What We Do
Training
NPAG's in-person or virtual training modules provide practical tools, insights, and strategies that will expand your organization's capacity to make (and retain) great hires. Tailored offerings we have provided include:
Board-level training in executive search & transition stewardship
Staff training on best practices in search to "recruit like a recruiter," including tools, templates and best practices to immediately improve your internal hiring
Best practices in behavioral and biographical interviewing
Best practices in deep, 360-degree reference checking
Candidate coaching and leadership development
people and culture
Your organization is tackling our communities’ toughest challenges, and success in your mission often hinges on attracting, retaining, and developing qualified and committed people. Nonprofit organizations today face a vast array of human resources challenges – from difficulty hiring the right people reliably and in a timely way to managing competing generational and cultural expectations around work to developing people managers to lead effectively. NPAG is often sought after for our ability to bring talent, structure and strategy together to help our clients achieve their strategic vision. Leveraging our experienced professionals who are former leaders in nonprofits, philanthropy and service organizations, we work with nonprofit organizations to tackle the full spectrum of your human capital needs, including:
Employee Engagement/Culture
Talent Development
Performance Management
Compensation Analysis and Management
Leadership Coaching
Executive Compensation Analysis
executive search
NPAG offers the full suite of search and consulting services tailored to meet each client's needs.
We are not "headhunters." We facilitate meaningful, informed, two-way conversations with field leaders and bring strategic thought partnership to our clients. Our approach leads to stronger, more enduring placements and long-term relationships.
Our searches range in length based on the complexity of each engagement, but on average take 4-5 months.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are not only values we uphold, but are also key strategic concepts that show up in all stages of our work.
Our Approach
NPAG was founded in 2002 to bring the rapidly evolving social sector a more current, more strategic, and less transactional approach to executive search and talent consulting. Our business model is designed not only to offer the highest quality services with greater flexibility and cost transparency, but also to bring stronger and more enduring leaders to organizations. We pride ourselves on the exceptional craft of our work facilitating critical, meaningful relationships for our clients and on helping them navigate tricky organizational transitions. We are grounded in our commitment to equity and inclusion and are driven by the way the right leadership at the right time can catapult an organization and its mission forward.
We are experts at building and tapping networks.
Searches succeed or fail depending largely on the ability to engage the right leaders in meaningful, two-way conversations that yield actionable market intelligence and open, trusting relationships with candidates and sources. We bring both deep, broad existing networks and the ability to nimbly expand them to approach every search with fresh eyes.
We hold diversity, equity and inclusion as central in both the process and the results of our searches.
While we are proud of our industry-leading placement rates for women and people of color*, it is our commitment to inclusive search processes that advance equity that truly sets us apart.
*Of total searches completed 2020-2023, 71% of placements identify as BIPOC and over two-thirds are women.
Our flexible and transparent fee structure engenders trust and fosters partnership.
We believe that tying our fee to a placement's compensation, as has been standard for the industry, is ethically problematic. While we do offer both hourly and fixed-fee based searches depending on clients' needs and preferences, our fees are driven by what it costs to complete the work and nothing more.
"The experience I had with the team at NPAG was different than my experience with other firms. At first I thought they were employees of their client organization! The quality of my conversations was always very high and I always felt well-informed and prepared. Even though I wasn't ultimately successful in achieving the position, I know my participation in the process had value, that I was respected, and that I learned a lot about myself and the organization."
–Finalist Candidate, 2016
Expertise
Our firm was founded on the principle that all organizations serving the common good deserve a flexible, transparent, tailored, and cost-efficient search partner to guide and support them through growth and transition, and we have built a team of search experts committed exclusively to advancing mission-driven organizations.
The best search consultants are steeped in both the art and science of search. Our team members bring prior experience in the nonprofit, philanthropic, and higher education sectors, but it is our expertise in search itself that sets us apart. Your organization will benefit from decades of search wisdom acquired over hundreds of searches. It uniquely positions us to counsel you through some of the most critical and transformative decision-making moments in the life of your organization.