The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every particle of our lives. From our mental health to our physical health, we have been impacted. Nonprofit organizations and freelance grant writers are no exception to this impact. As we navigate through the ongoing pandemic, there has been many changes when it comes to employment.

In the early days of the pandemic, when the world shut down, one was deemed lucky to still have employment.

The nonprofit organizations that focus in the areas of health and food security sectors were (and still are) in extremely high demand and received a priority of funding. However, the demand on these nonprofit organizations was astronomical and even though they received increased funding they also had a tremendous increase on expenses.

While other nonprofit organizations, such as nonprofits serving the arts or smaller nonprofits with no built up revenue were not prioritized.

However, since 2020 the funding and human resource landscape has continued to evolve for nonprofit organizations and freelance grant writers. Which leads us to the conversation about how nonprofit leaders and freelance grant writers can leverage opportunities in the Great Resignation.

What is the Great Resignation?

The term, the “Great Resignation” was originally coined by organizational psychologist Anthony Klotz in May 2021, during a Bloomberg interview.

By August 2021 4.3 million American workers quit their jobs.

Klotz outlined 4 key reasons that led to the Great Resignation in an interview with Washington Post Live:

1. Backlog of people in 2020 who would have left their jobs in 2020 but waited until 2021 to make any big changes
2. Burnout across all industries. “We know that burnout is a predictor of turnover,” said Dr. Klotz.
3. Shift of people re-imagining their work-life balance during the pandemic
4. Those who want to continue to work remotely

We’ve also see inflation adding to the Great Resignation, where low-income workers (as many are also frontline workers, such as restaurant/hotel/grocery store/etc.) are demanding higher wages and improved working conditions.

The added fact of the surges of coronavirus variants has caused schools to repeatedly shutdown. This has marginalized working women who require remote working conditions.

Also, we are seeing some freelancers come back into the employer-employee situation as they can demand higher wages and get steady cash flow.

However, I have also seen the reverse, where nonprofit employees are swarming into the freelance / consultant world so they have more flexibility.

The Great Resignation in the Nonprofit Sector

The nonprofit sector has not escaped the Great Resignation. Lisa Greer from NonprofitPro estimates that as of July 2021,  there were 500,000 open positions in the nonprofit arena.

Nonprofit employees suffered through the main 4 points as outlined by Klotz. However, this resignation is where the nonprofit sector could actually leverage a “Great Attraction“.

With corporate people quitting their jobs in a massive wave, they are now looking for meaningful work and bring professional skills to the nonprofit table. Additionally, many nonprofit employees are looking for lateral moves to other nonprofit organizations that might appreciate them more, pay more, or offer different types of benefits.

That is massive opportunity for nonprofit organizations to attract new workers with fresh skills.

How Nonprofits Can Leverage the Great Resignation

If your nonprofit is looking to fill positions, you have opportunities!

1. Consider Freelancers or Consultants vs. Employees
2. Don’t Require Previous Nonprofit Experience
3. Conduct Strategic Planning to Revisit Your Mission and Hiring Needs

1. Consider Hiring Freelancers or Consultants vs. Employees

For many nonprofit organizations their immediate future is very uncertain. When hiring employees, there is always an outlook for a longer-term commitment on both parties. This can definitely be a mutual relationship, however sometimes hiring a freelancer vs. an employee has not even been considered.

Hiring a freelancer or consultant can be more manageable and beneficial compared to hiring an employee.

• Expertise: Freelancers/Consultants specialize in a certain subject matter area, such as fundraising, grant writing, social media, crowdfunding, accounting, legal counsel, etc.

This is good because they have experience and are really good at what they do. A lot of times I have seen these technical expert areas crammed together under one job description for an employee. That is not sound as it leads to that employee not being able to live up to all of these skillsets or burning out trying to accomplish them all (hello, women).

Just imagine if on your job description you had plumbing, marketing, accounting, crocheting, public speaking, and veterinary work. Okay, maybe I am being just a bit facetious but there really are differences in skillset between organizing a fundraiser and writing a grant. However these skills always seem to be thrown together.

• Contractual Basis: Your nonprofit will not be committed to the never-ending funding for an employment position.

You budget for a freelancer to do something specific, for a certain period of time, and know what your deliverable will be. For example, hire a freelance grant writer to find 10 grants and write five of them in a six-month period for $x amount.

Oftentimes with employees it is more ambiguous on the impact that they actually have on your nonprofit. Sure, you have certain milestones they aim to meet, but that takes work to manage.

• Remote Work: You don’t have to provide a computer or office space for consultants.

If you have employees right now and another surge comes where they are required to do remote work for a period of time, you are still paying for the office space, software, and hardware that they may or may not be utilizing. Freelancers are in charge of all of their own operating expenses.

2. Don’t Require Previous Nonprofit Experience

In year’s past it has been a catch-22 to get into the professional doors of a nonprofit if you didn’t have prior experience. The stigma was real with nonprofits snubbing the for-profit world of not understanding mission or being able to work in a different environment.

However, now it’s vital for nonprofit organizations to hire based on skill of expertise and the values of the person, vs. prior experience.

According to an article and study in npo.net, we see a huge increase in the following jobs that were sought after in 2021:

• Operations and project management by 87%
• Computer and tech by 85%
• Marketing by 81%
• Development and fundraising by 78%
• Medical and health by 57%

Reaching outside the nonprofit sector for individuals resigning from the corporate world (and bring their skills with them) and shifting to the nonprofit world will open up more opportunities.

3. Conduct Strategic Planning to Revisit Your Mission and Hiring Needs

For your nonprofit to really gain speed, it is time to re-evaluate what you do and why you do it. Getting clear on your mission and vision statements and really embracing them can be the thing that keeps your nonprofit afloat.

Why? Well, it will boost team morale, give needed guidance, and attract those from the Great Resignation who are longing to work with meaning.

So breaking out your strategic planning can be as simple as conducting a SWOT analysis, evaluating your mission and vision statements, aligning your funding matrix, and mapping out your year.

By doing this, your nonprofit will also be able to evaluate what types of skills are needed to advance your nonprofit. Furthermore, you will know what your budget is to either hire an employee or freelancer.

These are critical decisions, but without doing the planning you will continue to operate in confusion and overwhelm.

(Want help for your strategic planning? Click here)

How Freelance Grant Writers Can Leverage the Great Resignation

If you are a freelance grant writer, you are needed. I mean, you are always needed as there is always a demand for grant writing, but now more than ever your label as a freelancer is lucrative.

Why?

• Remote working is now mainstream. I remember when this was projected by Grants Central USA founder Rodney Walker back in 2019 as becoming mainstream by 2025. Well, this just fast-tracked with the global pandemic.  More nonprofit organizations are understanding the benefits of hiring consultants vs. employees.
• Your skills are needed: With the cancellation of typical in-person fundraising events, they are turning toward other funding revenue such as grants. Nonprofit organizations are going after grants with a gusto right now. But they are realizing they just can’t slap these things together and need your skills. As we have seen with the increased amount of funding for federal grants since 2020, there is funding out there and nonprofits want to access it.

Conclusion

It is a time where nonprofit organizations and freelance grant writers can leverage the Great Resignation.

Really, calling it the Great Resignation can be a little misleading as you see in this article it really is a Great Redistribution.

The term ‘resignation’ can emotionally come across that the vast amount of people resigning from their jobs are resigning from the workforce full stop.

That really isn’t what is happening as it really is more of a redirection of how people are wanting to support themselves in the economy. People are shifting between and across job sectors to find meaning and redesign their lives.

This Redistribution then is very advantageous to increase pay, innovation, and quality of life for both nonprofit employees and freelance grant writers.

For nonprofit organizations it is important to:

1. Consider Freelancers or Consultants vs. Employees
2. Don’t Require Previous Nonprofit Experience
3. Conduct Strategic Planning to Revisit Your Mission and Hiring Needs

For Freelance Grant Writers, this Can Be Beneficial because:

• Remote working is now mainstream
• Your skills are needed