How to Hire Your First Nonprofit Employee

What it is

An organization does not fail when the founder becomes the constraint. It stops developing, which is harder to notice and slower to reverse.

The book covers the mechanics of transferring work to another person. Contractor or employee, where the apparently cheaper answer is the one that produces the liability, and a signed agreement stating otherwise carries no weight. Designing a role that is a position rather than a list of tasks you no longer want. Writing a posting that reaches the people who would actually apply. And interviewing without prior experience of it, which is a matter of prediction rather than preference.

Then the work that is harder than hiring: offering less than the person is worth and saying so directly, managing people you cannot pay competitively, the weekly conversation that concerns them rather than their tasks, addressing performance before it becomes a crisis, and ending an employment without turning a difficult month into a legal claim. The book also covers the long-serving volunteer whose role has quietly become a job.