YNPN RVA hosted “Knowing Your Worth: Self-Advocacy for Young Nonprofit Professionals” this past Monday at the Community Foundation. We had the pleasure of having three well-versed non-profit leaders deliver a panel discussion answering YNPN RVA members and non-members questions around topics like salary negotiations, skills that are desired of a nonprofit professional, how to maintain a work-life balance and other very relevant advice!

The panel was represented diverse perspectives, and included Shantell Chambliss, Executive Director of Dress for Success, Whitney Fogg, HR Director for Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Corporation and Alan Delbridge, Volunteer & Partnership Coordinator for the Enrichmond Foundation.

Here are some key take-aways from the event:

Salary Negotiations:

• Go in prepared with facts, figures and evidence of your contributions to warrant a raise
• Know your worth and be confident
• Don’t let yourself be devalued because you’re in the nonprofit sector
• Useful sites to use to benchmark salary and quantify your contributions
  • Payscale.com
  • The Bureau of Labor Statistics
  • Independentsector.org
  • NationalService.gov

Desired Skills for Nonprofit Professionals:

• General writing/communication – a dying skill set with the advent and growth of social media and a critical need for storytelling within organizations
• Don’t adapt-impact: when you walk into a room, be yourself, don’t mold to your audience
• A servant’s heart – genuinely care about the mission of the nonprofit you are at or want to be at
• Comfortability with all audiences

Work-Life Balance:

• Change the culture – There are 6 different generations in the workplace right now and someone at yours set the precedent of what work-life balance looks like
• Speak up when burn-out occurs
• Log those hours off the clock mindlessly answering emails
• Nonprofit professionals are expected to wear a lot of hats – it’s okay to take one off sometimes

Panel Advice:

• Never stop learning to add value to your worth
• Show up – volunteer at that event; help raise money during the annual fundraising campaign, even if you’re not in development
• Align Professional Development opportunities with company goals – ask for your organization to cover the cost of these if a raise/promotion isn’t an option
• Sometimes the budget just won’t be there – negotiate PTO or paid Professional Development opportunities
• Master the art of “bull****” – have confidence even when you don’t know
• Change the narrative within our society – nonprofit professionals work just as hard as a for-profit professional and we must advocate for our sector and our worth

Want more YNPN RVA learning opportunities?  Become a 2019 member and join us at our May Articles Club meet up for members only on May 21^st at Chairlift and in June for our next professional development event centered around Diversity and Inclusion (registration opens soon).