Four Fantastic Nonprofit Job Boards

If you’re looking for a job in the nonprofit sector, should you use job boards? The answer is “yes” – they should be a part of your search, but only a part. Networking provides a higher return on investment.

Four niche nonprofit job boards that I recommend are all nonprofits themselves:

1. Idealist.org, perhaps the biggest and most well known

2. WorkforGood.org, formerly known as Opportunity Knocks

3. 80,000 Hours, one of the newer job boards with a ton of helpful resources

4. Npo.net, which started as a service for nonprofit job seekers in Chicago, but which now carries some national listings

Idealist, Work for Good, and 80,000 Hours allow you to set up customized email job alerts, which I highly recommend. (It’s best to apply for positions on job boards early as there’s a lot of competition.) Those three job boards also feature articles with guidance and insight on careers in the nonprofit sector. Work for Good and 80,000 Hours have a free newsletter, and 80,000 Hours also offers a free guide, briefs on some of the pressing problems you can solve in your career, and free career consultations with real people!

Nonprofit job boards are also good sources of information for the kinds of positions that are available, their requirements, and salaries. Idealist and Work for Good post volunteer opportunities, too.

Indeed.com and LinkedIn.com are not nonprofit organizations, like the ones above, but they’re huge job boards that you can use to search for nonprofit jobs by using key search terms.

Remember, your best chances of landing a job are through networking – not applying online. In fact, you should try to email the hiring manager for any online posting you’ve applied for. Let them know you’ve already applied and share a few key messages about your qualifications. (Check out The 2-Hour Job Search for smart advice on networking.)