Nonprofit Tech and Career Re-entry

by Yvette Yescas

Fundraising is built on relationships with people, so while it might not immediately bring to mind technology, behind every great fundraising team is a technical person or team. These are Advancement Services workers, and they put the drive in data-driven teams. They enter gift and donor data into a database, clean and report on that data, and keep it safe. Many of them are former stay-at-home parents, like me, who’ve re-entered the workforce via this field.

My nonprofit career was not unusual - it may sound like the stories of other stay-at-home parents you know. A parent wants a part time job while the kids are in school or a full time office job with a low barrier to entry. They think they are getting a basic data entry job, and they soon find themselves managing and querying a very sophisticated relational database.

Why does this happen, and why is it an opportunity for those re-entering the workforce after a career gap?

Why it happens

Nonprofit is a high-churn sector and fundraising teams are particularly susceptible. As staff turns over, positions open. Employers in this field can see talent and aptitude beyond traditional career and educational pursuits and achievements, and they open doors for non-traditional candidates, including those with significant career gaps. 

Nonprofit wages are lower than the what the same skills earn in the private sector. For those who can accept the lower wage, like many former stay-at-home parents, they can pursue a position based on the skills they will learn, the network they will build, and the mission they will serve.

Technology moves fast! Data entry workers quickly become “the most knowledgeable person in the room” in these high-churn environments, because their positions require collaboration around technology with marketing and finance teams, an understanding of data reporting across departments, and knowledge of security in several software tools, even when they are not directly responsible for those things.

Why it’s an opportunity

All the same reasons!

Technology moves fast! Advancement Services workers went from logging checks and event registrations into a database a few decades ago to managing complex integrations between multiple digital platforms and deploying powerful business intelligence tools today. Nonprofit technology workers learn in fast-paced, high-stress environments. Because they level up quickly, they can close a career gap quickly; if they level up in the right way, they can take those nonprofit technology skills to the private sector! (A topic for a future blog post.)

In nonprofit, like other fields, technology wages rise faster than other jobs because of market demand. Once a data entry person has taken on data manager responsibilities in an interim, they can use those skills to secure a higher wage in another position.   

Nonprofit is high-churn, so it is not frowned upon when workers seek opportunities to level up. Hiring managers are more concerned with knowledge, skill, and ability than length of tenure in previous positions. The priority for a new nonprofit data manager is usually someone who can hit the ground running, not someone who will stay for a decade.

Career re-entry is daunting! For those hoping to build a career from scratch upon re-entry or breaking into a new field, the nonprofit sector provides opportunities with low barriers to entry into technology, because wages are lower compared to the private sector. Due to staff turnover, those opportunities can grow into bigger and better opportunities quickly. Workers who learn new skills fast can compensate easily for their career gap when they seek the next job. In nonprofit technology, the days are long, but the years are short. Hard work closes career gaps fast!