3 things nonprofit human resources need to measure in 2025
The number of hours the nonprofit employees spend is not one of them.
Keywords: Indian nonprofits, Human resources, Social impact, Monitoring, Evaluation, Data
India’s social impact sector is largely driven by grants, donations, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, and philanthropic contributions. In the financial year 2022-23, India's total Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure reached approximately ?29,986.92 crores (USD 3.7 bn) (Jangid, 2025). During the same period, family philanthropies and retail giving gave ?29,600 crores (USD 3.6 bn) and ?32,700 crores (USD 4 bn) respectively (Bain & Company, 2023). These figures don't include the grants provided by the central and state government agencies. We can safely consider the sector's size more than ?1 lakh crores (USD 12 bn).
To put this scale in perspective, the private hospital segment was valued at approximately ?11.6 lakh crore (USD 11.6 bn) (Business Standard, 2023). The sector treats over 10 million patients yearly (considering about half of the 21 million Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) scheme patients were treated by private providers). If we take revenue from private providers at Rs. 3.9 lakh crore, one-third of the segment's valuation, India's social sector is roughly one-third in size of the private hospital segment.
On the one side of the sector are these investments unlocked for the Indian nonprofits, on the other are the target communities they are reaching out to. Any number of beneficiaries nonprofits reached in a given year across India is misleading. It is misleading as most projects attempt to pilot better healthcare, education, livelihoods, environment, and other services. Most of these pilots often have a higher cost-per-beneficiary ratio. Nevertheless, the CSR Committees select projects that offer a better return on investments (RoI) per beneficiary. No matter the size of the reach, nonprofits need to show the impact primarily on the community and also on the grantmakers. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) data and reports are the primary mechanisms by which the nonprofit world can demonstrate its impact.
People are key tothe success of nonprofits
Indian nonprofits are heavily reliant on people to get their jobs done. AI can take jobs in the business world, but most work in nonprofits will continue to depend on their people. In the financial year 2022-23, the nonprofit sector in India employed an estimated 19.2 million people, encompassing both paid employees and volunteers. Not surprisingly, the private healthcare sector also employs a workforce of around the same size, 18 million (Business Standard, 2023).
Nonprofits engage people primarily at three levels:
a) Executive and managerial roles: These roles can earn anywhere from ?6-15 lakh per annum, depending on the organization and its scale.
b) Field workers: Salaries for field-level workers can range from ?2-5 lakh per annum, with variations based on location and the nature of the work.
c) Support staff: Support roles can expect salaries of ?1.5-3 lakh per annum.
What managing people yields
Each project tends to develop sustainable solutions for different communities and causes. The local socio-economic contexts make it hard to standardize project delivery, requiring the projects to depend heavily on the expertise, understanding, and experiences the project team brings to the project. People take 20 to 30 percent of the project funding. Like any business, its people are the key resource for any nonprofit to create an impact on the ground.
Things human resource teams are doing
Most Indian nonprofit CEOs and Directors still count the hours their employees and consultants are spending in the office and in the field. There are elaborate timesheets, Android Apps like KoboToolBox and ODK apps, and biometric devices to track attendance. In the market, there are plenty of project management apps. A bit more savvy project management team relies on Asana, Trello, Google Sheets, and other such apps to assign and track tasks assigned to the team.
What should we be measuring instead?
If community impact is the nonprofit's primary goal, it must measure its people's performance by that impact. Traditionally, the M&E team explores impact data periodically. The new human resource approach is to use three core data points to inform its people strategy.
First, how many services are to be delivered to the community?
Every project has this number written in their project agreement signed with the grantmaker.
For an education program aiming to improve access to primary education, the project agreement may specify the target number of students to be enrolled. For example, a project could commit to enrolling 10,000 students in rural schools within a particular region.
A health initiative focused on immunization might specify a goal of 100,000 children vaccinated against common diseases such as polio, measles, or tuberculosis.
A livelihoods initiative might aim to assist 1,000 small farmers in adopting modern agricultural techniques or provide 500 micro-businesses with access to capital and training.
For each impact area, directors, managers, field executives, and support staff are responsible for achieving a metric.
Second, when do we deliver the services to the community?
In the commercial sector, service providers, manufacturers, and suppliers must adhere to strict timelines to remain competitive and sustain their operations. The pressure to meet deadlines typically originates from customer demand and business performance. In contrast, for many nonprofits, the pressure to deliver services on time often stems more from grantmakers than from the communities they serve. While nonprofits strive to meet their objectives, they sometimes fail to recognize the importance of adhering to timelines when it comes to fulfilling the promises made to their beneficiaries.
In a livelihoods project, a delay in vocational training programs or job placements can hinder individuals' chances of securing employment or improving their income levels.
It needs to change. Nonprofits need to communicate the timeline to their community and stick to their promise. That requires a people strategy that monitors delays and incentivizes timeliness.
Third. What is the quality of the services delivered to the community?
Underserved communities often face limited access to essential services, which is precisely why nonprofits step in to fill the gap. However, once these services are delivered, communities frequently lack the resources or avenues to provide feedback on their quality. Without proper mechanisms for feedback, nonprofits may remain unaware of the actual effectiveness or shortcomings of their initiatives, making it difficult to ensure continuous improvement.
To ensure high-quality services, nonprofits need to establish systems that actively engage beneficiaries in the feedback process. This can involve conducting surveys, focus groups, or community forums where beneficiaries can voice their opinions about the service they’ve received. These surveys and feedback inform the feedback strategy for each micro-interaction and delivery of materials and services.
For making an impact, quality weighs more than the numbers reached. Usually, nonprofits have more expertise to define and understand the quality of the work they are doing for the community than their grantmakers, third-party evaluating agencies, and social auditors. Deciding on a quality framework for the infrastructure, materials, or services nonprofits build and deliver to the communities can be key milestones for the project teams.
What's next for the nonprofit human resource strategy
The need to empower people to deliver services, within a given timeframe, and maintain quality, the human resource team works along with the project teams. Together with the project team, the HR team reviews the progress and feedback data, checks external and internal dependencies, and provides feedback to the directors, managers, field executives, and support teams.
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