Lessons from 2024 Trends: Shaping a Stronger 2025 for Mission-Driven Organizations
Edgilty Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Allison Wyatt, recently sat down with Carrie Fox, host of the Mission Forward Podcast (listen here). The two discussed the non-profit trends Edgility saw over the course of the year related to HR and employee management: what organizations are doing well, how they unintentionally self-sabotage, and how larger market trends around DEIB are impacting the mission-driven space. Fox calls the findings “as provocative as they are practical,” and we’re sharing the highlights here.
Trends in Non-Profit Organizations We Saw in 2024
Edgility begins all its consulting engagements with a tool that helps us learn the current workings of an organization and the staff dynamics at play: The Talent Equity Assessment. This proprietary tool gives our consultants and our clients critical insights into how an organization’s talent management practices support the growth and retention of its staff from all backgrounds. One key component this tool analyzes is the organization’s total value proposition, which essentially uncovers employee feelings about working for the organization – what’s keeping them there and what’s causing them to leave – and how their answers change across demographics. In 2024, we compiled the data we gathered from the 155 organizations we served over the year to chart trends and share them with leaders as they plan for 2025 and beyond.
Employees are drawn to the mission
Our report found that regardless of impact area or organization size, staff felt incredibly positive about the impact of their work and the relationships they had with colleagues in 2024.
Transparency around growth opportunities and compensation needs improvement
Many employees across organizations indicated that they don’t understand, or don’t have access to, a clear career path, and we found that morale and retention suffer when staff cannot answer “Where do I go from here, and how do I get there?”. Similarly, our finding suggested that a lack of transparency around compensation correlated to feelings of resentment, or the impression that certain staff members receive special treatment even if fair and equitable compensation policies are already in place.
Bootstrapping HR is common – and hurting talent retention.
Our clients often face consistent challenges: a general desire to do right by their people and budgets that don’t have much wiggle room. This leads to employees wearing multiple hats and bootstrapping necessary functions, like HR. When it comes to HR in particular, however, not having the necessary support in place can really hurt talent retention. This is why a knowledgeable partner is key when you can’t afford a full-time HR team, or only have access to a generalist. Here’s what Allison had to say about it: “HR is a really broad field. And so sometimes the people leading those functions have good generalist understandings of a talent function, but they don’t have deep specific content knowledge about each specific area within that. And so a lot of times it’s just that there were unanswered questions that they haven’t been able to have the appropriate thought partner to answer so that they can clarify, codify, communicate it, and then apply it equitably. So, I think a lot of times it’s just giving organizations that support to answer those questions. They’re hungry to do it, but they need support and help.”
Regular re-evaluation of benefits is critical for employee morale and retention.
Circumstances change. And when it comes to resources and benefits organizations provide, what was valuable or sufficient for staff one day, might not be the next. For example, the cost of living has skyrocketed and employees are feeling the pinch. When organizations can take even temporary or incremental measures to help, retention and morale improve, especially for the most marginalized members of our team. For example, our survey found that 50% of LGBTQ+ professionals said that their mental health has been affected by recent anti-LGTBQ+ legislation – and 35% are looking for their company to provide additional mental health services. Staying aware of what employees need or want can help you make decisions about what resources to put funding towards, make sustainable choices, and improve retention and productivity.
The Key Values of Transparency, Consistency and Inclusivity Drive Talent Attraction and Retention
News from the tech industry and federal government surrounding DEIB programs is bleak at the moment. But what Edgility is seeing in the mission-driven sector is that the key values of transparency, consistency and inclusivity are central to success – especially in the non-profit space.
Transparency and Clarity
Allison emphasized that the data shows that staff crave consistency, clarity, and honesty. We find time and again that transparency and clarity play huge roles in attracting and retaining talent. Employees want to understand how decisions are being made and how policies are shaped. Most people don’t go into mission-driven work for the money, but they do want to know they’re being compensated and assessed fairly. They want to know they can grow and build a career within the organization they’re committed to.
As Allison put it: “There’s a lot of constraints on organizations right now. People get that. People understand financial constraints, but being honest builds trust. If you say nothing at all, then what happens is people fill in the blanks, and all sorts of perceptions can take root. And so I think being really honest about what you can offer, and what you can’t is important.”
A lack of transparency was one of the biggest ways we discovered organizations were unintentionally hurting themselves, specifically by being unwilling to own their weaknesses or making promises they can’t keep. Organizations can fall into the trap of promising growth and development, but the small size of their organization makes promotion impossible and leads to employees feeling misled. By being 100% transparent and honest about what organizations can and cannot offer, they can attract the talent they need without damaging their reputation in the talent market or the eyes of their employees.
Expert Corner: Learn more about how to leverage pay transparency for your organization.
Consistency & Inclusion
While DEIB has made a positive impact on many aspects of people management (like, transparent pay policies, employee resource groups, workplace accommodations, etc.) we can see that it hasn’t created the level of systemic change many were hoping for (bias is still a common challenge in hiring). And as massive employers around the country are cutting their DEIB programs, it’s time to make a change. Recently, Lily Zheng put out a suggestion to leaders across the country to embrace this shift as an opportunity and leverage a set of tools that are outcomes-based, systems-focused, and coalition-driven to build systems based on fairness. She put it best in her recent article regarding the intention behind her new FAIR framework, “given people’s differing identities, experiences, and needs, fairness isn’t achieved simply by treating everyone in exactly the same way, but by building workplace policies, processes, and practices to prevent bias, maintain accountability, and meet a range of needs while ensuring the same high standard of experience for everyone.”
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: when people feel valued and included they do their best work. Regardless of if you call it DEI, DEIB, JEDI, or leverage the newest FAIR framework, the goals are the same – create a workplace where people thrive, and your organization will flourish as well.
The Value of a Knowledgeable + Expert Partner
There are so many critical components to successfully attracting, retaining, and managing quality talent. Yet even large HR teams – something many mission-driven orgs don’t have – can struggle to stay on top of them all. Edgility powers organizations’ missions by providing expert advice on our blog, offering free resources to start your journey, and partnering with you to source quality candidates, build sustainable and transparent compensation policies, and manage your people well. Whatever stage your organization is at, we want to hear how we can help you move to the next level.
