How Your Nonprofit Can Benefit From a Virtual Executive Assistant
Do you work for a nonprofit that could really use some extra help?
Here at Worxbee, we have several non-profit clients and one thing we’ve found is that many assume an Executive Assistant will be out of reach, outside the budget of the organization. In fact, there are ways to get an executive assistant without blowing the budget, which we’ll get into here.
Non-profits can greatly benefit from the expertise that a good Executive Assistant brings with them. Here’s how, and why you should consider hiring one!
Benefits of Executive Assistants for nonprofits
Nonprofits typically have a wide range of tasks that need doing and often a “roll up your sleeves'' approach. It’s not uncommon for the CEO to be found doing tasks that could be deemed to be “below their paygrade” as everyone joins in getting things done.
However, that’s often not the most efficient or best use of an executive’s time. There are so many organizational tasks going on, especially in the realm of bringing in donors or distributing the services of the nonprofit. Those in management roles often need someone with the executive assistant skill set to take care of day-to-day, smooth operations.
Here are some ways in which a nonprofit can benefit from an Executive Assistant:
Communication with clients and donors
Successful nonprofits are, by necessity, communication machines. They tend to operate a constant cycle of events and donor engagement activities to keep drawing in vital funds. They also need to keep up communication with the clients that they serve!
Executive Assistants are communication wizards and can take up a significant amount of the communication load. An Executive Assistant that knows the organization well can be relied upon to interact with clients and donors in the same way that any executive would.
Keeping up that communication and engagement in a timely manner can make a huge difference for nonprofits. Quite literally, it can be the difference between receiving a donation from someone or not.
Scheduling (and everything to do with the board!)
The Executive Assistants we have placed in nonprofits tend to do a lot of scheduling tasks, especially when it comes to planning anything for the board. From regular meetings, to donor presentations, scheduling can often be a back-and-forth juggling act that takes up a lot of time. Executive Assistants are great at managing that juggle and finding the right time and space to suit everyone.
Additionally, nonprofits tend to regularly have personnel changes at the board level, as members reach the end of their tenure. Executive Assistants can be a great resource for onboarding of new board members, providing them with all the information they need to work effectively.
Human resources duties
Many nonprofits don’t have the staffing to include a dedicated HR role, so Executive Assistants often step into the breach, particularly when it comes to recruitment and onboarding of new staff. Executive Assistants might be tasked with placing job advertisements, reviewing job descriptions and even helping with compiling short-lists of applicants. The Executive Assistant will then schedule interviews with the Director or CEO.
In terms of onboarding, it’s often the Executive Assistant that makes sure the new person has all the needed paperwork to turn in and information on policies and procedures. Occasionally, Executive Assistants are tasked with scheduling performance reviews or even jobs related to payroll.
Event planning
Nonprofit executive directors spend a lot of their time on development activities. Fundraising, grant writing and donor engagement are core needs and require a lot of time and effort to go into planning of events and campaigns.
Executive Assistants can manage a calendar of development activities and make sure that the executive director meets key dates (such as grant deadlines). They can also play a hand in event planning - booking venues, helping to create a structure for the event and sending out invitations to donors.
Compliance
Nonprofits have a lot of tasks they need to get done in order to maintain compliance. For example, most grants have conditions attached to them such as requiring activities to be done by a certain date or that all receipts related to expenditure of grant funds are filed appropriately.
Executive Assistants are good at managing the details. They can set up key tasks for compliance and include them on the calendar where needed. If a report must be in by a certain date to the funding body, they will help keep whoever is responsible on-track to deliver it.
Representing the Director
Executive Assistants are usually tasked with representing the executive director in fulfilling the mission of the nonprofit. Executive Assistants tend to get to know their executive so well that they can be relied upon to act as a gatekeeper and as a spokesperson.
People tend to expect that what the Executive Assistant tells them is a direct representation of how the executive would respond. A big part of their job can be answering the various queries that the director gets, freeing them up for other work.
How can nonprofits get an Executive Assistant?
One of the big hurdles for many nonprofits is budget. Hiring an executive assistant to work in-house can be a hugely expensive endeavor. Not only are you paying for the recruitment activities, but great executive assistants are very popular! They can take their pick among organizations that are looking to hire so will tend to take whoever can offer the best package, along with being a good match for their own values.
In short, it’s a competitive environment. Nonprofits often find that they’re either competing in a small talent pool, or they’re in an area where there are many larger, more monied organizations dangling carrots to attract good hires. If the nonprofit can’t offer full-time work, they might naturally go to the bottom of the list.
So what can nonprofits do to get a good Executive Assistant under those conditions? That’s where a fractional Executive Assistant can be a great option. Fractional means that they work the active hours that you need them on a remote basis.
One of the biggest benefits of hiring this way is access to talent. You open your hiring possibilities up to a much larger pool of candidates and a more flexible way to hire. For example, we have a nonprofit client in Charlottesville, VA who would have to pay a lot more to hire locally. Instead, they have the cost-benefit advantage of fractional help through one of our Virtual Executive Assistants, rather than the expense of hiring someone onsite.
For nonprofits, hiring a Virtual Executive Assistant offers options to fit within their budget and their needs. You can get that higher-level assistance you need to be successful!
Does your nonprofit need an experienced executive assistant? Worxbee takes care of finding and matching up the best executive assistants with our clients. Schedule a complimentary consultation with us and find out how we can help you!
