Supporting Difference At Your Nonprofit

If a nonprofit is to truly thrive from the diversity of its employees, its leaders must truly learn to embrace it.  That's the message Martin N. Davidson has for nonprofit managers.

Davidson, a faculty member and former chief diversity officer at the University of Virginia, wrote about the ways this goal can be accomplished in his book "The End of Diversity as We Know It."  He writes that the first step in the process is to manage human relationships.  This can be a difficult process, but it can be accomplished.  He recommends four core relational skills to engage another individual across differences:

• Inquiry. This skill goes beyond asking the basic questions and acquiring information verbally. It extends to asking about the rationales that lead to other people’s conclusions, and exploring assumptions about others’ goals and interests.
• Listening. By conveying a genuine interest, the listener not only gains real knowledge but also lays a foundation for trust and respect that carries over to future interactions.
• Self-disclosure. The most powerful way to do this is through personal narratives about difference. Self-disclosure is a dynamic process that involves sharing of information.
• Managing feedback. This means both giving and receiving feedback. Access to accurate feedback about professional and personal behavior is essential for fostering high performance at work and maintaining vibrancy and authenticity in a relationship. It is important to understand, however, that lack of comfort involving differences can make it difficult to exchange feedback.

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The King's Elevator Speech

If you've ever watched The King's Speech, you know how important vocal mannerisms are to speeches.  You're not going to have to make any big public speeches during your job search, but there's one speech that's worth mastering: The elevator speech.  We've already talked about how to adapt these pitches to different situations.  Now it's time to learn how make your pitch perfect.

First, a short recap on the topic: An elevator speech is a short pitch, no longer than 30 seconds, that you make to recruiters.  They are usually made at networking events, and are designed to give listeners a good idea of how your skills can help their organization.

In The King's Speech, King George VI had a stuttering problem which had its roots in a lack of confidence.  But just because you don't stammer doesn't mean you don't have to practice your pitch.  Practice makes perfect but it also breeds confidence.  Before you head out to your networking event or job interview, practice your speech a number of times with someone who can provide feedback.  Try out different vocalizations each time until you find a style that instills the most confidence in the listener.

It's also a good idea to record your practice attempts.  How we sound in our head is much different than how we actually sound.  Hearing how your words come out can make a big difference, though it can be a bit strange at first.  Once you get over that, you will have a better idea of how you want to say certain words.

All of these techniques have the ultimate goal of giving you more confidence when it comes time to make your elevator pitch.  Making the perfect elevator pitch may not make you a king, but you have to start somewhere, right?

E-Mailing Your Resume

Every nonprofit job application you find is going to ask you to e-mail your resume, but they don't always tell you how to e-mail it.  This begs the question: Is it better to send your resume as an attachment or paste it into the e-mail body?

It's hard to find much agreement on this question.  Some job search experts will tell you that an attachment is more professional, while others will caution that some e-mail programs will block all incoming attachments.  Personally, I think attachments are the best choice.  If an employer doesn't want your resume to be an attachment, they will more than likely mention it in the job application.

If you do plan to put your resume in the body of the e-mail, there are some guidelines you should follow.  First, make sure you start your message off with a brief introduction.  This should be no more than two to three paragraphs.  It's a little bit jarring to start an e-mail off with your resume and no explanation of who you are and why you are communicating with them.  Think of it as a shorter version of a cover letter.

Once you are done with your introduction, indicate that you have pasted your resume below your name and contact information.  Concerned with how to format the text?  Here are some suggestions that will make your resume look professional and keep it out of the spam folder:

• Some e-mail programs are only able to receive plain-text e-mail, so avoid any fancy formatting.
• Keep your lines short -- between 45 and 60 characters.
• Use the space bar for indenting, not tab.
• Don't use exclamation points are all caps.  These are two criteria that spam filters check.
• Avoid the use of bold or italic tags.  Use asterisks or rows of equal signs for your headings instead.

The Executive Career Path

Hoping to get a job as a big-shot executive at a nonprofit?  Before you get started with your search, it might help to know how other people like you got to the top of the mountain.  But where can you get this kind of information?

The Council on Foundations (COF), an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit membership association, released a study called the Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership Baseline Report.  The premise was to show exactly how the top nonprofit CEOs got their current positions.  By analyzing the professional and personal characteristics of foundation executives positions, COF was able to enhance the details of their report.

Here are some highlights to give you a better idea how you can enhance your path to an executive job:

• A majority (79.5 percent) of the 440 foundations that appointed CEOs and executive directors during the research period filled the positions with candidates outside the foundations.  This is good news if you feared you had to already work at the organization to have a shot.
• On a similar note, a majority of the candidates were not from the philanthropic sector.  Of these transitional candidates, 24.3 percent came from business.
• The study shows that prior executive experience is a must.  63.4 percent of candidates held either the chief executive (38.9 percent) or the vice president (24.5 percent) positions prior to their ascension.
• Nearly 20 percent came from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds and 48.7 percent were women.
• You should make sure to have someone helping you out during your career path.  Some 30 percent of the field leaders interviewed said mentors played a big role in their career advancement.

Career Networking Tip: Don't Sound Rehearsed

Picture this: You're at a networking event and, to break the ice, you go up to one of the attendees and break out your elevator speech.  All of those hours of practicing have seemingly paid off because you got all of your lines down pat.  There's only one problem: You didn't get the response you wanted.

We've all been in a situations like this before, and it's pretty discouraging to say the least.  Why would a perfectly rehearsed statement go off so badly?  Part of the problem could be just that: You sounded too rehearsed.  Just like you would adapt your resume or cover letter depending on the job, you also need to adapt your networking talking points based on the situation.  For instance, you wouldn't want to say anything like this at a casual networking party:

"Hello, my name is John Q. Public and I have a successful track record of fundraising at several different organizations.  If you have a few minutes, I'd like to inquire if you have any contacts at a nonprofit that would be in need of my vast knowledge and expertise."

OK, that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture.  That kind of sell would be more useful if you were attending a more formal event, say, a business party.  It would be completely obvious you are going off of a prepared script if you said those exact words at a small social gathering.  At those kind of events, you want to keep it more casual.  Make some observations about the party or ask if they tried that great punch.  Anything like that is a good starting point before you start talking business.  You will only hurt your cause if you come off as a robot.

Do you have any success stories from past career networking events?  Share them with us in the comments section below.

Resume Red Flags

There are a lot of things in a resume that can automatically disqualify a candidate: Consistent spelling errors, lack of necessary experience, etc.  But what about those resumes that are near perfect except for one or two red flags?

 Life as a hiring manager is tough work and the last thing you want is more grey area when deciding which candidates to pursue.  Resume red flags could turn out to be no big deal, or they could be an indication of a larger flaw in the job applicant.  It's up to you to do a thorough screening of the candidate to figure out what the situation is.

In their book "The Big Book of HR," Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlem list four red flags to look out for when reviewing resumes:

• No dates of employment -- just organizations listed with job duties.
• Gaps in employment (unless these are explained in the resume/cover letter).
• Frequent job changes to positions of lesser responsibility.
• Lists of accomplishments that can't be linked to specific jobs.

Mitchell and Gamlem write that you should immediately highlight these issues while doing a phone screen with candidates.  This will help you to better evaluate them for the position.  It may turn out that they had a perfectly acceptable reason for taking a lesser position (family issues etc).  On the other hand, it could be an indication that they have a history of taking the path of least resistance.  Whatever the case may be, it's important to get to the bottom of it.

So You Want To Be A Major Gifts Officer

Every nonprofit needs an effective Major Gifts Officer.  That's why you often see openings for this position while browsing job boards.  Do you think you have what it takes to make it in this demanding position?

As the title of the job suggests, a Major Gifts Officer is in charge of securing large gifts from the key donors.  What constitutes a major gift can vary from organization to organization.  For smaller nonprofits, it could be $100.  For larger ones, it could be $100,000 or more.  The major gift officer will have constant contact with major gift prospects, and will generally report to the Chief Development Officer.

So what career skills are required to be a great Major Gifts Officer?  During the Association For Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) International Conference in Boston, Mass., Mark Kostegan, senior vice president of development for the Mount Sinai Medical Center, detailed nine skills that a Major Gifts Officer should have:

• Since you will be working with a number of different donors, often at the same time, it's important to have the ability to build and maintain relationships quickly.
• You must have excellent listening skills.
• You must also have strong verbal and communication skills.
• Can you organize yourself and your time effectively?  If so, you have one of the most important attributes of a Major Gifts Officer.
• You must never be satisfied with the status quo.  Drive yourself to set and reach challenging goals.
• Mental and physical stamina to maintain a hectic schedule.  This includes a lot of traveling.
• A collaborative and collegial work style is a must.
• Confidence and poise to work effectively with individuals of significant wealth.  Money can be intimidating, so this is a lot harder than it seems.