Career paths for data folk in nonprofits
What we learned from our May nonprofit datafolk club
Once a month, we bring people who work in the nonprofit community together for ‘Nonprofit datafolk club’ – an opportunity to chat informally about data topics of interest.
Back in May, our focus was on pursuing a data career in the nonprofit sector, and we had some excellent discussions with folk ranging from data analysts and scientists to managers and heads of data. We considered three main questions:
What are the attractions of working in the nonprofit sector for data folk?
What kinds of skills, experience or qualifications are particularly important for working in data in the nonprofit sector?
What are the barriers to pursuing a career in the nonprofit sector and how might we address them?
What are the attractions of working in the nonprofit sector?
People widely agreed that the main attraction of the nonprofit sector is that the work is purpose-driven, meaningful, and ultimately helps to create a positive impact in society.
People found that having a job that aligned with their personal values is highly motivating and helped to reduce stress. They appreciated that nonprofit work enabled them to see tangible real-world outcomes from their insights, and that they were not pressured to commercialise the data. They also found that the nonprofit sector tended to be more collaborative, with organisations being more willing to work together and colleagues being open-minded, passionate and friendly people.
Many of the challenges of working in the nonprofit sector are enjoyed. Although there are both upsides and downsides, people said that the tendency of having a broader job remit – with nonprofits being less likely to have highly specialised roles and teams – brought variety and interest to their jobs, and lots of opportunities for learning.
What kinds of skills, experience or qualifications are particularly important?
The main skills that people felt are important for working in data in nonprofits are so-called ‘soft skills’ – the non-technical skills that relate to how you work. Critical thinking, resourcefulness, flexibility and adaptability were all thought to be crucial.
People also felt that communication and relationship building skills are essential – they need to be able to convey complex information in appropriate ways for a variety of stakeholders, and to be able to build people’s trust in the data. People also felt that a deep understanding or lived experience of the challenges that your organisation was tackling are important in nonprofit data jobs.
It was noted that working in data in nonprofits tends to require breadth rather than depth in terms of technical knowledge and skills – you need to be more of a generalist than a specialist. Whereas in a private sector organisation you might have data engineers and other specialists doing some of the ‘background work’ to get data ready for analysis, often in a nonprofit you have to do everything yourself from end to end. People mentioned that nonprofit organisations also varied widely in their use of data tools, from basic spreadsheets through to advanced systems, so a breadth of knowledge and experience in these was important – with an emphasis on solid Excel skills.
People also mentioned that working in nonprofit organisations required much greater knowledge of external data, and the ability to bring this together with internal data in order to answer relevant questions.
What are the barriers to pursuing a data career in the nonprofit sector?
A key barrier mentioned was that there are limited data roles in the nonprofit sector – or at least, those that are explicitly described as such – and that salaries can’t compete with the private sector. (I’ve been digging into the data about this recently with my colleague Ben).
People also felt that there was a ceiling for data roles in nonprofits, with lots of analyst jobs, but few higher-level positions, meaning that many ‘data people’ were managed (sometimes poorly) by ‘non-data people’, or lumped in with IT. Some said that rigid hierarchies in nonprofit organisations made it difficult to practise skills such as strategic thinking and decision-making that would be necessary to progress to the next level.
People found that nonprofits are less likely to invest in training and professional development or to offer on-the-job training, such as through apprenticeships, due to lack of budget. They may have lower data maturity, meaning fewer opportunities to use advanced data techniques and tools that are common in the private sector. There may also be fewer opportunities to learn from others in the organisation, with people often being the only ‘data person’ and therefore having no one to share their workload with. Not being able to confirm with others whether you are doing the right thing can lead to lack of confidence, which can also be a barrier to career progression.
There were a number of ways in which people felt these barriers could be reduced. People had found that support from outside their organisation was really valuable, such as through mentorships, communities of practice like our Nonprofit Datafolk Club, or open online courses. In larger organisations, they felt that internal communities of practice could be helpful.
In general, though, people felt that guidance was lacking for people who wanted to pursue a data career in the nonprofit sector. They felt that clear advice and codes of practice could be helpful.
People felt that there should be more and better training for leaders and managers. They also thought that job titles could be thought about more carefully to offer career progression (e.g. providing the opportunity to move up from Analyst to Senior Analyst), and that potential avenues of funding could be explored to provide resource for data roles.
Join the Nonprofit Datafolk Club
If you found this resource interesting, or if you have any curiosity in nonprofit data more generally, please come join us on the 2nd Thursday of every month at 1-2pm. Each month has a different topic, and you will be able to find the details on our events page.
Previous topics have included: