A CFO’s Perspective on Nonprofit Staffing
How flexible workforce models can help nonprofits thrive during challenging times
Nonprofits - we know it's tough right now.
It's a lot of things all at once. Big changes in funding. Increased demand for services. It's increased reporting requirements. It's facing existential risk in an uncertain moment. And it's the perennial problem of retaining and growing the staff to do all of this work.
We’re sharing a few thoughts on this last one, meant to help nonprofit directors think flexibly and sustainably as they navigate this moment. We hope it helps you see how you can continue to invest in your people while staying nimble through uncertainty.
Be open-minded about part-time work.
Start by thinking hard about how much time is truly needed to do the work of each role, and explore where part-time work might be better suited.
Nobody wants to take a full-time position away from a great employee. But if shifting a position to part-time will help keep the lights on, serve your mission, and keep that employee with your team, it can be a good short-term solution.
The reality is that many nonprofit roles have natural ebbs and flows that don't require 40 hours of consistent weekly attention. Development work, for example, often involves intense periods of campaign activity followed by quieter maintenance phases. Communications roles may peak around events and major announcements. Administrative functions might require concentrated bursts of activity rather than steady daily engagement.
When you audit your existing positions, you might discover that several roles could function effectively at 20-30 hours per week without compromising quality or outcomes. Consider transitioning those roles to part-time; this approach allows you to retain institutional knowledge, maintain relationships with key stakeholders, and preserve the specialized skills that took time and resources to develop. More importantly, it keeps talented people connected to your mission during uncertain times, positioning you to scale back up when circumstances improve.
Many professionals today actually prefer part-time arrangements that allow them to pursue other interests, care for family members, or even work with multiple organizations whose missions align with their values. By offering this flexibility, you're not just cutting costs - you're potentially creating a more attractive work environment that could help with retention even after your financial situation stabilizes.
Focus resources on mission-critical work.
Make sure that operations and especially development and fundraising teams can continue to deliver on the mission and conduct ongoing and new outreach. Anything that doesn't fall into these two buckets can be tabled, for now.
This prioritization exercise requires brutal honesty about what actually drives your organization forward versus what feels important but doesn't directly contribute to survival and growth. Mission delivery and revenue generation are your two non-negotiables. Everything else - no matter how valuable it might be in normal circumstances - becomes optional during crisis periods.
Operations work includes the basic functions that keep your programs running: client services, program delivery, essential compliance activities, and core administrative tasks like payroll and basic financial management. Development and fundraising encompass not just asking for money, but maintaining donor relationships, grant writing, corporate partnership development, and the communications that support these revenue-generating activities.
What often gets tabled during lean times? Strategic planning initiatives, extensive staff development programs, ambitious new program launches, comprehensive policy development, and elaborate event planning beyond essential fundraising activities. These activities have value, but they don't directly address your immediate survival needs.
The key is communicating this prioritization clearly to your team and board. When everyone understands that this is a temporary survival strategy rather than a permanent devaluation of certain types of work, it's easier to maintain morale and focus energy where it's most needed.
Consider outsourcing some essential work.
If you put a full-time hire on hold for a role in HR, marketing, administrative assistance, or finance this year, look to fractional, freelance, and agency marketplaces to get quality work done at a reasonable price point.
The outsourcing landscape for nonprofits has evolved dramatically over the past few years. Fractional executives can provide senior-level strategic guidance in areas like finance, marketing, and operations at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. Freelance professionals often bring specialized expertise that would be difficult to afford in a permanent employee, and they can scale up or down based on your current needs and budget.
For finance functions, consider fractional CFOs who can handle budgeting, financial reporting, and board presentations without the overhead of a full-time executive salary. Marketing agencies that specialize in nonprofit work understand your unique challenges and can often deliver more sophisticated campaigns than a single in-house marketing person. Virtual assistants can handle administrative tasks, donor database management, and event coordination at significantly lower cost than traditional employees.
The key advantage of outsourcing during uncertain times is flexibility. You can adjust the scope and frequency of services based on your current budget and needs without the complications of hiring and firing decisions. You also gain access to professionals who are already up-to-speed on best practices and tools, eliminating the training time and learning curve associated with new hires.
Know that great nonprofits already leverage non-traditional staffing models.
Hesitant to explore part-time, fractional, and freelance models? It might help to know that you are in good company.
We’ve seen many of our nonprofit clients use part-time employees working between 10-24 hours a week, in a variety of roles. Some of the most successful rely on this kind of labor, essentially creating their own fractional workforce, rather than forcing every role in a 40-hour-a-week model. Believe it or not, their employees are happy with the setup, and the finances work too.
Here are two hypothetical models to get you thinking:
A mid-sized nonprofit restructured its communications team around a 20-hour-per-week communications director, a 15-hour-per-week graphic designer, and a 10-hour-per-week social media specialist. This model gives them comprehensive communications coverage at a fraction of the expense of full-time hires. The communications director consults with other nonprofits, the graphic designer runs a small design business, and the social media specialist works with local small businesses, and they thus bring a diversity of experience to their work with the team. Everyone wins: the nonprofit gets expert-level work within its budget, and the employees enjoy diverse, flexible careers.
Another organization successfully transitioned its development function to a part-time model, with a 25-hour-per-week development director and a 15-hour-per-week grants specialist. They supplemented this with a fractional development consultant during major campaign periods. This approach allowed them to maintain strong fundraising performance while reducing personnel costs by nearly 40% compared to their previous full-time model.
Examples like these changed our thinking about what kind of staffing models can be used when funds are limited - we hope this helps folks who are suddenly faced with needing to lean up their non-profit ops.
With careful planning and clear role definition, flexible staffing models can maintain operational effectiveness while providing the financial breathing room nonprofits need during challenging periods. The key is ensuring that reduced hours don't mean reduced accountability or outcomes - just more efficient use of time and resources.
Looking for a sounding board as you pivot operations this year? Book a call with a Dedicated CFO Strategist - we’ll take a comprehensive look at your financials and start charting your path to continued success.
