Our philosophy

We believe the time of leadership transition is the time to examine and assess an organization’s ability and potential to be a powerful agent of change for people, the community and the even wider conversation of collaboration. It is imperative that an organization agree on the skills and experience necessary, identify, recruit and hire the right leader.

Janssen & Associates Recruiting joins those who advocate for nonprofits and businesses working together for the common good. We believe the nonprofit sector, with a commitment to education, social services, arts, environment, activism, volunteerism, peace, our military and all else about which individuals, families and our communities care, can employ innovative business strategies to realize their vision.

Crisis

Baby Boomers are retiring. A study by the Case Foundation documents the impact of “the millennial generation” assuming leadership roles as the Baby Boomers exit. In the non-profit sector, there is particular concern that organizations are simply not prepared for the new generation of workers born after Watergate and raised with technology. A study by the Annie Casey Foundation found three areas of concern as the Baby Boomers retire:

1. Anachronistic organizational structures
2. The lack of appeal of the nonprofit executive role for younger professionals
3. The need for older leaders to support leadership development within a younger work force.

Taken together, these factors create urgency in the nonprofit sector that is unique in its history. Like most turning points of this magnitude, this is a period of opportunity as well as risk.

The risk concerns the costs of sub-optimal leadership and the opportunity costs associated with doing nothing. According to Ken Blanchard, mediocre leadership costs 7% of annual revenues, leads to a 9 – 32% increase in staff turnover and a 5 -10% productivity drag. Today’s nonprofits also risk their very relevance and sustainability by going along as they are now, by doing nothing.

A study by the Bridgespan Group predicted that by 2016, the nonprofit sector would have to add an additional 80,000 leaders per year to keep up with the need for new leadership.

Opportunity

The opportunities, on the other hand, involve integrity in staffing and compensation, implementation of collaborative thinking and programs, and an organization’s innovative impact in the community and beyond.

The organizations of 2020 will experience the influx of a new generation of leadership that is agile, tech savvy and less interested in sad stories than they are in success and the documentation of evidence of wide ranging impact.

The nonprofit of 2020 will be a place of innovation in social enterprise and leadership. It will be on par with its for-profit counterparts in terms of competitive wages, working conditions and opportunities for growth.

According to “The Millennial Impact Report 2012”, the upcoming workforce is highly motivated to give to social causes – but they connect to those causes through social media, act primarily on bursts of inspiration and expect to see their gifts make a difference. They will only engage with nonprofits that are engaged in social media with compelling stories and high performing programs that show results. It is more likely that this generation will start new nonprofits rather than give to existing ones as they operate today and push those predecessors out of the market.

These conditions present existing organizations and their funders with a unique opportunity to strengthen the resiliency of their own nonprofits as well as maintain the overall sector’s capacity.