Hiring and retaining talent in the social sector has never been easy. It is even more complicated in regions like Northeast India where, despite the young population being interested in social good, working in the sector is considered by society as unconventional, unstable as a full-time job, and hence not aspirational. This problem is directly connected to the various challenges of the sector in the Northeast, where funding is limited, and nonprofit work is still evolving.
To understand the situation better, we spoke to multiple organisations across Mizoram and Meghalaya to learn about the problems they face in finding the right people to fulfil their programmatic and organisational needs.
Nonprofits such as the Goodwill Foundation and Mission Foundation Movement (MFM) in Mizoram, and North East Society for Agroecology Support (NESFAS) and Grassroot Shillong in Meghalaya grapple with multiple issues, from tight budgets to fleeting project funds and a scarce local talent pool. However, they are also quick to adapt to these situations. Here are some unique strategies that these organisations apply in their hiring and retention process to sustain and continue their work:
1. Redeploying staff across projects
“Because we do not have regular income sources, we cannot hire people full time,” explains Christopher Lun, secretary at the Goodwill Foundation, a Mizoram-based nonprofit dedicated to community health and development projects. Broadly speaking, Goodwill hires for three kinds of positions: field staff, administrative staff, and specialised professionals such as doctors and nurses for their health initiatives. While administrative roles are required to be filled for the long term, the rest are hired on a need basis. “We hire on a project basis, whether it’s a one, two, or three-year project. After that, we shift the staff to another project, if possible. That way, we’re able to manage the funds and also keep the people who are familiar with our work.”
“Though we know where proposals need to be submitted and what funders are asking for, it’s difficult to find people that have learned to fulfil these demands.”
For example, when a water and sanitation project starts and the livelihoods project ends, a livelihoods professional is provided reorientation training and transitioned into a water and sanitation role. However, things aren’t as simple in sectors such as health, where people are hired for fixed technical expertise. Christopher says, “In our health projects, we work with doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and other medical professionals. But when the projects get over, we cannot just move them to another sector. If we want to keep them, we are required to find funding for another health project.”
Funders’ demand for documentation is also becoming increasingly complex, with changing formats for proposals, accounting, and compliance with no capacity building or training opportunities to adapt to them. Tech staff, proposal writers, and experienced administrative professionals who can keep pace with this change are in short supply. “In Mizoram, we can’t find experienced people to write proposals,” says Christopher. “Though we know where proposals need to be submitted and what funders are asking for, it’s difficult to find people that have learned to fulfil these demands. Even if we find them, our restricted funding makes it difficult to pay them.”
To fill this gap, Goodwill tried hiring from outside Mizoram—from cities like Delhi and Kolkata—where such expertise is easier to find. But this came with another set of issues. “If you hire someone from outside, it doesn’t solve the problem because they often don’t have enough information about Mizoram, or they promise certain skills but don’t deliver,” recounts Christopher. Such hiring led to a situation where the service delivered didn’t meet the organisation’s needs. “We once hired a consultant from Delhi for website development as we were unable to find someone from within the state. Even after advance payment and providing them with all the information, they didn’t do the work.”
2. Collaborating with universities and youth networks
Nonprofits have found that sometimes reaching out to the youth is a better strategy than depending on quality applications. MFM—a nonprofit that works on health, livelihoods, and forestry work—reaches out to universities in the state. “With many students graduating each year, not everyone is able to find suitable employment. We connect with universities to get students from different backgrounds. We manage a youth network and connect candidates to job opportunities based on their credentials. For example, some roles require an agriculture background, so we select candidates based on their academic subject as well as the specific needs of the project. We clearly define the degree or experience required for each project,” says HL Rinawma, Project Coordinator (Rural livelihoods and entrepreneurship).
Further, those with good communication skills often remain engaged with the organisation through inter-institutional groups and are called in whenever there are vacancies.
MFM still faces some problems when specialised knowledge is needed for a role. “It was especially challenging to find candidates with a forestry background for a project. Forestry graduates are relatively few, and while we can usually find people from arts, social sciences, health, or other science backgrounds, forestry remains a gap.”
In health-related fields, MFM doesn’t face the same issue as they have access to students from their own institutions, including the nursing and pharmacy schools that they run. However, funding issues plague them too. “Due to limited funds in some areas, especially for research, we are sometimes unable to hire fully qualified professionals. In such cases, we collaborate with government bodies and universities like the Regional Institute of Paramedical and Nursing Sciences, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, and Krishi Vigyan Kendra, where we use their laboratories and machines—the infrastructure which we do not have. We work together on proposal writing, project planning, and discussions to determine what is feasible within our budget. Sometimes institutions have technical experts but lack equipment, while others have equipment but not the trained personnel to operate it. Coordinating and pooling these resources can be challenging, but it is also interesting and rewarding.”
3. Prioritising intent and passion in early-career hiring
Nonprofits have also found that it is easier to hire young people who are passionate about social work and train them, rather than looking for skilled professionals.
Pius Ranee, executive director at NESFAS, which focuses on sustainable food systems and indigenous crops, says, “We hire people right out of college if they have the rigour to learn. The idea is that we can always train people for skills, which we do, and if they have the passion, they will pick it up fast. Most of our staff members, as a result, are from the communities.”
Many of its early team members were recruited with little formal experience but stayed on because they believed in the organisation’s mission. “We didn’t even know how to write meeting minutes when we joined,” recalls Pius. “What mattered was commitment. It’s important to get them young and free-spirited.”
“Passion and appetite to learn matter most. Your education is simply an added value.”
Grassroots Shillong, which works to empower indigenous communities through rights advocacy, livelihoods, and youth programmes, has a similar approach. Mayfereen Ryntathiang, the president of the nonprofit, says, “We don’t place much emphasis on formal education. In more conventional settings, it’s often about degrees: where you studied, how many years of experience you have, and which institutions you’ve worked with. For us, it’s different. Passion and appetite to learn matter most. Your education is simply an added value.”
Grassroots Shillong also trains for technical skills. “Even if someone doesn’t know documentation, English, or how to use a computer, it’s non-essential for us. If someone can write well in their own language, that’s good enough. We have others who can support them with English for report writing.”
But how do these organisations identify passion? Mayfereen says, “I trust my instinct. You can usually tell whether someone is willing to learn or if they are just attending the interview because they were asked to. We also look for curiosity and willingness to ask questions. When I sit on interview panels, I also find that young people aren’t taught the skills to apply for a job or prepare for an interview—that’s a failure of the education system.”
Mayfereen recognises that people will still move on to other endeavours. While this hinders organisational continuity and slows down the process of building a second level of management, she prefers to look at the positive aspects. “We look at the bigger picture. Even if someone works with us for a year and then moves on to another organisation, the values they’ve learned stay with them.” She adds, “For us, talent management is a combination of instinct, the wisdom we gather as we work through the process, disappointments along the way, and the belief in our mission and the people we love.”
MFM has realised that allowing team members to have more visibility about each other’s work and about the work in the field builds strong team values, culture, and a sense of belonging. “If there’s a mobile dispensary or a health project, office staff also go. We go to the ground together and support each other,” explains a team member.
Ultimately, while limited and short-term funding, and societal perceptions of nonprofit work as unstable shape how organisations build their teams, the ingenuity of these organisations continues to keep the work going. By hiring locally, investing in young people, prioritising passion over credentials, and continuously retraining staff across projects, they are effectively dealing with the challenges that are beyond their control. They see value in the broader ripple effects of their work—creating socially conscious professionals who carry these values forward, even if they move on.
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Know more
- Read why nonprofits in India struggle to retain talent.
- Learn what funders need to know about young people in the Northeast.
