Skills and other people

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The range of skills required to set up a sustainable non-profit organisation are broadly similar to those required for a commercial organisation. They include the following:

• leadership
• governance
• legal
• financial
• administration
• marketing communications
• human resource management
• product/service development and delivery
• sales / fundraising
• stakeholder relations
• public relations
• risk management
• auditing.

However there are differences in the way people work.

Motivation

One key difference relates to motivation - in a nonprofit organisation you will be creating social rather than monetary wealth. This breeds a distinctive culture of passion and commitment.

Motivating your team - further information

Volunteers

A second key difference is that your organisation may use volunteers. You should recruit, value and support your volunteers with at least as much care and professionalism as you do your paid staff.

You will need to be realistic about what you can reasonably and reliably expect volunteers to contribute to your organisation.

It is very rare for a charitable endeavour to be able to be resourced entirely by volunteers and it is beneficial at an early stage of development to identify which roles must be paid and which could be undertaken by volunteers, as well as how you will help them to work well alongside each other.

What is certain is that to succeed, you project must involve a critical mass of people with the requisite skills, experience and time.

Managing volunteers - further information

Generating income

It is likely that your beneficiaries are different to the people who pay for what you provide. If this is the case it means that you have two sorts of 'customers':

• those who use your service and whose needs shape what you do
• those who provide funding which makes what you do possible.

Generating income in a nonprofit organisation can be very much more challenging, and of course rewarding, than 'selling' something in a commercial sense.

Funding and income - further information