Moving from volunteer work to a paid position

Q. I’m a full-time volunteer for a youth organization. I love my work, but I cannot continue to do it without at least some reimbursement for transportation and administrative costs, which I am currently paying out of pocket all the money raised by the organization goes for its program costs. Is it wrong to ask for pay for doing this job? And if not, how should I go about it?

A. It’s not unreasonable for you to ask for some type of compensation or reimbursement, says Jennifer Bennett, a program manager at VolunteerMatch, a San Francisco organization that helps charities find volunteers online, but do your homework and come up with possible solutions first.

“It’s uncomfortable to talk about money, but if it’s stopping you from being able to do the work that’s important to you and to the organization, it can’t hurt to ask, and it can’t hurt to think creatively how those funds might be raised,” she says.

Depending on your organization and the programs you work on, you could handle this several ways, she says. Your organization could apply for a grant to cover a specific program in which you are primarily involved, she says. “The money for administration or your transportation can be a part of the program cost,” says Ms. Bennett.

Many charities also reimburse their employees and or volunteers for transportation costs. Young Aspirations/Young Artists, a charity in New Orleans that provides inner-city youth with art classes, only recently began reimbursing its teachers for travel at the rate of 50 cents per mile. Timeka Junius, the organization’s programs manager, says the group made the change after the teachers asked for it. She recommends keeping track of your transportation expenses for a few weeks before approaching the head of your organization.

“If I was in the shoes of this volunteer, I would go talk to the person that’s in charge, whether it’s the director or someone in accounting. I would bring to their attention how much I’ve been spending in gas.”

If the organization is unwilling to reimburse you for transportation costs, you can still take them as a tax deduction at 14 cents per mile, as long as you document your expenses and your charity provides a letter confirming that you did pay transportation costs while volunteering. You can also deduct the cost of office supplies or other administrative goods you bought for the charity, if you weren’t reimbursed. However, you cannot deduct the value of the time you donate. For further information on taking tax deductions for charitable donations, see IRS Schedule A for the Form 1040 and Publication 526 at the Internal Revenue Service Web site.

Your organization will most likely do what it can to keep you around, Ms. Bennett says, so recognize that you are in a position to both ask for money and assist with raising that money.

“If you’re a long-term, valuable component to this program,” she says, “hopefully the organization understands and recognizes that and values your work.”

Q. I would like to start a nonprofit community music school my education and professional history have revolved around musicology. I’ve made my application to the Internal Revenue Service and incorporated my organization, and am aware I’ll need to run my charity on a volunteer basis in the beginning. But I’ll also need a paying job in the interim, one that ideally will help me make the transition into running my charity full time. Any advice for the kinds of jobs I should seek, and ways to approach my job search?

A. Begin by setting realistic expectations for your organization. You may be running it on a volunteer basis or for very little pay for many years.

“It’s going to be a labor of love,” says Wendy Ardizzone, founder of the Joy of Music Program, a nonprofit community music school in Worcester, Mass.

Mrs. Ardizzone incorporated the organization in 1989 but says she still had to supplement her salary by giving private music lessons for at least five years after that. If you plan to teach classes at your school, you could follow her lead and pay yourself, as you would other teachers, for those classes you teach but volunteer your administrative time at the beginning, and supplement that income by also giving private lessons. This may be something to consider as you set tuition for your school.

With your professional history, you probably feel pretty confident about your abilities to run the music part of the business,” says Jonah Rabinowitz, executive director of the W.O. Smith Nashville Community Music School. But, he adds, you’ll need management experience.

To acquire that knowledge, he suggests, “find yourself a position at another nonprofit, hopefully one in the cultural arena in your city so that you can understand and know the cultural leaders.” Look for mentors, he says, who might be able to help ease your transition into running a charity.

Since you’ll probably want to avoid working full time so that you can spend time on your own charity, you might want to consider working for a cultural group on a contract basis, says Jed Malischke, executive director of the Minnesota Bluegrass & Old-Time Music Association, in Minneapolis.

“You could become an independent contractor and develop services that could be offered to a number of nonprofit organizations that already exist, with the hope that at some point you would offer them to the nonprofit that you are starting,” he says.

Mr. Malischke worked for his group for many years on a volunteer basis, making money on the side by giving music lessons and performing in bands.

No matter what your transitional job may be, don’t be afraid to supplement gaps in your experience with the expertise of others.

“If you don’t know an attorney, it’s probably a good time to know one. If you don’t know someone in the banking-services industry or the financial field, or you don’t understand anything about nonprofit finance or audits, it’s probably a good time to find a friend who does,” says Mr. Rabinowitz. “Not all of us end up getting M.B.A.’s or other degrees. In fact, most of us in the nonprofit world don’t – we come from the program side, and so we need to surround ourselves with people who understand administration.”

Q. I’ve spent 15 years in the business world and am now a midlevel manager. I’d like to switch to nonprofit work but have no employment experience in this arena. I have, however, served on the board of a small foundation for less than a year. What is the best way for me to make the career switch: Go back to school? Pursue a job as a development director?

A. Your first priority should be to focus on why you want to make this switch and what you’re looking for, says David Hinsley Cheng, managing partner at DRG, in New York, an executive-search firm for nonprofit clients.

To that end, don’t make any bold moves or quit your day job right away. Instead, take the time to educate yourself about the work you’d like to do and nonprofit culture in general.

Mr. Cheng says that the executives he works with who move from the corporate to nonprofit world often have unrealistic expectations about making the transition. “I would say that those individuals might be a little naïve in thinking that it will be a slam dunk,” he says.

One of your first steps, says Mr. Cheng, should be to step up participation on your foundation’s board. Develop your leadership skills and knowledge by chairing a committee and becoming more actively involved in the policy, governance, and direction of your foundation.

Volunteering at a charity for at least one year before trying to secure a paid position can help you prepare, says Katherine McKay, associate director of gift planning at Wheaton College, in Norton, Mass.

Four years ago, Ms. McKay made the transition you’re contemplating, giving up a job as a marketing consultant and freelance writer to go to work as an associate director of planned giving for the Salvation Army. But for five years before that, she had been a fund-raising volunteer for a library project.

When entrenched in a charity’s programs as a volunteer for a whole year, she says, “you see the whole cycle. You look at your budget, you look at your fund-raising objectives, try to meet those objectives and then deal with the consequences. You can learn a lot in that year cycle. I’d say that’s a minimum.”

During this time, you should also take advantage of educational opportunities, say Mr. Cheng and Ms. McKay.

Some universities offer nonprofit-management degrees or master’s of business administration degrees with a nonprofit focus in which you can enroll full or part time.

A less-expensive option would be to look for professional-development seminars or classes like those held by the Foundation Center. For more information on educational programs, see The Chronicle’s most recent continuing education guide (May 31, 2007). (Also check out the transcript from an online discussion The Chronicle sponsored last month on the topic of switching to a nonprofit career.)

Some nonprofit groups offer opportunities that combine volunteerism and education. United Way’s Loaned Executive program, for example, trains corporate executives to assist the group’s fund raisers in securing corporate and individual donations over a period of several months.

Also remember to make contacts with people who are doing the jobs to which you aspire, and seek out mentors. Before switching to nonprofit work, Ms. McKay contacted a friend who was a fund-raising executive at a nearby hospital. He read over her résumé, giving her tips on how to translate her corporate experience into nonprofit-speak.

“I had done a lot of client relations, I was used to maintaining a database of clients and taking care of them,” she says. “Well, you know, that’s stewardship in the world of nonprofits. So he helped me craft the language more precisely for the nonprofit world. It makes you sound more nonprofit savvy.”