What Pay Transparency Means for Nonprofits in Ireland
The EU Pay Transparency Directive will apply to all employers in Ireland and require organisations to be able to objectively justify how pay decisions are made.
Tag Archive for: nonprofit HR
What Fundraisers Want in Their Next Role
To attract and retain fundraisers, nonprofits need more than a competitive salary. Here’s what senior candidates really look for before saying yes.
Nonprofit Talent Trends – 2025 Insights
Learn about the 2025 nonprofit talent landscape, including skill demands, subsector expansion, and leadership movements shaping the sector.
Nonprofit Talent Trends Q4 2025
In Q4 2025, our latest analysis of recruitment activity in the Irish nonprofit sector evidences a decrease in the number of senior management opportunities being advertised versus Q4 of the previous year. Through assessment of a range of websites and job platforms, 2into3 has identified 183 management roles that were advertised by 151 organisations – a 19% decrease compared to 186 organisations in Q4 2024.
Activity by Subsector
In Q4 2024, alike previous years, the trend of organisations advertising roles anonymously remained present. As 22 of the 151 organisations that advertised were anonymous, the breakdown of roles by subsector below is based on 129 known organisations.
Roles by Subsector:
We saw less movement in the Local Development and Housing Subsector, with a 44% decrease in recorded advertised roles (from 41 in Q4 2024 to 23 in Q4 2025) and in the Philanthropy and Voluntarism Subsector, with a 58% reduction in recorded advertised roles versus Q4 2024 (down to 5 in Q4 2025 from 12 in Q4 2024). Other subsectors saw a stable or consistent number of advertised roles.
Activity by Role Function
Our data reveals increased demand for those with Fundraising, Business Development, and CEO skillsets. Fundraising and Business Development saw a small increase from 13% of roles advertised in Q4 2024 to19% of roles advertised in Q4 2025, signalling an organisational focus on investment into diversifying income streams and/or movement of fundraisers within the sector.
The proportion of Service Delivery and Operational Management roles recorded dropped from 51% in Q4 2024 to 38% of recorded roles in Q4 2025, while the proportion of recorded CEO/Executive Director positions doubled, from 6% in Q4 2024 to 12% in Q4 2025, which aligns with the volume of CEO leadership transitions we have witnessed in recent months which has resulted in a more competitive market for boards engaging in CEO recruitment.
Activity by Income Type
Excluding those where such information was not available, either because the role was posted anonymously or the organisation does not disclose its income, noteworthy findings were made regarding the income of 113 known organisations in Q4 2025. Of those, 40 (35%) organisations have an annual income of over €10 million, while 19 (17%) organisations have an annual income of less than €1 million.
Key Observations
Our Q4 2025 data points to a sector in transition, with organisations appearing to prioritise essential strategic leadership and income generation roles over operational expansion.
The doubling of CEO recruitment activity suggests a significant generational shift at the executive level, while the marked increase in fundraising roles indicates that boards are investing in long-term financial sustainability amid an evolving funding landscape.
Posting these findings at the beginning of 2026, we can anecdotally share that we have witnessed renewed momentum and growth within the sector, so while overall volume of recruitment slowed in Q4 2025 versus Q4 2024, this likely reflects a more considered approach to talent investment rather than sector-wide retrenchment.
Get in Touch
Our Talent Management Team monitors senior hiring across the nonprofit sector and publishes quarterly insights. To explore previous Nonprofit Talent Trends Reports, visit our Talent Insights page. For more information, contact Shannon Barrett, Principal – Talent Services, at Shannon.barrett@2into3.com.
The Competitive Power of Working with a Recruiter
In-house hiring can be time-consuming and challenging. Partnering with a specialist recruiter can take the process from daunting to a strategic advantage.
Fundraising Surge: What It Means for Non-profits
A Talent Pipeline Under Strain
According to a recently published LinkedIn report, fundraising professionals are currently the most in-demand talent in Ireland. In a sector where securing sustainable funding remains a consistent challenge, the competition for skilled fundraisers continues to intensify.
Fundraised income is essential for delivering vital services and advancing meaningful causes. Yet, attracting and retaining top fundraising talent is one of the biggest obstacles to achieving long-term strategic fundraising goals. Our LinkedIn Talent Insights data reveals that the median tenure for senior fundraising professionals is just 1.3 years, with more junior roles averaging slightly longer at 1.7 years.
Solving this talent retention issue is key. It enables organisations to unlock sustainable income streams, reduce crisis-driven decisions, and build long-term resilience into their mission delivery.
Building a Culture of Fundraising
Despite the sector being valued at €1.8 billion in 2022 and becoming increasingly professionalised, many organisations still hesitate to view fundraising investment as a strategic priority. At the Board and senior leadership levels, there is often a lack of understanding about fundraising ROI, risk tolerance, and fear of scrutiny.
Hiring a senior fundraising leader is not just a recruitment decision—it’s a strategic one. The right candidate understands the business of fundraising, donor engagement, and can embed this thinking across the team and wider organisation. The right hire can move your organisation from breaking even to one on a path of high growth and impact.
Three Conflicts Hindering Fundraising Success
At the recent launch of Great Fundraising Organisations, Alan Clayton identified three key conflicts that often impede successful fundraising and contribute to leadership turnover:
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Cultural Conflict: Fundraisers are driven by ambition, urgency, and emotion, while service delivery teams tend to prioritise structure, consensus, and evidence. Bridging this divide requires mutual respect and organisational alignment.
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Investment Conflict: Boards often prioritise immediate crises, overlooking the importance of future-focused fundraising strategies. Strategic investments may not yield immediate returns, but they are critical for long-term growth and sustainability.
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Communications Conflict: Messaging must be tailored. Use emotion and storytelling to engage donors, and highlight impact and outcomes when promoting services. Consistent, purposeful communication builds donor trust and enhances engagement.
Skills-Based Hiring in a Competitive Fundraising Market
We take a consultative and strategic approach to fundraising recruitment—assessing organisational culture, goals, and needs to identify the talent best positioned to drive results.
In a competitive market, skills-based hiring is crucial. Moving beyond traditional career paths opens up opportunities to attract professionals from the private sector who are motivated to transition into purpose-driven roles.
Key transferable fundraising skills to look for include:
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Strategic thinking
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Negotiation and problem-solving
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Relationship-building and community engagement
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Commercial acumen and business development
By widening the talent pool and committing to proper onboarding and training, organisations can tap into new sources of talent.
The Ideal Fundraising Candidate Profile
To achieve sustainable growth, nonprofits must invest in top-tier fundraising talent and foster a culture of relationship-driven philanthropy. This unlocks long-term financial sustainability and enables deeper community impact.
The ideal senior candidate will combine strategic vision with authenticity and interpersonal skills—capable of navigating conflict and driving organisational growth. But even the best fundraising professionals cannot succeed in isolation.
Organisations must align around a shared growth mindset. Without Board-level commitment to fundraising as a strategic priority, talent will churn, progress will stall, and impact will suffer. The cost of inaction isn’t just missed opportunity—it’s missed impact.
5 Reasons to Champion DEI – Even as Others Backtrack
Written by Sheena Horgan, Director of Advisory Services, 2into3.
Embracing Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) in organisations has become increasingly recognised as not only a moral imperative but also a strategic advantage [1]. But don’t take my word for it, here’s five evidence-based reasons why DEI matters.
1. Enhanced Innovation and Creativity
Diverse teams bring diverse experiences and thinking. Consequently, this fosters creativity and innovation, which in turn facilitates superior problem solving [2].
2. Improved Financial Performance
There’s a proven correlation between diverse leadership and financial performance as companies in the top quartile for gender and racial diversity are statistically more likely to outperform their peers on profitability [3].
3. Attraction and Retention of Talent
Organisations that commit to DEI can be more attractive to a broader range of candidates, who, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, prioritise working for employers that demonstrate a commitment to social responsibility and inclusivity. Employees value diversity and inclusivity in their workplace, and it impacts talent attraction and retention [4].
4. Enhanced Employee Engagement and Satisfaction
Inclusivity is instrumental in employee engagement and therefore enhancing workplace satisfaction and productivity. The sense of belonging directly translates to job satisfaction, and moreover, this in turn can positively impact productivity and loyalty, thereby increasing outputs and reducing talent churn and the cost of recruitment [5].
5. Better Decision Making
Diverse teams are shown to make better decisions because they consider a wider range of perspectives and options which can lead to improved outcomes in business strategy and operations [6].
The Risks of Backtracking on DEI
As an advocate of social impact, of course I’d laud that DEI is important, but for those who prefer an economic argument, as the research here shows, DEI also leads to competitive advantage with substantial benefits across various dimensions of organisational performance.
Which is why Accenture’s recent move away from DEI is a surprising one, ”Accenture scraps diversity and inclusion goals, memo says”. Not just because it’s a management consultancy that depends on the strategic thinking and problem-solving competencies of its people. Or, because it relies on its people’s commitment to Accenture over the competition, so talent acquisition and retention is critical. But because it smacks of hypocrisy flying in the face of its own research, reports, manifestos and PR over the last few years. For example, Accenture (2020), “Getting to Equal 2020: How to Make Diversity and Inclusion a Reality”, Accenture (2018), “When She Rises, We All Rise: Advancing Gender Equality in the Workplace” and Accenture (2019), “The Inclusion Imperative: How to Build a Culture of Belonging”.
I get that the rationale is a reaction to a significant State-side sentiment shift. But whilst some organisations may be benching DEI (no doubt to resurrect it sometime in the future when the winds change), there are many who remain committed – quietly or vocally – to its principles and practices. And these organisations will need partners and advisors who can demonstrate a genuine shared commitment to these values.
And whilst the press release announcing the move cites “… a workplace free from bias, and a culture in which all our people are respected, feel a sense of belonging and have equal opportunity”, this is actually only part of a fuller text from the 2024 360° Value Report: Delivering Value From Every Angle | Accenture that goes on to say in the next paragraph: “We [Accenture] are committed to helping all our people thrive, which includes advancing inclusion and diversity for all genders; people of different races and ethnicities; persons with disabilities; neurodivergent individuals; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) people; people from different cultures; people with different religious and faith-based traditions; and people from different age and social groups”.
The same report is peppered with mentions of DEI’s importance, including praising its network of 143,000 Allies in Action (as at August 31, 2024) “who advocate for cross-cultural inclusion, disability inclusion, neurodiversity, gender equality, mental health and well-being, racial and ethnic inclusion, and LGBTIQ+ inclusion”.
Championing social impact means advocating for DEI. Delivering DEI and delivering business success are not mutually exclusive – but DEI needs allies, not adversaries.
Footnotes
[1] EY (January 2025) DE&I Interventions that Deliver de-and-i-interventions-that-deliver.pdf
[2] Page, S. E. (2007). The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton University Press. This book explains how diversity leads to superior problem-solving capabilities.
[3] McKinsey & Company (2020). Diversity wins: How inclusion matters.
[4] Reference: Deloitte (2017). The Radical Transformation of Diversity and Inclusion: The Millennial Influence.
[5] Gallup (2020). State of the Global Workplace: 2020 Report.
[6] Reference: Nemeth, C. J., & Staw, B. M. (1989). The Tradeoffs of Social Control and Innovation in Groups and Organizations. Social Psychology Quarterly, 52(3), 275-284.
Key Talent Challenges Facing the Sector: Pay & Benefits Survey 2024
The latest findings on compensation, HR practices, and sector trends in the nonprofit sector, outlined in The Wheel’s ‘Pay & Benefits in the Community & Voluntary Sector Report 2024‘, highlight specific challenges for CEOs, boards, and governance structures. Here, we examine these from each perspective, considering key related challenges and their implications, and proposing a suite of potential remedies.
Pay and benefits 2024: The CEO Conundrum
1. Balancing Mission and Financial Viability
Once again, this report demonstrates the need for multi-annual funding to allow charities to strategise, recruit and retain talent; with talent retention selected as a high priority by 88% of respondents, and the top two concerns focussing on accessing / increasing funding (92%) and managing costs (89%).
The tension between delivering on the mission and ensuring financial sustainability is all too familiar to most organisations in the nonprofit space. If a limited budget wasn’t restrictive enough, then the short-term funding challenge requires CEOs to calibrate the least harmful trade-off between rewarding and investing in staff, operations, and infrastructure, and delivering on budget. With funding such a prevalent and thorny issue, exploring (and yes this may also mean investing in) organisational funding capacity can quite literally, pay dividends.
2. Talent Acquisition and Retention
Albeit allegedly a little more muted, the war on talent continues in 2024 and the sector still needs to face off private and public sector competition in terms of pay and benefits. The disparity in how employees are compensated within the wider sector is a problem in itself. When the sector is attractive to employees, the entire sector wins. Raising our game raises everyone’s game.
In particular, strong leadership is critical and the capacity of organisations to attain and retain good leadership is a hygiene factor to success. The opportunity cost of losing senior leaders is immense. Not only are there core strategic and knowledge losses, but financial ones too. Succession planning is an often overlooked but essential Board matter.
A further impact of the struggle to recruit and retain staff, is the pressure it puts on HR teams at a time when they are trying to implement a variety of significant legislative changes, including auto enrolment for pensions, gender pay gap reporting and more.
3. Resource Constraints Increase Burnout
Time lags for replacing and recruiting new staff mean either a stall in services, or that other members of the team pick up the slack. In some cases, it’s the CEO that is compelled to take on multiple roles, which can come at a high cost. The unsustainability of the situation, as evident in the survey, is high levels of stress and potential burnout.
Every organisation should view their labour resource as an asset and treat it accordingly. This may require being open to interim resourcing solutions whereby the obstacle is as much Boards’ and Executives’ attitudes to such hires, as it is reticence to spend money. Poor resourcing leads to poor service, outputs and ultimately weaker social impact.
4. Thinking Through Changing Working Conditions
It’s clear to all that the shift to flexible work arrangements is a given. Presumably, most CEOs and Boards are already re-thinking organisational and HR policies, but equally care and consideration needs to be given to technology infrastructure, team dynamics and the financial and risk implications of both. Organisations should ensure that any flexible and remote working is thoughtfully explored through an EDI (Equality, Diversion, Inclusion) lens and that employees are both included and consulted in the process to balance operational needs with employee preferences. The end goal should be a positive and productive work environment.
5. Rationalising Labour Costs
Public and arguably even political expectation regarding salaries and compensation in the sector is too often ‘low salaries, high morals’. However, being purpose driven only goes so far and the charity sector is struggling to recruit and retain staff as illustrated in the turnover rates increase from 9.9% in 2022 to 12.6% in 2024.
The cost-of-living crisis is undoubtedly driving some employees out of sector and organisations need to steel themselves to advocate for, and to justify, competitive salary levels, especially for CEOs and Executives. Equally, boardroom battles that centre around CEO requests for staff wage increases are undoubtedly a regular occurrence. Circumventing Board members’ overtly negative biases on this topic requires careful analysis which includes cashflow projections and funding forecasts, labour market trends and insights, and end user needs and service requirements. Executives should pre-empt and provide such rational arguments, and this survey can provide some of the data.
6. Benchmarking Tools
A total of 592 organisations, with a total of 10,898 employees (full time or part time), responded to the survey, making this is an excellent resource to provide a broad overview of the sector.
However, The Wheel can only analyse and publish data gathered from those who have volunteered their information and, therefore, this report is not directly reflective of, or comparable to all 32,000 plus organisations in the community and voluntary sector.
For example, from the sample gathered, the report does not include data for individuals at ‘Director of’ level and there is limited data available under ‘Head of Housing’ roles, despite the current high demand for Asset and Property Managers.
We understand that The Wheel’s report will serve as a useful benchmarking report to inform decision making for some, but others will require a more in-depth benchmarking tool, including data from directly comparable organisations. We have recently launched a salary benchmarking service which has been established to provide organisations access to directly comparable information, where required – more information here.
Concluding Remarks
The Pay & Benefits Survey signposts clear challenges in how the sector is resourced in terms of both finance and labour. Whilst most Boards considerably understand the financial challenges, but they also need to pay close attention to how they manage their employees – when the sector is attractive to employees, all of the sector wins.
If you’re interested in gaining support with attracting and retaining Talent, contact Shannon Barrett at shannon.barrett@2into3.com. Alternatively, if you require support with your Board’s governance, contact Sheena Horgan at sheena.horgan@2into3.com.
Written by Sheena Horgan, Director of Advisory Services & Shannon Barrett, Head of Talent Services at 2into3.