Hotline

By Eman Quotah

Tips on landing a job in corporate grant making

The pros and cons of starting a charity from scratch

The perils of peppering a cover letter with jargon

The Chronicle's Philanthropy Careers section asks its readers to submit questions about job hunting, recruiting, and management challenges in the nonprofit world. In our advice column, we respond to some of those inquiries with tips about resources and suggestions from experts.

Previous editions of Hotline are also available on the Philanthropy Careers site. Send your questions about job hunting, recruiting, or managing in the nonprofit world to hotline@philanthropy.com

Q. I'd like to learn more about jobs in corporate grant making. How do I get started on achieving this goal?

A. You may want to start by requesting informational interviews with a few executives who work in those types of jobs. (For tips on informational interviews, see a previous Philanthropy Careers article on the subject.) Many corporate grant makers are more than willing to answer your questions.

Ophelia Basgal, vice president for civic partnerships and community initiatives at PG&E Corporation, in San Francisco, says she considers these interviews part of her professional responsibility. Ms. Basgal is on a corporate grant-making committee run by the Council on Foundations and the members of that group are especially interested in helping others learn about professional opportunities, she says. (For a complete list of committee members, see the Council on Foundations Web site.

If you're interested in pursuing a career in corporate philanthropy, this may be a good time because of changes companies are making in their giving policies.

"Corporate philanthropy is changing so dramatically — to be fully aligned and integrated with the business, and being innovative and responsive to community needs," says Ann Cramer, director of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs at IBM, in Atlanta. She expects this trend to continue, especially as more companies focus on "green" issues and the environment.

Ms. Cramer, who chairs the council's committee on corporate grant making, says a background in public and community relations, communications, and experience managing volunteers are some of the skills corporate grant makers prize.

If you have a background in nonprofit work or volunteering, Ms. Basgal recommends finding a company whose philanthropic goals match up with your experience. For example, she says, "if you're a teacher, and you've been involved in receiving grants but you'd like to work on the other side, you'd want to look for organizations that are making grants in the educational area, and leverage the experience and knowledge that you have into helping them be more efficient grant makers."

If you're already working at a company that has a philanthropic department or foundation, you have a head start.

Christopher Montross, vice president and assistant controller at the Aetna Foundation, in Hartford, Conn., suggests making yourself a "known entity" in the company through your community involvement. If your company has volunteer committees, he says, offer to head one, or organize a fund-raising activity.

Q. I'm an African-American man interested in the nonprofit field and the advancement of young black men. I'd like to start my own organization, but, while I have some volunteer experience under my belt, I've never run a charity. I'd like to start out in the nonprofit field at more than an entry-level job. Any advice?

A. You have a wide array of options as you seek to help young black men. One step, as you've suggested, is to learn about running a charity by working for one.

"Perhaps you do need to start at the entry level," says Anthony Thompson, executive director of YouthVille Detroit, an after-school program run by the Detroit Youth Foundation, "because you want to learn how a nonprofit works from the inside out."

Other charity officials say you don't have to limit yourself to looking for entry-level positions.

"If they're looking at going to a nonprofit to get experience, but not entry level, we're always looking for folks that have transferable skills," says Steve Diggs, executive director of Emerald Youth Foundation, a religious organization that works with youngsters in Knoxville, Tenn. Such skills, he says, include writing, supervising and managing, and the ability to create and maintain professional networks.

Plus, you already have something that will help you get in the door at many charities: volunteer experience. "When I look at a résumé, I'm looking at the skill sets, and then I'm looking to see if they've volunteered at any organizations like ours," Mr. Diggs says.

If you'd prefer to just start your own organization, you might want to keep your day job, says Adrian Burnim, founder of Beat the Streets Youth Outreach Foundation, a fledgling Silver Spring, Md., charity that uses sports and hip-hop culture to build character in young people from needy families.

"Before you leave a paying job where you're putting a roof over your head and gas in your car, you have to have some sustainable income," Mr. Burnim says.

Mr. Burnim, who runs his charity part time while working at JBS International, a for-profit government contractor in North Bethesda, Md., first had the idea for Beat the Streets more than four years ago.

He hopes to run the charity full time (and pull a salary) by 2010. But he believes starting a charity does not have to take so long. "If you have experience and accumulated wealth, you can start a nonprofit more quickly than someone just starting out," he says.

Another avenue is to find an existing organization to sponsor your project, Mr. Diggs says.

When his organization began two decades ago, it did so under the wings of a church. Having a sponsor, he says, "brings you instant social capital and instant credibility." (In addition, fiscal sponsorship allows a fledgling group to acquire financial support from donors before it has registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a charity.)

What's more, he says, an established organization can offer you its accounting system, human-resources policies, program-development tools and training — even the services of a grant-proposal writer. All of that can help you get to work quickly and teach you how to build the administrative systems you need to eventually operate on your own, he says.

A previous edition of Hotline includes more information about starting a charity from scratch.

Q. How do you get hired to review federal grant proposals for government agencies?

A. The answer to your question varies by agency, but in general you apply to become a reviewer for a specific agency by submitting contact information and a résumé, which go into a pool of potential reviewers that the agency may decide to call upon.

Some agencies, such as the Administration for Children and Families, also ask for a writing sample. Though many agencies allow potential reviewers to apply online, others require paper applications.

Look for an agency that matches your background: say, education, museum work, or social services. Then familiarize yourself with the agency's grant programs to see if your particular experiences would be useful.

For instance, according to its Web site, the Institute of Museum and Library Services is looking for museum and library workers with expertise in conservation, "the digitization of museum collections for educational purposes," and the provision of library services to Native Americans. The Department of Education's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives seeks educators who have helped low-income children graduate from high school, designed mentoring programs, and worked with the children of migrant farm workers. The Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration needs people who've worked with substance abusers and the mentally ill.

Because the federal government does not maintain a central listing of grant-review opportunities, the best place for you to start is agency Web sites. If you're not sure what agencies are out there, USA.gov, the government's official Web site, includes an A-to-Z list.

Another good source of information is the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, which lists all federal grant programs.

For more information about federal grant reviewing, see "A Guidebook for Federal Grant Reviewers," available from the Heritage Foundation on its Web site, and the National Institutes of Health video Inside the NIH Grant Review Process on the Center for Scientific Review's Web site.

Q. A few months ago, I graduated with a master's in public administration, and have spent seven years working in the nonprofit world. I'm now diligently seeking a mid-level job in the field. However, I've sent out 168 résumés with only one response. Since strategically helping missions achieve so that underserved populations are empowered means a great deal to me, I am feeling pretty worthless. Can you offer any advice?

A. Job-search experts we sent your question to worry that you may be sabotaging your employment prospects by sending too many cookie-cutter résumés and, if your letter to Hotline is any indication, by using off-putting jargon such as "strategically helping missions achieve so that underserved populations are empowered."

"I had to read that three times to figure out what the person is saying," says Alison Doyle, author of The About.com Guide to Job Searching: Tools and Tactics to Help You Get the Job You Want.

Jargon doesn't impress employers, she says, and vague language keeps you from communicating to them your true passions and your specific qualifications for the job for which you are applying.

"Employers get so many cover letters that you have to make that impression in those first few seconds," Ms. Doyle says.

To get noticed, she says, be clear, be concise, and use statistics, facts, and concrete examples to show that you're the person for the job.

Abbe Land, co-chief executive officer of the Saban Free Clinic, in Los Angeles, suggests you take a step back and think about what motivates you and what you're passionate about. Then focus your search solely on organizations that work in that area.

When you find a posting for a job for which you think you're qualified, she says, "customize your résumé to highlight skills that match what the organization is looking for."

An easy way to do this, suggest Matthew DiLauri, managing director of People & Systems, a New York company that recruits and provides human-resources services for nonprofit clients, is to add to the top of your résumé a "summary of qualifications" — four to six bullet points that show up front how you fit the position for which you're applying.

For instance, if a charity is looking for two or more years of fund-raising experience, mention your fund-raising credentials in the summary. Make sure that the highlights of your experience stand out, he says, so that a potential employer can glean critical information simply by skimming your résumé.

The Philanthropy Careers archives includes more tips for creating the ideal nonprofit résumé.

Cassie J. Moore contributed to this article.