A Good Techie Is Hard to Find

Charities are struggling to compete for qualified computer employees

Since last fall, Peggy Connolly has been trying to hire someone to oversee Oxfam America’s World Wide Web site,

but so far her search hasn’t yielded any hits.

The international aid organization in Boston has received a smattering of résumés but is finding that most applicants either lack the necessary skills or have the knowledge but want far higher salaries than the $40,000 or so that Oxfam America wants to pay.

“It has been really tough for us,” says Ms. Connolly, Oxfam’s director of communications and education. “We have been trying to find one person who can do everything from developing the site and managing the content to engaging in high-level strategy work.”

She is now beginning to think such an individual doesn’t exist.

Ms. Connolly is far from alone these days. Non-profit managers who are responsible for filling jobs that require technology skills say such positions can remain vacant for months. And even once someone is hired, turnover can still pose a problem. Job stints that last just six to nine months are not unusual.

The main problem is compensation. With demand for skilled technology workers outstripping the supply — 1 out of 10 technology jobs is currently unfilled, according to experts — for-profit companies are offering salaries that charities can’t afford.

Among those feeling the squeeze: The American Red Cross, in Washington, and the American Lung Association, in New York, both recently needed to replace top Web people, whom they lost to higher-paying jobs in the corporate world.

A survey by Computerworld magazine found that the average salary employers paid to a director of information technology was $83,000 last year; among the non-profit groups in the survey, the average was $56,000.

But it’s not just the higher salaries that are luring technology employees away from charities. In addition to the stock options they offer employees, many dot-coms are dangling a cornucopia of enticing perks: health-club memberships, in-house massage therapists, and even concierges who take care of personal errands like buying a birthday gift or making restaurant reservations.

The competition has led some organizations to increase their pay scales for technology workers. Goodwill Industries International, in Bethesda, Md., which is in the market for three staff members for its Web site, recently decided to raise salaries closer to industry standards, in the range of $50,000 to $70,000 for people who work on Web-site development, production, and design.

“We realized that if we wanted people who were qualified, we had to pay more,” says Christine Nyirjesy Bragale, Goodwill’s communications director.

But Ms. Bragale and other nonprofit leaders say they are trying to identify other creative — and less expensive — ways to recruit and retain technology employees. Some have begun to provide cash bonuses for employees who refer friends for jobs, or to increase resources for professional development, hoping that such short-term investments will save money over the long haul by helping to retain valuable employees. Others are taking low-cost approaches, introducing casual-dress policies or allowing employees to set their work schedules.

Among the kind of people they worry about retaining is Becky Haycox, 35, Web and network administrator at the Film Arts Foundation, a San Francisco group that aids independent filmmakers.

Ms. Haycox, who came to the charity from a Web-design job, says she particularly likes the creative atmosphere at FAF and says it’s the perfect place to work, except for one thing: the salaries.

“Efforts are being made to bring them up to something reasonably competitive,” she says, “but we are realistic: we’ll never get rich working here.”

Indeed, she says, she can barely afford to live in the Bay Area on her salary, which is in the “low 30s.” Rents have skyrocketed in recent years, and she says that if she had realized how high the cost of living was, she may have thought twice before accepting the job.

“As long as I can make it with the salary that I am at now, and as long as I like the work, I will stay,” she says. “But I don’t feel any sort of permanence.”

While many charities are worried about retaining employees, a more immediate problem for many organizations is the recruitment of people with technology expertise.

Some organizations have managed to attract high-level technology executives by offering signing bonuses of $5,000 to $15,000. One of the reasons bonuses have become more popular is that they are seen as a way to make up for the fact that employees may be sacrificing a bonus or unvested stock options when they leave a corporate job, says Mark Polansky, who oversees technology-executive searches at Korn/Ferry International, in New York.

Other recruiting tactics include paying “finder’s fees” of $1,000 to $2,500 to current employees who refer new hires. Online recruiting is also growing in popularity as non-profit employers try to meet information-technology professionals on their own turf.

Some groups are putting more energy into recruiting new college graduates, who are often willing to take a job for lower pay in order to build their résumés. Other organizations are seeking out people who have acquired basic technology skills in job-training programs for former welfare recipients or ex-convicts.

To hire high-level technology managers, non-profit groups are also turning to executive recruiters.

James Abruzzo, a managing director at the Stratford Group, which conducts searches for non-profit groups, says conducting searches for such managers can be challenging, as charities sometimes find their salary offers outpriced by as much as $50,000 to $100,000 by businesses competing for the same pool of labor.

And with even entry-level workers earning an average of $40,000 to $60,000 plus stock options at businesses, Mr. Abruzzo says, it’s hard for charities to offer competitive wages without creating imbalances in their salary schedules.

Figuring out what to pay technology workers is complicated. Mike Litz, chief technology officer at the Benton Foundation, in Washington, advises non-profit managers to evaluate their overall spending on technology, taking into account how much they have spent on equipment and factors such as the lost productivity when information systems don’t work as they should.

Nick Allen, president of Donordigital.com, a consulting company in Berkeley, Calif., suggests also considering whether technology has the potential to generate new revenue, helping to pay for itself and the people who oversee it.

Whatever such calculations produce, charities have to realize that “a dot-org can expect to pay techies less than a dot-com, but not so much less that the person is constantly thinking about how much they could make elsewhere if they were willing to ‘sell their soul,’ ” warns Sean O’Brien of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, in Charlottesville, Va.

Competing in the compensation wars will never be easy for charities, so some say the best thing that non-profit groups can do is to promote the worthiness of their cause and seek out people who may be looking for something more meaningful than stock bonuses.

Ariel Shea, who runs the Web site at OMB Watch, a Washington research and advocacy group, says she is occasionally frustrated to see her peers earning more than she does, but that feeling good about what she does and sharing common values with the people she works with are worth as much as money to her. Ms. Shea, who is 24, says she feels confident that she won’t have to worry about having a mid-life crisis, unlike people who may never take the time to think about “what would be fulfilling and meaningful.”

Beyond relying on employees’ commitment to an organization’s mission, experts say there are many things charities can do to create work environments in which technology professionals will want to stay for a long time.

Non-profit organizations have long been known for offering more generous vacation benefits to compensate for lower salaries. And the adage that “time is money” also can ring true for charities that offer technology workers saner hours and less pressure than Internet start-ups.

At the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties, Katherine Falk, who runs the Web site, says that while there is always plenty of work to do, colleagues will also tend to say “What are you doing here? It’s 5:15. Go home.”

Indeed, Gabrielle Fitz, Web developer and planner at America’s Second Harvest, says she left a corporate job in part because “if you left at 5 p.m., it was like ‘What was the matter with you?’”

While she enjoys the substance of her work, she says she also appreciates that she has a life outside of work, including time to read, exercise, and get involved in a neighborhood association.

“I think the stock-options thing is way overplayed,” she says. “To me, if you create a better work environment, that has a much larger value than potentially going public and potentially having a piece of it.”

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York, has kept Bobbi Peters happy by doing just that. The laboratory offers, among other things, free bagels and pastries each morning, and a Starbucks-style coffee shop that metamorphasizes into a bar where employees can relax and socialize after work.

Ms. Peters, who is in charge of training the laboratory’s employees to use their computers and to solve their computer-related problems, also appreciates that the lab encourages workers to organize after-work activities like ballroom dancing or volleyball on the grounds. Such activities, she says, help forge a sense of community.

“It would take more than a salary increase to make me take a train every day into New York City, where I could easily double my salary,” she says. Plus, she muses, “How many people can see a Nobel laureate at the cafeteria almost every day?”

Some technology employees say one perk they would really appreciate is the opportunity to do their jobs from home. Stephen Amstey, head of the Web site at the Massachusetts Bar Association, says he would be willing to forgo raises altogether if his boss would let him telecommute, because he could save as much as $9,500 a year in commuting costs and after-school care for his children.

While sympathy for the mission of a charity and good benefits can go far in attracting employees, Trabian Shorters, founder of Technology Works, a Washington group that advises charities, says it’s important to keep in mind that “technologists” thrive on constantly learning new things. Investing in solid professional development and allowing employees both time and resources to update their skills is a good investment, he and others say.

Mr. Shorters also suggests that non-profit groups need to re-examine how technology employees are viewed within the organizational culture. All too often, he says, technology professionals are treated more like mechanics who simply fix things when they break, and less like architects who can participate in the creative life of an organization.

“If they are expected to run behind you and fix the systems that you refuse to follow directions to learn to use, then that is not fun,” says Mr. Shorters. “But you can grab a lot of us gearheads with a compelling mission and the notion that we will actually be helping.”

Even so, Mr. Litz of the Benton Foundation says charities have to realize that technology professionals “should be able to do good and do well at the same time.”

He adds: “In a world where people with only cursory tech skills are starting to make very attractive salaries, non-profits cannot simply put their head in the sand, and assume the mission will drive the motivation of all their workers. At some point the lure can become too great.”