Created by: Campbell Lake

May 28, 2025

Imagine you’re a nonprofit professional representing a small organization. Though you have a modest staff of 10, you just got a significant grant to fund a new project. Not only will the project require extra hands to maintain, but your staff will also need to ensure compliance with the grant and collect data continuously.

It’s likely time for you to expand your team to cover all your bases. But how will you handle recruitment, onboarding, payroll, and more on top of developing your new project?

That’s where nonprofit human resources (HR) professionals come in. They provide the infrastructure and expertise organizations need to expand their team and keep employees engaged in the long term. Nonprofits in particular need the extra support—nearly a quarter of U.S. nonprofit workers live just above the federal poverty line, and the sector experiences an average turnover rate of approximately 19%, compared to the for-profit average of 12%. 

However, you can’t implement an HR strategy overnight. In this guide, we’ll review how nonprofits can gauge their HR needs and build a comprehensive strategy by covering the following:

• Frequently Asked Questions About Nonprofit Human Resources
• Implementing HR Strategies for Nonprofits

Frequently Asked Questions About Nonprofit Human Resources

What does human resources for nonprofits look like?

While HR roles across nonprofits might look a bit different, a standard HR professional has responsibilities such as:

• HR Administration: Management of payroll and other employee benefits in compliance with the law, overseeing day-to-day HR operations and needs for the entire organization.
• Staff Recruitment: Sourcing, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding new employees.
• Employee Relations and Culture Building: Resolving employee conflicts and issues as they arise, maintaining a positive work environment, and managing employee engagement initiatives to enhance employee belonging, inclusion, and retention.
• Compliance and Risk Management: Overseeing the full employee life cycle, managing employee records, and handling internal investigations.
• Performance Management: Management of the employee performance process, providing guidance on review conversations and goal-setting practices, and handling any decisions that result from a performance review.
• Training and Professional Development: Provide staff with training programs and resources for enhancing their work performance.

HR professionals tend to have similar roles across the nonprofit and business worlds, but these key differences can set them apart:

• While businesses tend to have more resources and benefits to offer staff, nonprofits generally have to do more with less, making competing with for-profits for talent challenging.
• Nonprofit HR professionals often encounter a higher-than-average turnover rate, which can skew their responsibilities to focus on retention and employee engagement. 
• Nonprofit HR professionals often focus on hiring candidates who align with their missions, adding another layer to the already complex recruiting processes.

What’s the importance of having a nonprofit human resources strategy?

Nonprofits looking to conserve resources might overlook HR as they prioritize their staff responsibilities. On the contrary, having a nonprofit HR strategy:

• Keeps the nonprofit’s workplace culture aligned with its mission. As previously mentioned, nonprofit HR professionals must always keep the nonprofit’s mission in mind, which applies to workplace culture as a whole. Your HR team can integrate your purpose and values into their programs to prevent mission drift.
• Resolves conflict. Having a third-party facilitator is crucial for settling issues within the workplace promptly and professionally. The HR team acts as an unbiased mediator and can recommend mutually beneficial next steps.
• Improves performance. HR team members are meant to help empower employees to do their best work, whether via professional development, delivering performance reviews, or rewarding excellent work.
• Keeps employees engaged. It’s natural that employees experience difficulties staying enthusiastic about their work. HR professionals listen to employee concerns and adjust engagement strategies to help employees feel connected to the workplace and excited to make a difference.
• Combats burnout. In addition to resource constraint struggles, nonprofit employees are also at a high burnout risk due to the emotional demands of their work. HR teams help employees “fill their cups” so they have enough energy to bring to work. 
• Attracts and retains talent. Nonprofits face the difficult task of competing with businesses for talent, and many organizations don’t have dedicated hiring teams to make it happen. Nonprofit HR representatives are focused on not only securing candidates but also ensuring they feel welcome in the organization and excited about the role.
• Supports employee development. Professional development is a highly effective engagement technique that strengthens employee talent. As professional development is an employee benefit, the HR team oversees and distributes enrichment materials.

Implementing HR Strategies for Nonprofits

Now that you understand what nonprofit HR professionals handle, it’s time to create an effective HR strategy that’s tailored to your organizational needs and goals.

We understand that establishing and growing a thriving HR program is a large undertaking and can be challenging if you don’t have experience in the field. There are multiple options to consider when plotting your HR strategies, either working in-house or outsourcing the work to a nonprofit consultant. Some benefits to consider for each option include: 

• In-house:
  • Deep existing understanding of culture and mission
  • Can be a more sustainable option in the long run (for some organizations)
  • Singular focus on the nonprofit’s needs
  • Faster response time
• Outsourced:
  • Access to experienced professionals who have a deep knowledge of HR best practices
  • Cost-effective (at least in the short term)
  • Time savings/expanded bandwidth for leadership
  • Engagement can scale up or down quickly (whereas in-house employee time can be harder to manage)

If your nonprofit has the resources available, you might opt to work with a consultant like Orr Group. We take a unique approach by embedding our team members into your HR function, allowing you to leverage the best of both worlds and focus on what matters most—and we have the capacity to support them all.

Orr Group offers a variety of talent solutions for nonprofit organizations as outsourced human resources experts. We have the capacity to meet your HR needs and ensure your greatest assets – your people – are supported comprehensively. 

Human Resources Assessment & Strategy

Orr Group can help establish a foundation for your human resources strategy or partner with you to enhance or revise it. Beginning with an understanding of your organization’s current state, Orr Group can evaluate existing policies, infrastructure, resources, and cultural components to ensure compliance and strategic alignment of your human resources strategy to your organizational goals while mitigating risk.

Services include:

• Human Resources Assessments
• Staffing Assessments
• Compensation Studies
• Organizational Design 

Human Resources Management

If your organization needs a hands-on approach to Human Resources, Orr Group can support both day-to-day HR functions and more complex people and culture projects as an outsourced human resources professional.

Services include:

• Human Resources Administration
• Employee Relations
• Policy Design & Implementation
• Payroll & Benefits Management
• Performance Management
• Investigations

Talent Acquisition

Attracting and retaining talent is critical to a nonprofit’s success; it is also often the biggest challenge such organizations face. Orr Group can lead your hiring efforts, unlocking talent for hard-to-fill roles with inclusive and compliant recruiting practices, passive candidate sourcing, and support for hiring managers and teams.

Services include:

• Prospect Identification & Engagement
• Full-Service Recruitment
• Executive Search
• Hiring Support

Now that you have a solid foundation, you might be eager to map out your nonprofit’s HR strategy. As you get started, understand that your HR priorities might change over time. For instance, you might prioritize diversifying your staff, and once you’re in a better place in that area, you might focus more on employee engagement. 

No matter your nonprofit’s initial (or eventual) HR policies, consider working with Orr Group to start your strategies on the right track. We bring an embedded approach, hands-on experience, a business mindset, and comprehensive nonprofit expertise to create the best strategy for your needs.

Whether you outsource or hire an in-house team, as long as your team takes a flexible approach and hires HR professionals who genuinely care about your stakeholders, you can grow, thrive, and achieve your mission.

Campbell Lake is an Associate Director on the Growth team at Orr Group. Campbell plays a key role in expanding the company’s brand presence by creating content, supporting thought leadership, managing social media accounts, preparing marketing and business development materials, planning events, and more.