New Searches - December 2004

Access the full list of current searches by clicking here.

DRG has been retained by the Foundation Fighting Blindness (Owing Mills, MD) to assist in their search for a New York Regional Director of Development. Since its founding in 1971, the Foundation Fighting Blindness has raised over $200 million. FFB has an annual budget of approximately $18 million and a national staff of approximately 65 including 12 regional field staff. The Regional Director of Development will report directly to the Chief Development Officer and will be the senior development officer for the Greater New York Region

Episcopal Relief and Development (New York, NY) has retained DRG to conduct a national search for a new President. ERD was established in 1940 to assist refugees fleeing Europe during World War II. Over the years, in addition to continuing its long standing commitment to domestic disaster relief, ERD has moved from a program of response to small grant requests, both domestically and internationally, to a proactive international initiation of development projects in response to poverty and disease. The new president will have the opportunity to take a well-respected, stable organization to its next level as the Episcopal Church's voice in the field of international relief and development.

The Con Alma Foundation (Santa Fe, NM) has retained DRG to assist in their new search for an Executive Director. Con Alma is New Mexico's largest foundation dedicated exclusively to healthcare. Its assets approach $25M. Based in Santa Fe, Con Alma was created to recognize and respond to the health rights and needs of a culturally and demographically diverse peoples and communities.

DRG has been retained by The birthright israel Foundation (NY, NY) to assist in the recruitment of a new President. Started in 2000, the goal of birthright israel is to present the values of Jewish living to Jewish young adults around the world by bringing them on a first time peer group educational trip to Israel. The President will be the chief professional officer for the BRI Foundation reporting to the Foundation's board and working closely with the CEO of birthright israel.

Every month, DRG reviews best thinking and practices within professional staff recruitment and development in the nonprofit sector. These articles are read by senior managers and anyone interested in creating effective staff recruitment and retention programs within their organization.

In our current electronic update, we look at New Strategies for Interviewing. Nonprofit organizations often ask recruitment consultants about the most effective interview process. Nonprofits usually have many constituents and stakeholders whom they want to "buy in" to senior professional selections. Too often the result is long tiring days of disjointed one-on-one interview/meetings with staff and volunteers. How many leaders, funders and staff should finalists meet? How can these meetings be structured to be productive and how does a search committee or executive receive and consider feedback from these meetings.

In this article, the author makes the case for a limited number of "team" interviews. He adds the concept of highly structured interviews, where each team member has a role. Each "team" interviews each candidate using similar questions in order to gain information about a consistent set of target competencies required for success in this particular position.

Click here to read this article.

To receive this and future updates, send your e-mail address to search@drgnyc.com or use the automated feature below.

Due to current reader interest, we have archived our past articles and created a new page on our website. Visit our archives for a list of recruiting and retention articles.

Susan Sapiro joins DRG as our newest Recruitment Associate. Immediately prior to joining DRG, Susan was a grants consultant with U.S.-Israel Women-to-Women and the Funding Exchange. Susan also served as Senior Associate at Ma'yan: The Jewish Women's Project of the JCC in Manhattan, a feminist organization, where she created programs and resources on women's history, spirituality, leadership and philanthropy. In addition, she has published articles and book reviews on a number of topics including women's philanthropy and family leave policies and flexible work arrangements in nonprofit organizations and corporations.

DRG welcomes Peter Maher as a recent addition to our recruiting team. Peter joins DRG with over twenty years of experience in the retained search and career counseling industries. His work at DRG will combine his expertise in executive search with his years of leadership in local region and national nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Maher founded and managed The Partnership Group, a New Jersey based executive search consultancy. Previously he served as a Managing Partner of Deven Associates International with offices in New Jersey, California and the United Kingdom.

Many nonprofit organizations face new challenges as they adjust to the realities brought about by the changing economy. All agree that building a skilled professional staff will be the central factor in their organizations' success.

DRG is responding to these changes through PROFESSIONAL SELECTION ADVANTAGE, (PSA). PSA offers DRG's resources in a variety of new services. PSA enables many nonprofit organizations who recruit on their own to benefit from our expertise in staff selection.

For organizations wishing to conduct some elements of a search themselves either because of limited budgets for professional consultants or because you already have some in-house staffing expertise, PSA selection services might be of special interest to you.

Click Here to visit PSA's website for more information.

DRG's President David Edell has partnered with Dr. Paul Connolly of Performance Programs to form, NPEdge, the first company dedicated to creating assessment and testing materials specifically for the nonprofit sector. Their first products are JobFit Assessment Tools for Fundraisers.

If your goal is to hire the best fundraisers for your organization, NPEdge's online tools make that process easier and more efficient. And if you're looking for a fundraising job, we can help you assess how well your talents, experience and style will fit the position. New products for executive leadership, manager/supervisors and 360 evaluation will be available shortly. Visit www.NPEdge.com.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International has appointed Richard Brown as its new Executive Director for its New York City Chapter. Mr. Brown had most recently served as the Vice President for Institutional Advancement for the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury.