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NGOs & Foundations · Charitable foundations
HR for Charitable Foundations: Small Teams, Trustees and Programme Officers
A charitable foundation has a small staff, a board of trustees and a mission that outlasts any one person. The people work is about clear roles, fair pay against the market, hiring for judgement and planning who comes next.
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Share your requirementsA charitable foundation may fund other organisations, run its own programmes, or do both. Some are set up by a business family, some by a company's CSR arm, some by a donor or a community. The team is small: a chief executive or managing trustee, programme officers who select and monitor grants, a finance and operations lead, a communications person and a few support staff. Above them sits a board of trustees who meet a few times a year. Trustees may be generous with time, but they are not full-time and may disagree on direction. See also HR for NGOs and social enterprises and the NGO and foundation group.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in charitable foundations, you may see
- A tiny team does very different work
- The line between trustee and staff blurs
- Pay is set by feel
- The founder is the institution
- Hiring needs judgement, not only skills
- Career steps are few
- Interns and fellows rotate through
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in charitable foundations
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Chief executive or managing trustee
- Programme heads and programme officers
- Monitoring and learning officers
- Finance and operations lead
- Communications and fundraising staff
- Partnership and CSR liaison staff
- Executive assistants and office staff
- Interns and fellows
- Volunteers and advisers from the founding family or company
Where HR strains in charitable foundations
A tiny team does very different work
One officer may read proposals, visit grantees and write board papers, so the role changes shape by the week and no description fits.
The line between trustee and staff blurs
A trustee gives instructions directly to a junior officer, and the chief executive finds out later.
Pay is set by feel
Salaries are decided case by case, often by comparing with the founder's business, and staff in similar roles are paid differently.
The founder is the institution
Knowledge of donors, history and relationships sits with one or two long-serving people, and nobody has planned for their absence.
Hiring needs judgement, not only skills
A programme officer must be able to question a grantee politely and read a budget, qualities that do not show on a CV.
Career steps are few
With six or ten staff, there is little to be promoted to, and ambitious officers leave to larger funders.
Interns and fellows rotate through
Each brings energy and needs time to guide, and the institutional memory they take away is seldom captured.
HR topics for charitable foundations
Start with the topics that matter most here: Organisation Design; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Career and Succession Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for ngos and social enterprises, not in general.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a charitable foundations business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Write the chief executive's and board's roles apart
A short note on who sets direction, who approves what, and how trustees may speak to staff.
What this coversHide
Write the chief executive's and board's roles apart
A short note on who sets direction, who approves what, and how trustees may speak to staff.
What this coversHideA short note on who sets direction, who approves what, and how trustees may speak to staff. The HR process consulting work can build these basics.
Describe officer roles with a few core tasks
Say what an officer owns, such as a portfolio of grants, and what they share.
What this coversHide
Describe officer roles with a few core tasks
Say what an officer owns, such as a portfolio of grants, and what they share.
What this coversHideSay what an officer owns, such as a portfolio of grants, and what they share. Keep room for variety, but name the main duties.
Benchmark pay against comparable bodies
Compare with other foundations, NGOs and CSR teams of similar size.
What this coversHide
Benchmark pay against comparable bodies
Compare with other foundations, NGOs and CSR teams of similar size.
What this coversHideCompare with other foundations, NGOs and CSR teams of similar size. The compensation benchmarking work shows how to read the range.
Plan succession for the few key roles
Name who could step in for the chief executive and the heads of programme and finance, and what each needs.
What this coversHide
Plan succession for the few key roles
Name who could step in for the chief executive and the heads of programme and finance, and what each needs.
What this coversHideName who could step in for the chief executive and the heads of programme and finance, and what each needs. See succession planning.
Hire for judgement with real exercises
A sample proposal to review and a conversation about a hard decision.
What this coversHide
Hire for judgement with real exercises
A sample proposal to review and a conversation about a hard decision.
What this coversHideA sample proposal to review and a conversation about a hard decision. The recruitment process can be tuned to this.
Capture what leavers know
A short handover note on grantees, history and open questions, written before every exit, including interns and fellows.
What this coversHide
Capture what leavers know
A short handover note on grantees, history and open questions, written before every exit, including interns and fellows.
What this coversHideA short handover note on grantees, history and open questions, written before every exit, including interns and fellows.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Write down who, among trustees and staff, can instruct whom, and on what matters.
- List the pay of every officer next to their role and years of service, and look for unexplained gaps.
- Name the two people whose absence would hurt most and what each knows that nobody else does.
- Read the last job description for a programme officer and ask whether it matches the real work.
- Ask a departed intern or fellow what they would have liked at the start.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the rules on trusts, trustees, employment, volunteers and grant-making that apply to a charitable foundation like yours.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- HR process consulting
A set of simple HR basics for a small team, covering roles, decision lines between trustees and staff, and routine paperwork.
- Compensation benchmarking
A fair range for each role, compared with similar foundations and NGOs, so pay is explained rather than guessed.
- Succession planning
A plan for the few roles that hold history and relationships, with named successors and a handover routine.
- Recruitment process consulting
A hiring route that tests judgement and fit with the mission, not just a CV, for officers and leaders.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in ngos and social enterprises, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
Everyone reports to the founder: when and how to redesign the structure
A flat structure works until the founder becomes the only route to a decision. How to tell when you have passed that point, and how to redesign without a reorganisation.
8 min readRead article
Industries
Incentives that reward quality, not just output, in industrial component makers
How to design incentives for operators, setters and inspectors in fastener, gear, spring and valve units so that accepted lots, not piece counts, earn the bonus.
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HR Management
"What if this person resigned tomorrow?" A succession exercise for small companies
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Trustees set direction and hold the chief executive to account, and staff take instructions through the chief executive. Write it down so a keen trustee does not instruct a junior officer directly.
Compare with similar foundations, NGOs and CSR teams, look at the range for each role and decide where you wish to sit. Record the reason, so that pay can be explained later.
Naming who could step into the few key roles, what they need to learn and how knowledge is passed on. It matters most when the leader has held the post for many years.
Give a sample proposal or a real dilemma and ask the candidate to talk through it. Listen for questions asked, risks spotted and respect shown for the applicant.
They need a named guide, a clear project and a handover note at the end. A light touch without structure wastes their time and leaves nothing behind for the team.
We would ask how trustees and staff share decisions, how pay was last set and who could step in for the chief executive. A good opening project is a short roles note plus a pay review. The scope is written down for you to accept or change.
More on HR for ngos and social enterprises
All 6 business types in NGOs & foundations · Find another business type
Education NGOsHealthcare NGOsEnvironmental NGOsChild welfare organizationsRural development NGOsOrganisation Design in ngos and social enterprisesCompensation, Payroll and Benefits in ngos and social enterprisesCareer and Succession Management in ngos and social enterprises
See all HR topics for ngos and social enterprises, or another industry.