Nonprofits Weigh Hiring From Within Versus Outside to Fill Innovation Posts

A growing number of charities are hiring innovation officers to foster new ideas. But in many cases, they’re turning to familiar faces to fill the positions.

When Enterprise Community Partners appointed a new senior vice president for innovation this summer, the housing nonprofit tapped a longtime employee who had led the group’s New York office for the last five years.

Identifying promising innovations sprouting at the local level is a crucial part of the job, so hiring someone from inside the organization made sense, says Terri Ludwig, chief executive of Enterprise Community Partners: “An internal candidate gets up to the curve much more quickly.”

Rob Edwards worked at Anu Family Services, a child-welfare organization in Hudson, Wis., for nearly a decade before being named the group’s chief innovation officer. He credits the rapport that he built with co-workers during that time for minimizing resistance to the changes he’s introduced in his current position.

“It might be different if I hadn’t been in the organization for 10 years before I was put in this role,” he says.

Pros and Cons

Although Mercy Corps recently named a new vice president for social innovation who has a long history with the organization, there are strong arguments to be made for both internal and external hires, says Neal Keny-Guyer, the international-aid group’s chief executive.

“If you’re the right person within the organization, you understand the culture well, what levers can really produce change,” he says. “And you’ve obviously got a running start on knowing where the opportunities are as well.”

On the other hand, says Mr. Keny-Guyer, there are benefits in hiring someone from outside the organization who brings a fresh viewpoint and, in some cases, a wider variety of experiences from which to draw: “They can push an organization to think in ways it wouldn’t otherwise do.”

To get the best of both perspectives, he recommends that innovation teams include both long-term employees and people who are new to the organization.

Comfort With Uncertainty

Whether candidates are internal or external is less important than what they’ve done in the past, says Michael Horn, co-founder of the Innosight Institute, a nonprofit think tank. Organizations, he says, should look for people who have experience marshaling outside ideas and leading change.

Mr. Horn says the most important question to ask is: “Have they functioned in an environment where there was uncertainty about how you do things and what the future should be, as opposed to an organization with well-established processes where everyone knows the culture and the routines?”

Skills and personality are important too, says Amelia Franck Meyer, chief executive of Anu Family Services.

Among the most important traits, she lists creativity, individual initiative, and a passion for the mission.

“This is a very different kind of person,” she says. “This is somebody who does not look at what is, but looks at what could be.”