment, but the fact that less than 1% of nonprofit funding goes toward supporting talent is painfully obvious in the responses to this question. Until funders and nonprofit leaders responsible for budget decisions commit to making meaningful talent investments, the social sector cannot effectively pursue its most pressing talent priorities.

Primary differences between large and small organizations

When comparing small and large budget organizations, top priorities differed in only two areas: learning & development and talent-related analytics. Differences in responses to our open-ended question about obstacles were more significant. While funding was the primary obstacle cited by an overwhelming majority of small budget organizations, large budget organizations were more likely to cite a difficulties with standardizing processes and complying with external requirements.

The takeaway? Funding challenges are present in organizations of all sizes, but do decrease as budgets grow. Still, nonprofits both small and large face significant obstacles when it comes to realizing their talent priorities and therefore, their missions.