Roles and Responsibilities Survey Results

The Roles and Responsibilities Survey ran on TechSoup from May 8th 2006 till June 5th 2006. We had a great turn out with a total of 1068 respondents! The purpose of the survey was to get an understanding of the many roles workers at nonprofits play. In particular, we were interested in the following:

• The different types of roles you play in your organization.
• The specific tasks within these roles.
• What percentage of your work week is involved in these activities

Please note that the survey is of TechSoup users who voluntarily take the survey. These results are not necessarily representative of the larger population.

Highlights

Who took the survey?

As with previous surveys, respondents held many different types of positions. Typically IT managers and Executive Directors vy for the top spot. On this survey, Executive Directors had the largest representation with 15.5% of respondents reporting this answer. IT managers came in a close second with 12.1%.

Similarly with previous surveys, the majority of respondents came from organizations with budgets below $1 million.

Respondents performing many different functions

I am sure it doesn’t come as a big surprise but our respondents reported that they perform many functions outside their role. Over 70% of respondents reported that they performed IT , administrative, and management functions. Over 60% of respondents reported that they perform marketing and fundraising functions.

Marketing

A full 2/3 of survey respondents indicated that they do perform marketing activities. However, 67% of these respondents reported that they spent 30% or less on marketing activities.

The most common marketing activity reported was representing their nonprofit at events with 79.9% of nonprofits reporting this response. Another 75% of respondents reported creating materials for the Web site.

IT Activities

A full 78% of respondents reported that they perform IT related activities. Over 50% of respondents reported that support users, maintain computer systems and trouble shoot any computer related problems and Research and make recommendations for IT solutions.

While the majority of respondents reported that they perform IT functions, around 64% of them spend less than 1/3 of their time on IT activities.

Administrative Activities

Two-thirds of respondents reported that they perform fundraising activities. The fundraising activities most often cited were researching fundraising opportunities, writing grant applications and soliciting individual donations with more than 40% of respondents reporting performing these activities.

Again while most of respondents reported performing these activities, respondents are not dedicating a huge amount of time on these activities. 44.3% of respondents spend 10% or less on these activities.

Management Activities

Around ¾ of respondents reported they perform management functions. Over half of all respondents reported that they develop strategy for the organization and represent the organization to the public.

While arguably management activities are very important. 2/3 of all respondents reported spending 10% or less of their time on management activities.

Accounting Activities

Just under half of all respondents reported performing accounting functions. The most common accounting activities were conducting budget analysis, and managing accounts payable/receivable with more than ¼ of all respondents reporting these activities.

Respondents reported not dedicating a lot of time to accounting activities. Over half of respondents performing accounting activities spent 10% or less time on accounting.

Volunteer Management Activities

Less than 50% of respondents reported performing volunteer management activities. Around 1/3 of all respondents reported managing, recruiting and training volunteers.

Respondents did not dedicate large portions of their time to these activities. Around 2/3 of resondents that managed volunteers spent 10% or less of their time on these activities.

Download Full Survey Results

• Roles and Responsibilities Survey Results (195 KB PDF)