An HR Toolkit for Nonprofits

The purpose of this site is to provide evidence-based resources to support local nonprofits in facing their most pressing challenges related to Human Resource Management.

The online tools, resources, and learning modules have been designed by a team of 5 senior Management students from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, as part of an externship experience created in partnership with the Great Rivers United Way. What started as a typical class project in Spring of 2019 evolved into an in-depth applied research project, in which the student team ultimately created data-driven and practical tools to specifically address Human Resource challenges of nonprofits in our community.

A needs assessment suggested two areas of human resources were particularly challenging for local nonprofits: employee burnout and recruiting. The following topic pages have been developed to help nonprofits address these challenge areas in their organizations:

Click on the above topics to learn more

Additional Resources

Click here for general resources to learn more about HR!

  • A wide range of HR-related articles and tools are available from the Society for Human Resource Management: SHRM

  • The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) have partnered to offer a series of research-based white papers on various HR topics: SIOP-SHRM-White-Papers

  • Government resources such as the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) offer guidance and data related to all things HR policy and workforce planning

  • The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (e.g., http://www.uniformguidelines.com/) provide evidence-based guidance on recruitment and selection in line with Equal Employment Opportunity laws

  • Various open-access, online mini-courses in HR topics are offered by a range of credible higher education institutions, such as those offered by Coursera here: Coursera-HR-Courses

  • Many HR Consulting Firms conduct research and publicly share their findings, including: