Passion Turned Profession · Book VI · People
How to Hire Your First Nonprofit Employee
You are not busy. You are the bottleneck, which is a different problem with a different solution.
14 chapters · 146 pages
What it is
An organization does not fail when the founder becomes the constraint. It stops developing, which is harder to notice and slower to reverse.
The book covers the mechanics of transferring work to another person. Contractor or employee, where the apparently cheaper answer is the one that produces the liability, and a signed agreement stating otherwise carries no weight. Designing a role that is a position rather than a list of tasks you no longer want. Writing a posting that reaches the people who would actually apply. And interviewing without prior experience of it, which is a matter of prediction rather than preference.
Then the work that is harder than hiring: offering less than the person is worth and saying so directly, managing people you cannot pay competitively, the weekly conversation that concerns them rather than their tasks, addressing performance before it becomes a crisis, and ending an employment without turning a difficult month into a legal claim. The book also covers the long-serving volunteer whose role has quietly become a job.
‘Help’ is not a job. It is a description of your feelings. Book VI · How to Hire Your First Nonprofit Employee
What this book assumes
That there is more work than one person can carry. The financial side is Book Five.
Every chapter
14 chapters, and what each one does.
Every chapter, with the sentence it opens on.
- 01
The Moment You Become the Constraint
You are not busy. You are the bottleneck, which is a different problem with a different solution.
- 02
Contractor or Employee
The cheapest-looking answer is the one that generates the bill.
- 03
Designing the First Role
“Help” is not a job. It is a description of your feelings.
- 04
Writing a Posting That Attracts the Right Person
Most job postings are written for the people who will not apply.
- 05
Interviewing When You Have Never Interviewed
You are not assessing whether you like them. You are predicting how they will behave in March.
- 06
What You Can Pay, and What You Can Offer Instead
The number is lower than the person deserves. Say it anyway, and say it first.
- 07
The First Ninety Days of Somebody Else’s Job
You are not training them. You are moving a process out of your head and into the world, where other people can see it.
- 08
Managing People You Cannot Pay Well
You are competing for this person every month, against employers with more money. Know what you are actually competing on.
- 09
The One-to-One, and What It Is For
Half an hour a week, about them. Not about the work — about them doing the work.
- 10
Performance Conversations Before They Are Crises
The conversation you are dreading gets harder every week you do not have it, and easier the moment you do.
- 11
Letting Someone Go
Nobody is ever surprised by this except the person it is happening to, and that is the failure.
- 12
Volunteers Who Are Effectively Staff
The most common employment violation in this sector is committed by generous people who would be horrified to hear it described that way.
- 13
Policies You Need Before You Need Them
You do not need a handbook. You need about nine pages, and you need to follow them.
- 14
From Founder to Manager
The work you are best at is no longer your job. That is the promotion, and it does not feel like one.
Two more lines from inside
From the manuscript.
Autonomy is the only form of compensation where you can outbid every larger organization in your sector, and it costs you nothing except the discomfort of not deciding.
Book VI · How to Hire Your First Nonprofit Employee
A policy you do not follow is not a neutral document. It is written evidence that you treated somebody differently.
Book VI · How to Hire Your First Nonprofit Employee
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What this book assumes
That there is more work than one person can carry. The financial side is Book Five.
Each subject is treated once, in the book that owns it. Where an answer belongs elsewhere, you are given the chapter reference.
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