Nonprofit Job Description Toolkit

Once your organization has defined the role it needs to fill, and the skills, experience, and level of education required (see Designing and Filling New Positions), you're ready to embark on the process of writing the job description. The job description is your primary vehicle for announcing the open position to external and internal audiences, and is a valuable tool for finding candidates best-suited to your organization's needs. Investing the time and effort in writing a strong job description will enable your organization to accurately articulate the opportunity to potential candidates.

Whether you’re seeking a senior position in a nonprofit, recruiting for new nonprofit leaders, or exploring the responsibilities of key nonprofit positions, the examples shared here can help inform your efforts and research. These representative job descriptions illustrate just some of the many ways organizations configure their senior management roles and write their job descriptions for would-be candidates.

In This Toolkit

Writing the Job Description

A clear and comprehensive job description is key to attracting candidates who fit well with the role you’re working to fill.

The organization overview in a nonprofit job description shares key descriptors of the organization. It should include information that will help interested external candidates better assess their fit with the organization and better understand the organization's goals and beneficiaries.

Email Job Announcement Sample

The email job announcement is one type of communication that can be used to reach out to your network of peers for qualified candidates. A condensed version of the full job description, this email job announcement includes such details as your nonprofit organization’s name, its mission, the key responsibilities of the role, and what you ideally seek in a candidate.

Nonprofit Job Descriptions

Board Member Job Descriptions

These examples provide a good starting point for writing a description and represent ways nonprofit organizations can configure their descriptions when recruiting for new board members and board chairs.

CEO/ED/President Job Descriptions

These two job descriptions represent classic profiles of executive directors/presidents/chief executive officers at organizations with revenues less than $20 million.

Chief Financial Officer Job Descriptions

Chief financial officer (CFO) roles—and the organizational structures in which CFOs operate—vary significantly across organizations. The organization’s budget size and the complexity of its programs and revenue sources drive how the CFO role is configured—and how the role evolves over time.

Chief Operating Officer Job Descriptions

Most COO positions can be categorized under one of four basic models, and the sample job descriptions posted here correspond to these models.

Communications and Marketing Job Descriptions

The configuration of the senior communications role in some cases is determined by the complexity and focus of the communication function within the organization.

Development and Fundraising Job Descriptions

An organization's size often drives the configuration of a development role, which can be seen in these three sample job descriptions.

Evaluation & Measurement Job Descriptions

Nonprofits that seek to use measurement to continuously improve their impact eventually may decide to create a full-time position to lead their performance measurement function.

Programs Job Descriptions

Senior program management roles differ based on the extent of general management and operational skill and experience required. These three sample job descriptions illustrate these differences.