Learning more 'digitally intense' skills keeps non-profits less reliant on outsourced projects, says new report

“Digitally intense” skills, such as software development, data science, and cybersecurity, could help non-profits reduce their reliance on technology companies and third-party service providers, researchers say. 

An analysis of 300,000 job descriptions in Canada found that the demand for more technical skills is lower in the non-profit sector than in other sectors. 

Instead, the sector “tends to adopt digital products rather than developing them,” said Leena Yahia, lead researcher on non-profit digital resilience at Imagine Canada. 

From a digital equity perspective, she added that the non-profit sector is likely to rely on skills outside of its workforce rather than developing its own.

“Non-profits tend to outsource these higher level skills from firms or individual contractors,” added Cathy Barr, senior advisor for research and data at Imagine Canada. “But the downside is that the majority of non-profits don’t have the internal skills to hire these firms and work with them effectively.” 

“It leaves them very vulnerable to wasting a lot of money on a solution that isn’t really going to work for them.”

Digital divide between non-profit sector and others

When removing government non-profits from the equation, researchers say community and business non-profits employ 800,000 people in Canada. 

Of those, about 6,500 workers had explicitly technical jobs within the non-profit sector, such as software and systems development, programming, engineering and telecommunications. 

Less than one per cent of the non-profit workforce is involved directly in technology work, while the proportion rises to five per cent outside of the non-profit sector. 

The numbers come from the Futureproofing the Community Service Workforce,  a 17-month research project exploring digital needs and skills within the Canadian non-profit sector. 

The project, funded by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC),  is a partnership between the Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience, Imagine Canada, The Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University, the Digital Governance Council, and Blueprint. 

The research also grouped technology skills by “digital intensity,” defined by the complexity of technical concepts an individual is expected to know in their role. 

Software development skills, programming languages, data science skills, and system infrastructure skills are at the upper end of the scale. 

The least intense skills include using no- or low-code tools for design, marketing, and administration, such as Google Analytics, Microsoft Office suites, and resource planning software. 

Analysis of non-profit job descriptions found that Microsoft Office skills were the most in-demand, as were the ability to use software to manage patient, client, and donor records and purchases and payments. 

However, “the share of all non-profit job postings demanding artificial intelligence skills increased by 32.7 per cent in the second half of 2023 compared to the first six months,” which shows a willingness for the sector to introduce more technically challenging skills into the workforce. 

While non-profits do not necessarily need deep technical skills, they do need information system specialists, computer network technicians and database administrators to keep them up to date with the requirements of a modern organization, added Angus Lockhart and Vivian Li, respectively senior policy analyst and senior economist at The Dais. 

However, despite mass layoffs from several technology companies, attracting and retaining technology workers in the non-profit sector can prove challenging.

The research found that non-profit technology staff earn around 33 per cent less than they would in other sectors. 

“This is likely an underestimate of the true income gap between non-profits and other sectors,” the authors wrote.

“Tech salaries often include significant non-wage compensation in the form of benefits like equity that would be significantly higher in for-profit private companies versus the non-profit sector.”

Although non-profit staff have likely chosen to work in the sector because of an organization’s mission or impact, Lockhart has also observed, anecdotally, that there is not the same room for growth in the non-profit industry as there would be in the private sector. 

It also comes down to funding models, he said. 

“Some funding sources are very strict about how money can be spent in the first place, and so you have difficulty spending it on the things that matter,” he said. 

“For non-profits and charities in particular, spending on overhead is always frowned upon and is judged harshly in annual reports and future attempts to attract funding,” he added. 

“So the system is certainly set up against making this kind of investment on digital infrastructure and skills.”

Survey findings to be published this fall 

The Dais’ reports are the first stage of this ESDC-funded research. Subsequent findings, which include qualitative and quantitative analysis from surveys of non-profit organizations, will be published later in the year. 

The research will also inform the development of a model to help the sector fill talent gaps, which will be tested alongside eight non-profit organizations. 

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