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NZARC Blog

The New Zealand Association Resource Centre Trust (NZARC) blog is a place for board members, partner organisations, and subscribers to contribute articles and discuss issues of relevance to the non-profit sector. Contributions are welcome and encouraged.

Developing good leaders in non-profits

Friday, May 18, 2012

As we observe the issues facing associations and charities in the current environment, we consider the role leaders play. How they are supported in their development is a critical aspect for non-profits organizations. Strong leadership is critical so that staff and volunteers are engaged and motivated to deliver outstanding results. A recent blogspot support this ‘Nonprofits face extraordinary challenges as they deal with funding cuts and an increasing need for its services from its communities’. How are your leaders supported as they face these challenges? 

What is the point we ask, in developing great programmes and initiatives if there is not the investment in time and energy in mentoring those individuals within your organisation – those you rely on to implement them? We hear time and again of some great programmes that fail because of a lack of final direction and cohesiveness of a team. A hands-on, passionate and committed leader can make a substantial difference and contribution. 

We’d love to see you at our conference where Anna McNaughton of St John will be discussing this very topic. She has some interesting insights into how St John have committed to developing leaders within their organisation. Join with us and Anna as she ‘walks the talk’ – providing key initiatives your organisation can take away to implement positive development with your leaders and managers - however small or large your organisation. 

Register now 

For more information: 


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Right people, right time, right fit

Friday, May 11, 2012
How do you go about making sure that you are getting the right people with the right fit to join your organization when you need them most? By getting a better connection with your organisation’s potential staff and volunteers:

  • Utilise technology to recruit the right talent for the organisation
  • Use the most effective and cost efficient recruitment methods possible
  • Be pro-active about recruiting, instead of reactive

Connect with John Bellamy, HR recruitment specialist for non-profit associations and charities. Attend John’s Masterclass and walk away with valuable tools and insights that you can use straight away:

  • A tested and measured advertising template with an effective structure
  • Uncover the REAL cost of recruitment with a tested and proven Recruitment Cost Calculator
  • Gain clarity around implementing a recruitment strategy for your organisation

Align your organisation’s objectives and values with those staff and volunteers you want to work with.

Listen below to an interview with John Bellamy around how you can make recruitment work for you:


Register here to join John at our upcoming MasterClass workshop series at our non-profit Human Resources conference.


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What HR benefits are non-profits really offering?

Friday, April 27, 2012
Some of you may have heard of the Strategic Pay ‘Not for Profit Remuneration Survey’. We recently attended a presentation which overviewed key findings from the 2011 survey that Strategic Pay conducted. It made for very interesting reading – for example some key trends include.

  • there are 97,000 organisations that class themselves as ‘non-profits’ (just over 25,000 are registered charities). 
  • Of these organisations employing staff, the average number of employees is 11
  • Of these organisations they have on average 4 times the number of volunteers for every one employee

STOP PRESS - The 2012 Strategic Pay Not for Profit Remuneration Survey was launched on Friday, 13 April. A total of 277 participants in 2011 made the Strategic Pay Not for Profit Remuneration Survey by far the most authoritative source of information on remuneration for this sector. There is no cost to participating in this survey, and all participants receive a complimentary executive summary, giving key highlights from this year’s Not for Profit Sector Report. If you wish to participate in the survey, but do not currently receive an invitation, please notify Strategic Pay at surveys@strategicpay.co.nz or contact Lauren Papayannes on 09 303 4045 and she will arrange for an email invitation to be sent to you.

  • Substantially more people working flexi-hours
  • Working from home opportunities 
  • Part-time work opportunities

With regards to benefits and pay parity:

  • Remuneration for those employees within for-profit organisations is on average 17.9% more than those working in non-profit organisations
  • Indications are that a large part of this sector are both underpaid and underemployed
  • The majority of those in paid employment received no increase in salary or received less
  • Senior staff received more benefits such as tool of trade vehicle, vehicle allowance etc.
  • A good percentage of senior managers and staff received a car park, phone and laptop – general tools of doing business

As a quote directly from the report:

Budgets are almost universally more constrained, and relationships with governing boards of trustees or directors are often less clearly defined, leading to more complex remuneration-setting processes. In addition, relationships with funders and contractors exert greater influence on the remuneration setting process for these organisations than in any other sector

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Attracting younger people to your organisations

Friday, April 27, 2012
With many associations facing aging memberships and charities facing aging volunteer bases, it is no wonder the Charities Commission Forums in 2011 indicated that many non-profits identified ‘attracting younger people to their organisations’ as a major challenge for the next 12 months. 

Some major and provincial centres identified that attracting younger people to their organisations is one of the largest issues they face. Here is what some organisations said they needed to do:

  • “Attracting younger people into the organisation.”
  • “Attracting members. Coming into the 21st century and preventing the ‘old brigade’ from stifling the ‘young guns’.”
  • “Getting more young people involved, learning and using social networking to build our organisation.”
  • “Attracting committee members younger than 40 years.”

We have recently observed the power of truly connecting with a younger audience through the actions of the ‘student army’ during the aftermath of the 2011 Christchurch eathquake. Although the earthquake was a devastating tragedy, the galvanisation of so many individuals was an incredible triumph to the youth of that city and demonstrates the ability of what can happen when a powerful connection is made.

Josh Levent

Catch Josh Levent, Vice President for Organisational Development at AIESEC NZ at our upcoming conference as he explores how you, as an organisation, can really attract youth with the work you do. What are the best recruitment channels you can use to effectively engage and attract the younger generation? 


Here are some tips that you may not be aware of to engage with a younger audience:

  • Create relevance – make opportunities relevant to the interests and needs of a youthful audience, use language that is quick, fun and exciting with emphasis on how they can contribute. Do it in a way that supports your brand though.
  • Create peer/advocacy groups – develop an advisory group, or make room for a younger person on your board – help them to market you to their peers.
  • Match mentors – develop individuals or teams among your youth and train them as team leaders, encourage ideas and collective learning
  • Give younger members the opportunity to learn about project you are working on that may be meaningful to them, and draw them to others in your organisation in their age group.
We suggest you ensure that your organisation is clear about why it wants younger members, volunteers or staff. If this is an agreed strategy then the older members of staff need to support the strategy and a strategic culture of embracing youth developed and fostered.


On the generational issue—and I’m speaking as a baby boomer myself —I think we no longer can consider ourselves to have wisdom because we have experience. We need to switch to a “co-learning” role with younger leaders – and learn from them together as we make change. And that isn’t easy for a lot of us who were born in the babyboomer “Me” generation to shift and work alongside the “We” generation.
—Beth Kanter, Non-Profit Blogger

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Do you hire for skill or spirit?

Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Expert blogger Michelle Randall explores why organisations spend a huge amount of time and resources crafting organisational strategies. Even so, most of these strategies end in failure. 

If employees don’t buy into a strategy, it’s doomed to failure from the start. After all, strategy doesn’t execute itself. People execute it. This is why it’s vital to integrate strategy and people. Employee development needs to be included in both strategy creation and execution. There are two main ways to assess people and their development: skills and spirit.

Skills are things that can be acquired with training. A leader can be coached on how to become more influential and engage their team to achieve great results. An employee can be trained with technical skills such as engineering, accounting, and marketing that they need to do their jobs really, really well.

Spirit refers to the “soft” skills that can’t be acquired effectively with training. You have to hire people with them. These are hard to find but are necessary for an organisation to function smoothly.

Too often, companies hire for skills without enough consideration for spirit. When that happens, you end up with a bunch of 'wonks' who can’t work together. There needs to be a balance between skills and spirit across the entire company. 

Integrating strategy and people accelerates the potential growth of any organization and is critical for high-growth companies.


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Attracting and retaining our people

Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Consider the following question and how it applies to you. We received some great feedback around this issue and others in a survey you may have taken part in recently. We also posed this specific question on LinkedIn, directed at a special interest group for non-profits.

We thought the following answer was particularly thought-provoking:

“…having done some involved research for a large NFP earlier this year, what I discovered is that not for profits do not position themselves from a recruitment branding perspective, to attract and be appealing to individuals capable of the role who are positioned in other sectors. A NFP who positions themselves to operate more as a private sector organisation and as a business, become more attractive to those who would be ideal for the role, but are otherwise currently working in other organisations…”

We would love to hear your thoughts around this also – you can comment either directly to rosemary@associations.org.nz or via the comments section at the bottom of this post.

 Question – what issues do you think are critical for NFP in attracting and retaining; board members, paid staff and volunteers in associations and charities?


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New website for non-profit sector job market

Thursday, October 27, 2011
Australian non-profit HR specialist John Bellamy, launches ‘Non Profit Careers’ for both New Zealand and Australia. As reported on http://www.newsmaker.com.au/news/11860

 Typically, organisations find it hard to recruit, develop and retain team members when competing with the government and private sectors. Primarily, the areas of most concern continue to be talent attraction and salary expectations," said John Bellamy – Managing Director of Not For Profit Recruitment.

"Through our discussions with the sector, we found that while talent attraction and salary play a vital part in the war for talent, the underlying issue is that there is know centralised website, an online marketplace for both employer and candidate to engage," Mr. Bellamy explained. "Sure there are plenty of job boards, but none have been specialised for the nonprofit sector as a whole… until now."

With the launch of 'Non Profit Careers' on the 1st November 2011, the ten thousand plus not for profit organisations with paid staff in New Zealand will now have a home. Employers and Candidates alike are encouraged to take part in the launch by registering their details at http://www.nonprofitcareers.co.nz

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How you manage human resources – what you told us.

Thursday, September 15, 2011
In August you may recall we sought respondents to a survey about human resources practices in the non-profit sector.

With a response that exceeded our expectations we can share the summary findings of this research. The areas where respondents felt they most needed assistance will also guide us to what content we investigate for our upcoming HR conference which will be held around mid-June 2012. Over the next couple of months we will explore some of these areas in a little more detail.

  • Although having an attractive employment proposition can sometimes prove tricky, NFPs are able to attract people with the right attitude and appropriate fit for their organisation.
  • NFP organisations surveyed tend not to use assessments as part of their selection processes. And, those that did i.e. competencies, structured interviews etc. found a better ‘people’ fit.
  • When inducting a new staff member or volunteer, clear role descriptions and social support were used by those who considered their induction process to be effective.
  • Most organisations surveyed thought employment law was a clear strength, with alignment to employment relations, human rights act, privacy act etc.
  • Most respondents agreed they work towards a common goal, keeping employees engaged and informed through team meetings, promoting a high level of commitment
  • NFPs value leadership, learning and development, encouraging stakeholders in all areas of their organisations, however it would appear tools are not well used for ongoing assessment
  • Although NFPs consider themselves good at ‘rewarding’ good performance, it would appear that those who contribute the most are not rewarded any more highly
  • Respondents thought they had good clarity around values, mission and strategic goals, however there appears to be an opportunity for board members to provide better direction for the organisations.

We still have a bit of analysis to complete and a full breakdown will be available on our website soon. If you would like any further information about this survey please call Rosemary Mahoney in the first instance. Ph: 09 4190042

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Employment Contracts – deadline 01 July 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011
n April 1 2011 a number of amendments to the Employment Relations Act 2000 and Holidays Act 2003 came into effect. However, one final amendment to the Employment Relations Act 2000 requiring employers to retain a copy of the employee’s current employment agreement and to provide a copy on request to their employee comes into effect on 1 July 2011. This new provision of the Employment Relations Act 2000 will be enforceable through a penalty action taken by a labour inspector. To find out more visit www.dol.govt.nz/er

If you have no written employment agreements in place, we are happy to assist you become compliant with advice and a model document. Please contact Rosemary rosemary@associations.org.nz or call 09 419 0042


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Human Resources issues feedback

Tuesday, June 21, 2011
We would like to thank our respondents for their feedback about Human Resources issues. There were some very clear indications of where people felt they needed direction or assistance. We also had interesting feedback in the form of success stories. We will bring you a survey around this separately within the next week or so. In the meantime as a recap, here were some of the issues that were common to many non-profit organisations who responded:

  • How to motivate people to volunteer
  • Balancing recognition in the form of rewards for efforts made
  • Attracting and encouraging capable leaders
  • How to provide tangible rewards on a non-profit salary
  • How to access practical methods and processes around recruiting
  • How to align employee/volunteer values with the non-profit organisation
  • Attracting younger people to volunteer roles
  • How to define and implement roles and responsibilities for volunteers, trustees and executives
  • How to develop strategies around managing different people’s strengths and weaknesses

So, our two winners of the vouchers were:
  • Louise Clarke, General manager, Netball Manawatu
  • Son’ Maughan, Business Services Manager, TEAR Fund

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond and we ask that you keep your ‘eyes peeled’ for the survey which will be emailed out separately within the next week. If you would like any further information around this, please contact Rosemary (rosemary@associations.org.nz) or 09 419 0042


By Rosemary Mahoney


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