Hartford Business Journal

22 Hartford Business Journal • November 16, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com Pandemic complicates nonprofit recruiting for top posts By Liese Klein lklein@hartfordbusiness.com F inding nonprofit leaders is difficult enough during normal times, but when a major Hart- ford agency needed a new executive director this summer, Donna Mc- Carty really had to improvise. McCarty, senior vice president at recruiting and staffing firm J. Morrissey & Company, arranged to have the first floor of the company's Broad Street office in Windsor set aside for use during the search. Employees stayed on the second and third floors while job candidates and board members filed in and out of the ground floor, with intensive cleaning in between visits. "Given what we went through — strictly adhering to the CDC guidelines and the governor's — we were able to successfully close the search," McCarty said. Harc, a major provider of services to the intellectually disabled statewide, named its new CEO, Kenneth Cabral, in October. McCarty's firm was in- volved in the search from the start. "We took all of those precautions throughout, and it worked out well," McCarty said. For nonprofits seeking new leaders this year, the pandemic has made a difficult job even harder. First and foremost, agencies have had to scramble to adapt to restrictions on services and programs, leav- ing little time for finding people for key posts. Filling top nonprofit jobs has long been dif- ficult as demands on leadership increase and sala- ries lag far behind the for-profit world. Except for executives at major hospi- tals and national charities, nonprofit leaders generally take home a fraction of their C-suite counterparts in the private sector. A recent survey of nonprofit salaries in the region, conducted by Boston-based TSNE MissionWorks in 2017, found that nonprofit executive directors — the equivalent of a CEO — made an average of $134,834 in annual salary in southern New Eng- land and Westchester County, N.Y. But candidates for leadership at a nonprofit often have a commitment to the agency's mission that tran- scends the usual considerations of salary and benefits. "I get to look at a candidate and ask, 'do they have that passion?' " McCarty said. "That's where it really has to start." Virtual beginnings McCarty's introduction to pandemic-era nonprofit recruit- ing started in March with an invitation from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving (HFPG) to pitch her firm to Harc as part of the foundation's Non- profit Support Program. Under the program, the foundation pays for consulting services to help nonprofits find new leaders. A 28-year veteran of J. Morrissey & Company who has been running the firm's nonprofit practice since 2001, McCarty did her pitch presentation via videoconferencing, the first time she had used the technology for that purpose. She was notified that she got the job in late April, and promised to fill the Harc position by early fall. First McCarty had to find can- didates — many of whom were overwhelmed, working from home and difficult to reach. Then she had to arrange in-person meetings, a requirement in the final stages of the recruitment process. "I met all of them personally, so that meant being outside," McCarty said. "I did not bring them into the office. The good news is that we were talking about the right time of the year to do that." With a final slate of candidates chosen, McCarty and her staff had to coordinate with Harc's board of direc- tors on how to conduct interviews in a safe setting. In-person meetings were a necessity as many board members outside of the business world were less than comfortable with videocon- ferencing technology. Filling important leadership roles also requires some personal contact, McCarty added. "There's nothing like being face- to-face with someone," she said. Cabral, a veteran of the state's De- partment of Developmental Services and Department of Children and Families, was announced as Harc's CEO on Oct. 9. "We are very confident that Ken's expertise in the industry will al- low Harc to continue its tradition of providing dignity, quality, and inclusion for the individuals and families we serve," said Harc Board Chairman Greg Calnen. "Ken's compre- hensive experi- ence will bring him back to his roots as a private provider and lead Harc into the future." Larger challenges Meher Shul- man, associate director of the foundation's Non- profit Support Program, said nonprofits have been "amazingly adaptive, given limited resources, in terms of executive recruiting." "COVID has thrown a wrench into nonprofits' work but they're pretty resilient to begin with," she added. As part of its outreach to nonprof- its, the foundation has budgeted grant funds to help with execu- tive recruiting beyond its financial support of programs and opera- tions. (Harc also received a $125,000 emergency grant from HFPG in the first weeks of the pandemic.) Upheaval around the pan- demic has led to some nonprofit leaders staying on longer than expected due to uncertainty in the economy, even as the widespread adoption of videocon- ferencing technology has opened up jobs to a wider pool of candidates, she added. "All of us would probably say we would never have built our skills so quickly if it were not for the pan- demic," Shulman said with a laugh. On the negative side, candidates are less willing to relocate for jobs, although those in cities like New York are looking farther afield. BY THE NUMBERS Nonprofit CEO pay $134,834 The average pay for a nonprofit CEO in Southern New England and Westchester County, N.Y. $158,649 The average pay for a male nonprofit CEO in the region. $119,622 The average pay for a woman nonprofit CEO in the region. Source: TSNE MissionWorks 2017 Nonprofit Workforce Compensation and Benefits Report. Kenneth Cabral, CEO, Harc Meher Shulman, Associate Director, Nonprofit Support Program, Hartford Foundation Donna McCarty, senior vice president of J. Morrissey & Co., helps nonprofits find new executives. NONPROFIT NOTEBOOK Continued on facing page >>

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