During the best of times, it is challenging for nonprofit HR teams and their organizations to pay employees what they would like to. As you probably know, those who work in the nonprofit sector understand that earning a high salary is highly improbable, but you still need to offer fair wages.

But how do you create a recruiting budget for your HR needs? If you struggle with nonprofit recruiting, you are not alone. Many nonprofits indicate that the hiring process presents the greatest obstacle for their companies.

Some challenges nonprofit hiring teams face include tight budgets that translate to insufficient salaries for professionals; high rates of burnout for staff members living on a small budget; and the time-consuming recruiting process that takes HR professionals away from regular duties.

While these challenges are all too real for top nonprofits, there are ways to overcome them and build the team you need to help your community or cause without compromise.

4 Tips to Develop and Maintain a Better Recruiting Budget

We are already barreling through 2023, but it isn't too late to focus on developing a budget you can maintain to recruit nonprofit professionals when you need them.

Here are four tips to help you develop and maintain your nonprofit's recruiting budget:

1. Evaluate Your Goals for the Year

Gather your accounting and HR teams, and make sure everyone brings their calendars. Explore or launch your goals and strategies for the coming year, touching on goals and metrics and how to achieve them. Then compare this year's goals to last year's to see what your metrics tell you. If you came in under budget with new-hires the previous year, try using the same strategy for the coming year.

Look at how many new professionals you will need to accomplish your goals, and work to determine how you can manage the budget to hire the right talent without overextending your HR staff.

2. Explore Historical Recruitment Budgeting Strategies

If you didn't hire anyone new last year, you might need to go back further. Examine historical hiring practices from the past five years, considering the following:

• The technology used in the process, whether an Excel spreadsheet or an applicant tracking system (ATS)
• Your company's attendance at job fairs, inviting talented candidates to apply
• The use of social media strategies to attract candidates who have a similar education, background and interests to your nonprofit's mission
• Hiring background screening and legal professionals to streamline tasks
• Your nonprofit's previous ability and willingness to assist non-local new-hires to move to your location

Several of these expenditures can become expensive if you do them for each position. You might need to evaluate the urgency of each one if your budget is tight this year.

3. Take the Temperature of Your Current Staff Atmosphere

Do you think someone on your team might resign this year, or is there someone you know you need to let go for some reason? These considerations can help you realistically plan for a possible recruiting session, which allows you to find a way to work the process into your budget.

4. Outsource Some HR Tasks

Support from HR outsourcing solutions providers can be invaluable to give your current employees more bandwidth. The recruiting process is time-consuming and complex, so you don't want to leave your current employees struggling while your HR team and anyone else available focus on one new position for an unpredictable duration.

Work with a company that offers valuable resources, such as downloadable and easy-to-understand documents, a live hotline to answer important questions on the spot, and on-demand training courses that bring your employees up to speed on the latest nonprofit recruiting best practices.

UST offers resources to help your hiring team find top talent while helping you stay well within your budget and fulfill your nonprofit's vision and mission.

Sources:

https://www.slleonard.com/recruiting-and-retaining-top-talent-even-when-you-cant-pay-them-enough/

https://www.nonprofithr.com/how-to-build-a-recruitment-budget-that-work