Shape your employer brand on LinkedIn.
Discover ways to tell the story of your nonprofit on LinkedIn.
Emphasize what makes your organization special.
Shape an employer brand that helps you stand out from other nonprofit organizations by focusing on what makes your nonprofit different and special. Start by considering how you can demonstrate your employee value proposition (EVP) across all the tabs and fields of your LinkedIn Page.
Once you’ve defined a core differentiating factor, make it the focus of your ongoing employer branding strategy.
Examples of what could set your nonprofit apart:
• The expertise and experience of your team.
• Your hands-on work with the community you’re supporting.
• Major impacts you’ve had on your cause.
• The specificity and scope of your projects.
• The effective and novel approach to your work.
• Professional development opportunities you offer employees and volunteers.
Make your About section welcoming.
The About section on your LinkedIn Page is one of the first places candidates will go to learn about your organization. Provide details on your mission and culture in an open and inclusive way, and create a positive first impression of your nonprofit.
Speak to both potential job candidates and supporters.
Add up to five featured “Commitments” (ex: “Work-life balance,” “Career growth and learning,” and “Diversity, equity, and inclusion”), providing context and evidence. Learn more about Commitments.
Include a mission statement that clearly articulates what your organization hopes to accomplish.
Include value statements that explain why everyone involved in your organization cares about your mission.
Provide information about the type of supporter you’re looking for.
Keep this section succinct enough that visitors can parse the major ideas very quickly.
Post content about working at your nonprofit.
Demonstrate your employer brand by creating and posting content that highlights it regularly.
Incorporate your differentiating factor and EVP into these posts whenever possible to demonstrate how your nonprofit’s values guide its day-to-day operations.
Example posts:
• Employee and volunteer testimonials (these could be direct quotes, images from events, or even short videos).
• A LinkedIn article series written by employees about their experience working at your organization.
• A LinkedIn Live event where interested candidates can ask questions to your team in real time.
• A LinkedIn post summarizing your participation in a recent event.
• An employee “shout out” post celebrating a team member’s accomplishments.
• A post highlighting a recent job opening.
Focus on impact.
Your employer branding strategy can build an emotional connection between your nonprofit and your supporters by providing concrete examples of the difference your work makes.
Examples of how to focus on impact:
• Publish interviews with people you’ve helped.
• Create videos of your employees talking about why they care about your cause.
• Connect the impact you’ve had to the mission and value statements you shared in your About section.
• Generate regular “impact reports” summarizing your recent activities.
Encourage employee-generated content.
Content that comes from employees themselves has an added layer of authenticity and can be especially compelling to candidates.
Encourage employees and volunteers to post pictures of events, field work, and daily life at your organization, along with the reasons they love doing the work they do.
Ask employees to tag your nonprofit on LinkedIn when they post about you, so you can easily track and engage with this content.
Repost top employee-generated content to your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page.
Lead by example! Create a post today to start a trend at your organization.
Examples of effective employee-generated content:
• Videos from your workplace featuring employees demonstrating their work.
• Candid photos of volunteers working.
• Posts celebrating the professional milestones of your team members.
• Personal essays about why an employee cares so much about your cause.
• Reposts of your existing content with personalized context.
Get your leadership to have an active LinkedIn presence.
Your leaders can be a powerful recruitment tool. Encourage them to actively share content on LinkedIn about your organization’s work. If people research your leaders before applying, this can give them confidence that they’ll be working for passionate, inspiring people.
Examples of effective leadership content:
• Reposts of existing content with added expert context.
• Retrospective posts on your leader’s career milestones.
• A personal accounting of why your leader cares about your cause.
• Honest and candid thoughts on recent news related to your work.
• Thought leadership on the direction your industry or cause should take.
• Resharing other leader’s posts and adding their own thoughts to start a conversation.
Use your employer brand to shape your job posts.
Making your employer brand a central element of your job posts will help define it in more certain terms and help boost recruitment at the same time. Start by making a section for your EVP in each of your job posts.
You can also customize your employer branding for different job posts by focusing on the elements of your EVP that will most appeal to different prospective hires.
Use your posts to start a conversation with your supporters.
When you receive a reply to one of your posts, follow up to start a conversation.
You can use your posts to proactively seek out engagement. Try periodically posting a poll or asking your followers for their own thoughts on a recent news story or piece of content.
Measure your post effectiveness and optimize over time.
Pay attention to the likes, reposts, and comments your employer branding content receives. When you find a type of content that attracts attention consistently, make that type of content more central to your employer branding strategy over time.
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