THE FUTURE OF PHILANTHROPY | Leaders Q&A on Workforce, Recruiting, and Getting the Most from Today’s Talent Market

To bring to life the concepts and ideas discussed in the Future of Philanthropy series, we bring together experts in the field who can offer first-hand experience and important insights on these topics. This Q&A focuses on leadership—how the rapidly changing world of philanthropy is placing new and different kinds of demands on advancement leaders.

Panelist: Dr. Rose McSween is Chief Advancement Officer at Newark Academy, where she leads the Office of Institutional Advancement and the school’s current capital campaign. Rose previously served as the executive director of development and Centennial Campaign manager at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business. Before Fordham, Rose worked at the Bronx Charter School for Children, Saint David’s School, Loyola School, Little Red Schoolhouse, and Grace Church School. Prior to her nonprofit service, Rose also worked on Wall Street in investment banking for Citigroup, GE, and the related companies. Rose earned a Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College, a Master of Business Administration from New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business, a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership and Technology from New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and a Doctorate in Educational Administration and Leadership from Fordham University.

Panelist: Patrick Muhlen is the Chief Managing Director at Ballet Hispánico, America’s leading Latinx dance organization and the largest Latinx cultural institution in the United States.?In his career, Patrick has been a senior executive and consultant for major performing arts companies and venues in the U.S. and Australia. He has served as Managing Director of The Washington Ballet and Chief Development Officer of the San Diego Opera. Prior to joining the U.S. arts and development sector, he worked in New York as a corporate business development manager and external and legal affairs executive with Mercer / Marsh McLennan, a global financial services and consulting firm. He has an extensive background as a senior advisor and chief of staff in the Australian government and political sector, leading teams in finance, international trade, and cultural portfolios. Patrick holds a Juris Doctor with Honors from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the University of Sydney.

Panelist: Valaida Wynn Guerrero?serves as the Chief Advancement Officer at NAF, a national education nonprofit dedicated to addressing economic and social inequities among high school students in underinvested communities. By connecting schools with businesses, NAF prepares students for?college, career, and lifelong success. It has expanded from one Academy of Finance in 1980 to 619?academies nationwide, focusing on today’s in-demand industries. Valaida leads resource development and partnerships, spearheading fundraising initiatives and strategic alliances to support NAF’s growth and enhance its impact. With over 20 years of nonprofit leadership experience, she has held a number of key positions at nonprofit organizations,?including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Valaida holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Science in Fundraising Management from Columbia University.

Moderator: Patrick Key joined Aspen Leadership Group, having held leadership positions at five global and domestic nonprofit organizations based in New York City over his 20 year career in philanthropy. He has led fundraising programs that have generated over $100 million to support social service and social justice work at organizations like the United Way of New York City, amfAR: The Foundation for AIDS Research, Sesame Workshop, and the Robin Hood Foundation, among others. He is highly effective at developing strategies for nonprofit organizations that focus on comprehensive approaches to fundraising plans that support team development and high-impact programs. Additionally, he has successfully built intentional digital fundraising initiatives that have expanded organizational reach from both a donor and marketing perspective. Patrick graduated from the University of North Alabama with a Bachelor's Degree in public relations and history. Shortly after college, Patrick served in the Peace Corps in Zambia, Africa, working in public health. He is very active in local community-based organizations and has been a frequent presenter at national and regional conferences, including the Association of Fundraising Professionals, BRIDGE, California Education Association for Young Children, and many others.

Patrick K: Thank you all for being here. Workforce and recruiting are big topics, and we have a lot to cover. I’m just going to open up with a general question: What hiring challenges and opportunities are you seeing in your own organizations? Anyone can jump in.

Rose: Filling more junior positions is a lot easier than finding senior talent with a very specific skill set and verifiable track record of closing major gifts. In the search I just concluded with you, Patrick, getting that specific expertise took finding a professional from Ohio to move here. I had worked for 18 months solo on this search and didn’t find a candidate with the necessary skills, experiences, and intangibles we were looking for. Happily, you helped us find a wonderful major gift officer who has integrated herself beautifully into the team, and she has precisely the skill set we need.

Patrick K: And what kind of challenges have you experienced while doing this search on your own?

Rose: For me, the biggest challenge was time, and you made my input into the search process efficient and targeted. To be perfectly candid, I have a lean and mean team. So, members of staff often do multiple jobs, and I’m constantly trying to balance alumni relations, marketing and communications, frontline fundraising, general administration of the school, and recruiting. We also had a number of candidates come to the school, which requires a lot of time to host a campus visit properly. So, for me, the big takeaway in working with a firm like ALG was time savings and having a real working partner to get the job done.

Valaida: I’ll echo Rose’s comment on it being hard. Patrick, as you know, when I came into this role, the focus was on the sustainability of the organization. Our incredible founder essentially served as the organization’s cornerstone fundraiser for decades. But given that he’s 91, he wants to make sure that the organization is sustainable long after he’s gone. And so, building a new, more robust development team is critical to aligning our talent strategy with that vision and the mission—putting serious thought into what sort of team we needed, what sort of roles, positions, skills, and so on when developing those job descriptions.

But then, I found that we needed to be really focused on where we put those job descriptions. With online recruiting sites, we would be inundated with resumes, and it required weeding through a lot of unqualified candidates to find the ones with both the skills and adaptability we were looking for. It was important that we could see in their past positions that they’ve got both because they weren’t coming into a turnkey fundraising operation. We were building something new. And so, I think that transparency in the hiring process was important.

Patrick M: I share—very much—a number of these challenges and opportunities. While I’ve only been in the U.S. philanthropic sector for ten years, I’ve come to appreciate the increasing need for specialization in different roles within a development department. You need someone who knows how to do a database, someone to liaise with finance, somebody who can relate to a major donor, work with a government or foundation process, and someone for special events.

So, that puts pressure on the chief advancement officer to understand all the different needs but creates an opportunity to invest more time in workforce planning and talent management. We need to go beyond the first task of hiring someone to create that broader strategy. Then, within that multi-year plan, ask ourselves: what kind of path are we creating for our people, how much money can we pay them, and what kind of talent will that attract?

On the flip side, for all the reasons I mentioned above, it’s extremely competitive to get a good chief advancement officer, and those roles are increasingly, appropriately, well-remunerated. I think that the sooner organizations can realize that the CDO or equivalent role could be the highest paid person in the building, the easier it will be for those organizations to succeed. In the past, there may have been a feeling in nonprofits that the program director should be the highest paid staff member. But when I was in business development roles in the corporate sector, that’s where the compensation was highest because that’s where the money was made.

Patrick K: Thank you for those points, Patrick. I want to build on the point about remuneration because it gets to the larger question of value. How has that concept evolved for candidates in the nonprofit workforce, and how are you seeing it from your organization’s perspective?

Patrick M: Well, I’ve seen it taking a more central place, and you mentioned it in your article, the fact that ALG spends a lot of time on that personal statement from the head of the organization or the chair of the board. From what I’ve seen and all those whom I’ve talked to, there is an increasing need for people in their careers to seek something meaningful.

We’ve seen this particularly coming out of the pandemic, that people are not attracted by the idea of killing themselves to work for a big corporation in Manhattan until they finally reach retirement. People have other options and feel like ‘giving back’ is a crucial part of that. So, for me, if that mission-driven passion is important for potential employees, then attracting those people means you have to speak more effectively about what your mission is.

Rose: I can add on to this topic. Patrick, as you know and appreciate through our work together, I sit in a geographic area with a lot of direct competition from the very top tier of independent schools in New Jersey. So, what makes the difference between a candidate coming to Newark Academy versus going to one of these other schools?

In my experience, a lot of it comes down to culture, which is different than mission, right? Recently, I had candidates interview at Newark Academy, as well as another independent school close by, and all of those candidates said that our culture was ‘warmer and more friendly,’ and that we were ‘better organized,’ and that our style was ‘much more collaborative.’ So yes, you’ve got to speak to the mission, and the culture piece has been compelling, according to feedback from our finalists.

Patrick K: It’s also about representing not just the culture you have but also how you are looking for individuals who could add to that culture, right?

Rose: Yes. I see all of you nodding. So, I think we can agree on the whole culture piece, and I’m looking at the list of topics that you wanted to hit on today. Clearly, storytelling becomes a very valuable tool to share culture with others.

I distinctly remember the day that you said to me, ‘Rose, I need you to write this little thing for our prospectus. You need to put forward what your team is all about. What does it feel like? What does it look like?’ So, that’s what I did in writing, and then, when the candidates would come to campus, they could experience a taste of our culture for themselves.

Patrick M: Culture is so critical to retention, particularly post-pandemic.

Rose: I totally agree.

Valaida: To tie the value proposition and the storytelling in a nice bow, I think making the mission and culture come alive in conversations is so important. I can certainly echo Rose’s point about the crowded nature of the education space. With us, in all the recruiting conversations we were having, it was crucial to go beyond the mechanics of the role and drive home all that we do as an organization. We create pathways for young people to succeed, and we build and strengthen communities. This is what we’re asking candidates to be part of, showing there’s much bigger work taking place beyond the mechanics of the role that they’ll be filling.

Patrick K: Thank you for sharing that. Can you give an example, maybe? As we think about nonprofit workforce trends, the storytelling piece becomes so important. Given your background in marketing and communications, how do you think about storytelling from the workforce perspective as you recruit and retain internal talent?

Valaida: I tell a lot of success stories. So that our candidates can really see themselves in the work of building the organization. One story that I love to tell is about the work that we have done with one of our corporate partners, which is an engineering firm. They need a more diverse talent pipeline, and they have two facilities in Puerto Rico. They asked us to go with them to the Department of Education to open up two academies of engineering near their facilities. The first cohort of students graduated last year from high school, and they talked about how life-changing it was for them. I always share that with candidates to illustrate that this is the kind of work you would be doing, building life-changing opportunities for young people.

Rose: That resonates with me. Depending on the role we’re seeking to fill, I always like to have a bunch of stories in my tool kit so I can pull out stories that match up with the role.

For example, when I was trying to hire a major gifts officer, I was looking for somebody who loved closing deals, which is in your DNA as a major gifts officer, right? It helps to be able to give them a concrete example of a gift we closed and say, ‘I could see you doing that.’ That kind of story will resonate with the right candidate. Whereas I might tell a different story if I’m trying to attract a database administrator. So, having a few culture-revealing stories at the ready is one tool we can use as hiring managers.

Patrick K: That’s a great point. In that context, I want to touch on the topic of onboarding and retention. That is, from a candidate’s perspective, what is that onboarding process going to be like, and how are they going to feel supported? Telling that story is really important to attracting strong talent.

Patrick M: For me, it always starts with our unique selling point because you’ve got a competitive market of employers looking for strong talent. Your process at ALG is really helpful in thinking very carefully about what Valaida said was ‘going beyond the technicality of the role.’ The candidate has to see where it fits into the organization’s longer-term picture to include where and how do you want this role to emerge and this person to emerge.

When you’re thinking about all of that at the very beginning of the hiring process, it prompts that imagining of the future trajectory, which translates into the onboarding by introducing a certain sequence of information and tasks. There’s onboarding in the technical sense of filling out your paperwork, but what’s more important and joyful is mentoring somebody into a role in which they’re going to feel fulfilled. All of that ties into a higher-level picture, a value proposition that the organization is offering that prospective employee.

Rose: I have a pretty standard onboarding process that I’ve been using for more than a decade. It has worked very well for me, and I view it as co-creating the onboarding process for a new employee so they feel equity in the process from day one. They feel heard and feel empowered as opposed to onboarding happening to them. I use a book that we used in business school with all of our students, called The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins. It’s a classic. I read that together with the new employee, and we create their 90-day plan. I have found this to be both creative and effective.

Valaida: I love that. I’m going to look into that book. We have something similar across the organization, but we tailor it specifically for the development team. We also co-create goals for the first 90 days. As part of our onboarding, we make sure that in the first three weeks, our new people meet with the heads of all of the teams at the organization because we do work so cross-functionally with all of the teams. We make sure new staff spend time with each of the program teams to really dive in and understand the program so that they can begin to think about their own storytelling as fundraisers.

Patrick K: I want to shift a bit here and talk more about hiring for specialized skills. How are you thinking about specialized skills versus being adaptable in an organization when a broader skill set may be required?

Patrick M: In the Australian labor market, where I come from, the talent pool is very generalist. It’s a G20 economy with a population of just 25 million. So, over an entire career, it means that you’re probably doing a lot of different things. But here, you have the luxury of a talent market where you can search for an extremely specific skill and probably find someone experienced in it. So, although I am now thinking more like an American, I’m less obsessed with specifications and try to be more open to people who might need some training and professional development but have an interest in contributing to the mission.

Rose: I was going to say both/and, honestly. It’s no longer about whether you can be a generalist and have a set of specialized skills. To me, the question is, ‘What are your specialized skills, and do you understand that the role that you are applying for is an all-hands-on-deck opportunity?’ Because that’s the way we approach our work here.

Now, I want to be honest that I am trying to protect my frontline fundraisers and their time. One can easily become overburdened with opportunities to work with students in lots of different ways. Does everybody deserve a chance to have a little fun with the students? Yes, but we need to balance the needs of the shop and the need to make goals with making sure fundraisers stay connected to the mission and the reason why we all come to work every day.

Patrick K: As we think about 2025, we build this off historical experience about times when there are large potential disruptions to the nonprofit space. We're heading into uncertainty, when the government could be cutting back significantly and social pressures are mounting, particularly around DEI issues.. How are you thinking about moving into 2025?

Rose: We’re in a campaign right now, and we’re not changing our fundraising strategies drastically midstream. The issue where we’re doing some deep reflection is the backlash in the DEI space. Our school is known for authentic diversity. We have dozens of languages spoken in our building, and we have children from literally every corner of the globe. What we strive to do is recruit and retain talented faculty and staff who represent our students so they are being taught by individuals who look like them and can understand where they're coming from. We can't possibly have a diverse enough employee base to match our students. So, despite the backlash, my sense is that it’s going to remain one of our priorities in recruiting.

Valaida: For us, we're anticipating some uncertainty—and I feel like with fundraising, there are always external factors we need to constantly balance and pay attention to. Our founder was a financier, and he always talks about a common concept in finance: the idea of diversification. That has been a focus of our fundraising strategy, making sure that we have a diverse group of funders. When I came in, the donor base was fairly corporate-heavy. Now, we’re making sure we expand into more foundation work and individual giving so that some of the economic impacts may not hit as hard.

But we, too, are having a lot of conversations with our funders and peer organizations about how the mission doesn’t change, but we might need to adjust our storytelling given the new climate. So, we are having conversations with funders about what they’re thinking and having internal conversations about what pieces of our work we might uplift more than we have in the past.

Patrick M: It’s interesting to hear the education sector grappling with things like DEI, which the incoming administration has very clearly announced its intention to roll back. Ballet Hispánico is a culturally specific dance company with diversity in our DNA. It’s why we’re here.

So, what it means for us, particularly in terms of recruiting and retention, is that we still maintain that joyful tone, but we’re very serious now. We’re very determined. We have had some donors tell us, ‘You look too left wing. We’re going to give elsewhere.’ But that just makes us more determined to succeed in our mission.

Patrick K: So, to each of you, I’d like to hear what are the most important factors that you think should be informing your organization in hiring and retention practices to ensure long-term success?

Patrick M: I think it’s very careful resource planning. Organizations have to be very serious about not trying to have their programs outstrip their fundraising capacity because you will break the fundraising department, and it’s very complicated and time-consuming to rebuild it. We need prudent and balanced business planning rather than magical thinking that says, ‘Oh, we can boost fundraising by $10 million next year.’ Leadership and the Board need to think carefully about where revenue growth will come from and then hire to those specifications.

Rose: Hear. Hear.

Valaida: Absolutely.

Rose: I support that answer strongly, and I would go even further to say that I’m not certain that nonprofit leadership, and most nonprofit Boards, actually understand how we fundraise—what we actually do to close a quarter of a million, million, ten-million-dollar gift. And because most don’t understand the process, they don’t understand the talent requirements for growing the platform. So, I’m trying to educate my leaders, decision-makers, and trustees about what it takes to raise these funds and plan for long-term sustainability, not short-term thinking.

I also tell my team that I have their back, and when we set goals, those have to be reasonable goals. Yes, we have stretch goals. Yes, we even have miracle goals. But the goal itself has to be something that my team and I feel like we could actually achieve. Otherwise, people just get so demoralized, which has a huge impact on retention. I’ve seen it happen too many times.

Valaida: I would certainly support all that Patrick and Rosa said. One of the things I think about is the work that we do to cultivate our donors and prospects. That same work should go into our employees and our staff, making sure they’re engaged in the work and that they have opportunities to fill their cup. I think that’s very important as well to staff retention.

We also need to think about the vision of the organization and how that informs the development plan and the team. I’d call it intentional hiring for mission-driven growth. There needs to be a focus on how we develop, who is on the team, and what skills we need—a focus on aligning the vision and values, and finding individuals motivated by the challenge of building systems, cultivating relationships, and working collaboratively.

Patrick K: Rose, what are your thoughts on hiring and, in a sense, ‘future-proofing’ the organization?

Rose: I have never uttered the phrase 'succession planning' more frequently than I have in the past six months. Newark Academy is about to install our first new head of school in 18 years. So, there’s a lot of looking at the org chart, looking at various functions, and sharpening our pencil on what is needed now and what will be needed in the next few years. I’m constantly talking to the incoming Head of School about succession planning in advancement to assure that my senior staff have well-trained junior staff that work with them, and they start to learn how to move along in their career and take on more leadership responsibility. So, I look for people who are willing to go with me on that adventure.

Patrick M: I’d agree. When I think about retention as part of the hiring process, I ask what the trajectory for the new hire is in 18 months or even five years out. Like that old stock question you get in interviews, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ In addition to asking the candidates themselves, we need to ask more internally, 'Where do we see the trajectory for that candidate and that role?'

Patrick K: And do you all have a sense of urgency in the hiring process? Is there competitive pressure around hiring top candidates?

Valaida: Yes, we feel the pressure. Not only because good candidates are in multiple job searches but also because there’s pressure on our end to get the right candidate in quickly. We have goals, too, that we’re trying to meet. So, there’s pressure on both ends to identify the right candidates and get them in quickly.

Patrick M: Massive pressure. Your article makes the point that top candidates can often drop out very quickly because they’re in multiple searches. I’m always exhorting my hiring managers to keep the hiring process moving quickly if they see the right person.

Patrick K: That’s great advice. So, let’s wrap up with a quick question about storytelling. We’ve talked about how hiring managers need to tell the story of the organization. What thoughts do you have on how candidates should think about their own stories to make them attractive to hiring managers?

Valaida: I look for whether candidates can tell their stories in a way that aligns with our work. We spend a lot of time putting those job descriptions together. All candidates know that they should go to the website and do their research before coming to an interview. But how they weave their storytelling into the work of the position and the work of the organization, I think, is really important.

Patrick M: Yes, and I would just add that you recognize right away?when somebody has imagined themselves in the role at the organization. It just resonates that they understand not only the role but the organization, the people, and the culture. They can see themselves in it. You know pretty quickly if the candidate is serious because they’ve done all that imagining beforehand.

Rose: I had a requirement that we need team consensus on new hires because we are a small team that works really hard, often with long hours. So, we emphasize how a candidate interacts with the members of the team and can quickly let people know their working style, their working personality, etc. Of course, we look for a verifiable track record of gifts closed. But if you can demonstrate an ability to fit into the ethic and culture of the team on your first visit, you’re going to go much further in your interview process, at least at Newark Academy.

Patrick K: I want to say thank you so much for your time today and that you all inspire me so much. I’m just so grateful for you and your participation in this story. I can't wait for people to read this because it will resonate with so many organizations and candidates trying to find the right match—not just in talent and skill but also in culture, mission, and values. Thank you.

NEXT UP on March 4th: Eric Rosario and Tonya Malik-Carson take on the important topic of developing an organization's internal talent pipeline. They explore what talent development is—and what it isn't. They also delve into why operating with a scarcity mindset (i.e., fear of losing talented staff) shortchanges the organization and how operating out of a growth mindset that invests in people can support the organization's mission,?reputation, and ability to attract excellent?talent.?

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