CAREERS NOW 02-25-07

Should You Work For A Nonprofit?

DEAR JOYCE: After 28 years of working in marketing for manufacturing companies, I would like to switch to the nonprofit sector but don't know where to start and what kind of impact the lower salaries will make in my future retirement. Can I do good and do well at the same time? - P.D.

salaries are becoming more competitive in the nonprofit sector and, yes, you can make a difference while making money. A 2006 survey of median annual income in nonprofits by consulting firm Abbott, Langer & Associates reported a figure of $68,500 for a director of marketing, for example.

Psychiatrists in the nonprofits income survey earned $156,500; chief legal officers, $95,000; directors of government relations, $86,000; periodical editors, $57,300; and curators, $40,600. Find more managerial and executive salary data on CareerJournal.com - in the article search box, type nonprofit organizations, then scroll down to the fifth listing, "Executives and Professionals in Nonprofit Organizations.

The numbers of jobs are no small potatoes: Jobs in the nonprofit sector account for about 10 percent of U.S. jobs, according to the Nonprofit Employment Data Project at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

WHAT NONPROFITS ARE. Backing up a bit, a nonprofit organization is not a company that's running in the red but a type of organization to which the government has granted tax-exempt status. They're everywhere. Social service and health agencies, membership organizations, museums, hospitals, private schools, colleges, churches, museums and overseas poverty-fighting groups are all varieties of nonprofit organizations.

Nonprofits hire marketers to keep the contributions flowing and their support high. They also hire accountants, fundraisers, membership directors, volunteer coordinators, communications managers, consultants and many other specialists as well as administrative support staff. .

WHERE TO LOOK. See for yourself. Scout the jobs listed on such specialty job sites as the following examples, a few among many job boards for nonprofits.

Idealist.org, execsearches.com, nonprofitstaffing.com - includes salary surveys, jobsatnonprofits.com, opportunitynocs.org and managementhelp.org - look under General Info, then click Job Banks, and then Nonprofit-Specific Job Banks.

NEVER FEAR. Don't worry that you've never worked for a nonprofit. Your business background will make you welcome as you bring proven competencies and new ideas from the profit-making side of business.

Deepti Dishi agrees that business skills are in demand in nonprofits: "There are great ideas and great visionaries but not enough people who can carry them out."

Dishi is talent manger at Acumen Fund (acumenfund.org), an international nonprofit venture fund based in New York City. With an MBA from a prestigious school of business paving her way, Dishi moved from a prominent consulting firm where she worked with the firm's commercial clients to manager of Acumen's human resources. "If you're not totally sure nonprofit is for you, try a stint of volunteering to causes that you care about," Dishi suggests.

NEW BOOK. Once you're ready to move into work designed to make the world a better place, get some heavy-duty help by reading "Careers in Nonprofits and Government Agencies, 2007 Edition", a WetFeet Inside Guide available at bookstores or from the publisher, wetfeet.com.

DEAR JOYCE: I have the equivalent of five years of college courses but no degree. When I can afford it, I will work to secure my degree but need a job now and find that the jobs I want and qualify for by work experience use a degree as a screen. What do you think about the "overnight" college degrees I keep getting e-mail about? - H.R.

That's a no. Degree mill documents are suitable for shredding. A possible solution to your dilemma: Network (say through LinkedIn.com) to find a contact within your target company who will see that your resume gets read by a hiring manager, allowing you to bypass resume "police" software in the HR department.

And note an exciting development in higher education: Top colleges and universities now offer lots of courses free online. The trend started with Massachusetts Institute of Technology's "OpenCourseWare" in 2003; by the year's end, MIT hopes to publish materials from virtually all of its 1,800 courses. What a deal!

Joining the list of lauded colleges and universities offering free course materials online are Yale, Notre Dame, Bryn Mawr, University of California, Berkeley and Stanford. Specifics vary by school but institutions are posting everything from lecture notes and sample tests to actual audio and video lectures. These are not degree-granting programs but if you enroll in one for the joy of learning, add the fact to your resume: "Enrolled at MIT, 2007, Physics II."

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