How to Interview and Hire a Nonprofit Executive Director for Equity and Excellence
Naomi Roth-Gaudette is a seasoned grassroots organizer and a relentless recruiter with infectious energy. Each year, NRG Consulting Group works with 100+ mission-driven organizations to place 300+ candidates in openings nationwide.
Are you getting ready to hire a new executive director for your nonprofit? If so, you probably have a lot of questions! How do you find candidates, create an equitable hiring process, and choose the right interview questions?
The vast majority of small nonprofits will try to hire their first executive director or CEO themselves, managing the recruitment and hiring process in-house. As organizations grow, they usually engage a search firm because these firms bring incredible value, insights, connections, and other resources to ensure a successful hire and placement.
Earlier we blogged about what nonprofit executive search firms do. Today, we want to dive into the advice from one search firm, if you decide to DIY your nonprofit executive director search.
Naomi Roth-Gaudette, the founder and owner of NRG Consulting, is joining me for this interview. NRG Consulting does hundreds of employment searches each year for nonprofits and brings a great deal of experience with small nonprofits.
What are the biggest challenges in hiring a nonprofit executive director?
Naomi Roth Gaudette: Getting everyone on board with what experiences, qualities, and skills you are looking for in your next leader. Usually, there are a lot of key stakeholders, including the Board of Directors and the staff. Everyone has their own viewpoints and perspectives.
It is important to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard and everyone feels included in the process. This will help with buy-in when your new executive director is onboarded.
How do you accomplish this? Lots of listening and lots of conversations. Keep returning to your organization’s desired impact as well as your mission and values.
These guideposts will help you to craft a list of competencies you want to see in your next executive director that everyone agrees on. That list will guide you through evaluating candidates and also help to keep the process equitable.
Examples of competencies include:
Fundraising acumen, such as experience soliciting high-net-worth individuals and leading grassroots fundraising campaigns.
Staff management, such as experience centering people's humanity and keeping staff accountable.
Knowledge and experience around a topic that is specific to your mission. For example, some of the organizations we work with want to see candidates who have knowledge about voter education and turnout.
What are the key steps a nonprofit should take to hire an executive director? Are any steps commonly overlooked?
Nonprofits sometimes forget that they also need to recruit candidates to accept the offer. I hear a lot about what candidates need to do to impress them but organizations need to keep an eye toward how they are going to impress the candidate as well. Interviewing goes two ways.
“I hear a lot about what candidates need to do to impress them but organizations need to keep an eye toward how they are going to impress the candidate as well. Interviewing goes two ways.”
Some ways you can recruit the candidate include:
Running a transparent hiring process. This includes sending the hiring process to every candidate who applied along with an expected timeline. Another example is to send the questions in advance. Some organizations don’t like this approach but we have found that we receive more comprehensive and helpful answers by allowing people with long careers to think through examples ahead of time instead of asking them to offer the first example that comes to their minds.
Paying candidates for any work they do for you (like exercises to see them in action). If you are asking candidates to prepare a presentation on something where the work could benefit your organization, this is a good step and builds trust with the candidates. We usually recommend $200 for 2 hours of work. Another thing to consider: you can clearly state that the candidates retain all rights to their work. That also builds trust. We have talked with candidates who have spent hours preparing for final presentations, then didn’t get the job, and later saw their work being used by organizations presenting it as their own. Some excellent candidates may enter this process with that experience. Remember, you need to recruit them as well.
Leaving time in interviews for candidates to ask questions.
How do you make sure excellence is prioritized during the executive director recruitment, evaluation, and hiring process?
Excellence may look different for different organizations, but for me, it’s about transparency in the hiring process, treating candidates like human beings, and putting in the hustle and hard work to spread the word about the role and the organization far and wide. Spreading the word far and wide leads to a diverse candidate pool and helps you have a more equitable process.
When evaluating candidates, keep going back to the competencies you developed at the beginning of the hiring process. Every question you ask should have something to do with one of those competencies. That keeps you aligned on what your organization needs at this moment. Without those competencies, you might be tempted to go with someone who sounds really good but doesn’t have the experience needed to lead the organization to excellence.
Finally, make sure you see candidates in action. That may be a presentation or some other exercise that makes sense for your organization. You want to see how they think and how they lead. Then, you will be able to assess their leadership based on the competencies you defined. When someone steps in and meets, and even exceeds, those competencies, it feels like all of the work was worth it.
“Finally, make sure you see candidates in action.”
Examples include:
Work sample. This is something they have done in the past, like a fundraising plan for a major donor.
Presentation to the Board. This may include a plan for how they would spend their first 30, 60, and 90 days on the job. This would show what they prioritize and how they would get to know your organization.
Role play scenario. If you want to see the candidates’ negotiation skills or ability to work with staff in real-time, you can create a scenario that you send to the candidate in advance, and then one of your team members plays the other role to see how they would approach the situation.
Written exercise. You can use this to measure written communication skills as well as a competency listed on your rubric. An example is to ask them to submit a fundraising plan for a foundation. You can ask them to research a foundation and ask how they would approach building (or stewarding) the relationship.
How can a nonprofit create an equitable interview process?
What specific things can organizations do to build inclusive and anti-racist organizations during the hiring process?
First, make sure you are recruiting candidates from diverse sources. If you only rely on your networks and your networks aren’t diverse, then don’t be surprised when you don’t have a diverse candidate pool.
Additionally, it’s best to keep everything the same for every candidate. I have seen organizations take this a little too far and become stiff during interviews which isn’t great for recruiting. I don’t mean that you have to write out a script and say the exact same thing every time, but you do want to keep the questions the same even if some of your follow-up questions might be specific to the candidate in front of you.
One example I like to give is when you first hop onto an interview and there is that awkward moment when you first meet the candidate but the interview hasn’t officially started. For those moments, prepare one topic that you bring up with every candidate. A safe topic is usually asking about the weather. It’s a softball question that allows the tension to dissipate a bit.
If you have a different topic for every candidate, you might get one candidate who has a hobby that is the same as yours and your personal connection to that candidate might influence how you evaluate them. Just because one candidate connects with you personally does not mean that candidate is the right person for the role.
How important are the interview and the interview questions for an executive director position?
The interview questions are very important when hiring an executive director. It’s important to craft questions that will allow the candidate to tell you about their experiences around the competencies you have already created. Also, it’s best to stick with questions about what the candidate has done in the past instead of asking what the candidate will do in the future.
I know it’s tempting to ask someone how they might handle your very specific situation, but remember, they don’t have all of the information! What they say they will do isn’t always a great reflection of what they will actually do. A better measurement of how they will lead your organization is to get examples of how they have led organizations in the past.
What are the best interview questions or exercises for a nonprofit executive director role?
I recommend being as specific as possible with the questions and exercises. It really depends on your organization and the competencies you developed with your key stakeholders. For most executive director roles though, we ask them to prepare a presentation on a relevant topic and present it to the Hiring Committee. The topic should be the same for all candidates.
That said, some of the “general” interview questions I like are:
What is your superpower and how will that help you in this role?
What do you want to do differently in your next job?
Who do you admire among those you’ve worked with and why?
Are there interview questions for an executive director role that nonprofits should avoid?
Of course you should avoid all of the illegal questions. Here’s a resource.
Otherwise, stick to what they’ve done in the past and keep digging in on that. Also, ask questions around the competencies that you identified at the beginning of the process with all of your key stakeholders.
What should nonprofits be looking for in executive director candidates' answers to interview questions?
Specifics. Ask for examples and if the example the candidate provides seems a little shallow. Don’t be afraid to ask them to tell you more.
Also, many people applying for executive director positions score pretty high on the charisma scale. But that often isn’t what you are looking for. Listen to the content of their answers, not just how they answer.
Beauty bias and charisma bias are real. Take notes on your conversations and write down what they actually say. Then during the review process you can evaluate the candidates’ skills based on what your organization needs in a leader, not on whether they are a good interviewer or not.
“Beauty bias and charisma bias are real. Take notes on your conversations and write down what they actually say.”
Also, most executive director candidates do this well, but you still want to pay attention to how candidates talk about why they want to work for your organization. Especially for mission-driven nonprofits, a connection to the impact you are making is essential.
Bonus Question. Spill the Tea: What huge mistakes or pitfalls have you seen nonprofits make when they try to go it alone and how can they avoid them? Anecdotes are welcome
I’ve seen organizations take too long in their hiring process and sometimes they even ghost a great candidate because they are busy with other things. Of course they are busy! That’s usually why they are hiring someone–to help with those challenges. However, that candidate who was great for the role then goes on to accept another offer.
And I totally get it. The organization is busy and has too many things to do so prioritizing a hiring process can be overwhelming. That’s where NRG comes in and helps to drive the organization to a positive conclusion–a talented person to join their team.
