What the not-for-profit workforce shortage looks like in Indiana
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As president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Firefly Children & Family Alliance, Tina Cloer oversees an operation consisting of about 425 full-time employees providing a swath of services dealing with child abuse and welfare, sexual violence and mental health.
However, she is now dealing with a lingering workforce shortage-turned-crisis hitting not-for-profits especially hard. The organization’s job board has dozens of openings; some are more entry-level but others require degrees, licenses and a stomach for dealing with trauma.
“We want to serve the community, but we have to have enough staff to be able to do it well,” Cloer said.
Indiana’s not-for-profits often serve residents facing communal and systematic issues, but their leaders continue to deal with a human resources problem eating away at their ability to achieve their missions. The state’s organizations are not immune to a national workforce shortage seeing thousands of jobs go unfilled, and subsequently for community-facing organizations, fewer residents are reached.
Vacant jobs don’t go without consequences. Hiring struggles have led to curbing services, turning away families and forcing clients to wait longer for help. Some rural communities have to go without treatment, while others have too many clients for the staff on board.
“What’s happening is it’s limiting their impact, it’s limiting their influence, because they’re not able to find the employees that they need,” said Chelsea Ohlemiller, director of community and content at Charitable Advisors, an Indianapolis-based consulting practice focused on not-for-profits.
The shortage is also not just afflicting social service-focused not-for-profits, said Ohlemiller, who has conducted focus groups with dozens of local organizations. All types of not-for-profits are reporting issues, including those in education, arts and culture, recreation, environmental concerns and societal benefit fields, and may potentially have more hiring challenges.
Ohlemiller talks about the need for not-for-profits and proper staffing.
Behind the shortage
Staffing has been a significant issue for not-for-profits for years, said Kirsten Grønbjerg, an Indiana University professor and director of the Indiana Nonprofits Project. However, she said the pandemic scaled up the issue to be a crisis.
Prior to the pandemic, a 2017 Indiana Nonprofits Project study showed over half of surveyed Indiana not-for-profits said competitive staff compensation was a challenge with over a quarter calling it a major issue. Grønbjerg said those challenges are suspected to be more inflamed with inflation, the loom of a potential recession and other pandemic reverberations.
More recent data from the Indiana Nonprofits Project on how the not-for-profit sector has rebounded since the pandemic will soon be available in the next few weeks.
The pandemic took a significant toll on a portion of the sector financially as well as staffing-wise, with people leaving the workforce voluntarily or through layoffs or furloughs. Education, social assistance, and arts, culture and recreation were hit hard by job losses while health care remained somewhat stable, according to an IU pandemic employment study. According to more INP data, 60% of organizations curtailed programs, while 70% operated at a reduced capacity.
Then, the “Great Resignation” saw fatigued entry-level workers leave to work for more competitive wages at fast food chains and warehouses, and skilled workers move into the private and government sectors.
Some community-facing organizations, like Firefly, saw huge growth during the pandemic because the need for those services grew, and the government directed new funds toward those communities. However, Cloer said fatigue was definitely a factor at Firefly for people leaving. Data shows a lack of volunteers during this time was found to put more on not-for-profit staff’s shoulders.
Prior to the pandemic, Cloer said they had close to no turnover and were actively adding positions. However, now, she said they have the highest turnover since she started there 11 years ago, despite a quarter of the organization’s strategic plans focused on making Firefly a more attractive place to work.
A recent 2023 National Council of Nonprofits study found three in four non-for-profits surveyed had job openings, and those vacancies are most often community-facing workers. A third of respondents reported 20% or more of their roles are going unfilled.
The not-for-profit shortage is a subset of the issues the greater workforce faces. Over 50 million workers quit their jobs in 2022 largely with an eye toward more opportunities, higher pay and a better workplace environment. In addition to the shuffle, many left altogether with older generations deciding to retire earlier and women staying home instead of paying child care costs.
Pain points
From their focus group conversations with not-for-profit leadership, Ohlemiller said the consensus was that fundraising and development staff, therapists and entry-level roles are the hardest to fill. However, she said jobs are open at every level up to executive director.
Two of the most difficult positions for Cloer to hire are therapists and child care workers, even as Firefly has raised salaries and stacked its benefits programs.
A major roadblock for not-for-profit hiring, Grønbjerg said, is, of course, financial constraints. She said a significant number of not-for-profits are fairly small with revenues around $70,000 and a reliance on volunteers. Almost 90% use volunteers in some capacity, she said, with 77% of those saying they are essential or very important.
Cloer also knows that they can’t compete salary-wise in some cases. Several positions hinge on government funding and contracts, meaning they are locked into rates making it difficult to raise salaries. Some tangential private sector and government jobs are offered at a rate they can’t reach currently, she said.
Besides receiving a set amount from the government, she said the rest comes from fundraising, but even that has a caveat. When the stock market sinks, she said so do their donation totals.
“We don’t have the ability to just raise our prices, and I think that that’s where nonprofits get pinched,” she said. “In nonprofits, we are called on to do more with less all the time.”
Cloer talks about the financial juggle not-for-profits experience and how they are trying to offer more to their employees.
Another issue is that working at some not-for-profits means facing trauma each day head-on, and leaders don’t just want warm bodies filling roles. Ohlemiller said it’s vitally important that people with the right background, and passion end up in these positions, so they have the intended impact. The latter is especially important since, she says, a motivation for the work can make up for lacking a skill or experience in another field.
“Not everybody can go look at child abuse every day and go home be okay,” Cloer said. “We know not everybody wants to do social work, but for the people who want to do it, we want them to work here. And so, we’ve done a lot of really intentional things to try to make that happen.”
Ohlemiller and Charitable Advisors also believe an educational campaign is needed to combat certain myths about working at a not-for-profit that could deter people from working in the sector, such as that employees work for free or have fewer advancement opportunities.
Higher salaries, creative benefits & a PR gap
When it comes to solving this issue, Ohlemiller said not-for-profits are acting with much more intention and looking to be innovative. There has been a lot of creativity with benefit packages, including unlimited PTO, she said, as well as advertising how many not-for-profit workplaces are flexible with hybrid working and malleable schedules.
Firefly has approached the hiring issue by focusing on making itself “an employer of choice.” That means the organization has made nine salary adjustments over two years (and a 10th is on the way) and added a roster of benefits, including student loan forgiveness, tuition reimbursement and expanded mental health coverage. Firefly is also creating a promotion pipeline through higher education partnerships and professional development for its employees.
While Cloer and her team have boosted salaries and padded benefits packages, she said footing the bill can be tricky. She calls their funding “a fabulous patchwork quilt,” mentioning how Lilly Endowment Inc. and other funders have stepped up their support as well as the expansion of state programs. It also takes being very fiscally responsible, she said, by retiring services not worth the investment and keeping administrative rates down so they can plug extra money back into the staff.
Cloer talks about how not-for-profits do difficult though fulfilling work.
Along with addressing financial limitations, Ohlemiller believes knowledge that these organizations and jobs exist is another reason for the shortage. She mentioned how some smaller organizations don’t have the bandwidth to intercept younger workers or people whose skills are transferable.
That’s a big piece of Charitable Advisors’ new campaign—providing an inside look at what not-for-profit work is actually like and the individual benefits. They want to build an image for the sector that the public doesn’t have a full understanding of, Ohlemiller said.
“A lot of fields that you work in… it’s hard to see your impact on the world. For us, it’s very obvious,” Cloer said. “That’s one of the benefits of doing the work that we do is that we get to help make the world a better place, and that’s our job.”
The campaign, which began last week, looks to connect with people on social media and news stories as well as through not-for-profits sharing the message. It will include stories and interviews from inside Central Indiana not-for-profits. They also provide job search guidance and Q&A sessions.
“The heart of the entire campaign is really highlighting these positions, so that it will impact our communities, and just the ripple effects of being able to help more individuals,” Ohlemiller said. “All of these nonprofits have different, you know, goals and missions, but they’re all helping local people.
“We want people to see that we want people to see that there is so much happening that you just absolutely have no idea about.”