Nonprofit Staff Supervision and Leadership Guide
- Nonprofit Learning Lab
- Aug 5
- 7 min read
Table of Contents
At the Nonprofit Learning Lab, we offer daily online nonprofit training on training, facilitation, fundraising, strategic planning, communications, volunteer management, and free resources to help you lead your organization. These resources are designed to help executive directors, c-suite staff, development directors, program directors, volunteer managers, operation directors, and board members.
We offer a variety of free nonprofit resources from downloadable guidebooks to webinars to blogs!
We’ve compiled a list of all our internal resources relating to staff supervision & leadership along with highlighting some of our favorite external resources.
Activity Sheets: Goal Setting & Employee Development
We offer free downloadable, printable worksheets to help you brainstorm on nonprofit topics such as strategy & planning, fundraising, and volunteer management.
This tool is designed to support employees in their professional growth by setting clear development goals and outlining actionable steps. It includes sections for essential details, specific skills to be developed, a detailed action plan, and a timeline for tracking progress. Additionally, it highlights supervisor support, success metrics for evaluating achievements, and a review process for ongoing feedback.
Prompt employees or yourself to articulate goals, motivations, challenges, and resources of support, while providing space for detailed action steps and timelines for each goal. By breaking down each goal into manageable components, including start dates and projected due dates, the sheet encourages focused progress. This comprehensive framework fosters accountability and clarity, empowering individuals to navigate their path to success effectively.
Free Webinars & Past Free Webinar Downloads
Join us for live free webinars, covering topics from data analytics to fundraising & our diversity, equity and inclusion webinar series. Participate live to ask questions and learn from our expert speakers!
In addition to our live, upcoming free webinars, we provide access to all our previous free webinars! You can download both the recording and slides for our free webinars.
10 Free Leadership Webinars You Can Access Today
Bridging Generational Communication Gaps in the Nonprofit Workplace
An Equation to Unleash Collective Impact and Foster Meaningful Collaboration
Managing (or Initiating) Rapid Growth: Collaborative Solutions for Visionary Leaders
Becoming a Nonprofit Thought Leader
Why Retention & Succession Belong in your Strategic Plan
How to Be An Inclusive and Inspiring Leader
Navigating Nonprofit Leadership: Leadership is Hard... And That's Ok
Our Roles in Creating Inclusive Environments
Organizational Lifecycle During Times of Change
Nurturing Safe Space: Ensuring Employee Retention
To gain access, just fill out our short form and you’ll receive an email to browse them all!
Workshops for Supervisors & Leaders
We offer online nonprofit training on supervision, facilitation, fundraising, strategic planning, communications, volunteer management, board management, and more! Check out our trainings related to staff supervision & leadership below.
Effective staff management is essential to completing work and employee satisfaction and retention. Whether you are new to the role or are a supervisor with extensive knowledge, there is a need to understand how to use systems to communicate, create clarity around expectations, tasks and job performance. As a supervisor, there is a balance between micro-managing and believing in the skills of your employees for why you hired them in their roles. This workshop will dive into supervision strategies including span of control, performance, project monitoring, feedback, supervision methods and how to build a high-performing team.
Leaders can make or break an organization. We need leaders with agility, tenacity, and an open heart and mind. Join us to learn top skills and approaches for successfully leading nonprofits and teams today. Through interactive discussions, we'll help you move from management to strategy for lasting impact. Explore new frameworks you can immediately apply to better motivate your team to meet shared goals. You'll walk away with a better sense of your leadership style as well as what works best for your team. Finally, gain a better understanding of building meaningful and strategic relationships vital to being a more impactful and influential leader.
This training is designed to deepen understanding of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) and their critical interplay with trauma-informed care principles. Participants will engage in heartfelt storytelling and interactive scenarios that challenge automatic biases and stereotypes, fostering meaningful discussions on inclusivity. Through various role-playing activities, attendees will practice using inclusive language and explore the impact of trauma on individuals and communities. The training will equip participants with strategies to integrate trauma-informed approaches into DE&I initiatives, ultimately promoting safe, supportive environments that empower all individuals.
Trust is built over time through intentional actions and daily choices by individuals and teams. This interactive workshop focuses on creating a shared understanding of trust, exploring its development stages, and distinguishing between interpersonal and team trust. Participants will gain practical, research-backed strategies to strengthen team dynamics, address trust challenges, and foster lasting collaboration. Whether navigating change or working remotely, you'll leave with tools to build and sustain trust within your team.
Strong leadership is the key to bridging generational communication gaps in nonprofit organizations. With Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X and Boomers bringing diverse perspectives, work styles, and expectations to the table, leaders must take an active role in fostering clear, effective communication. Explore how leadership influences workplace dynamics, common friction points between generations, and strategies for building trust and collaboration. Participants will learn how to model adaptive communication, create an inclusive environment where all voices are heard, and strengthen team cohesion. By taking a leadership-driven approach to intergenerational communication, nonprofit leaders can boost engagement, retention, and overall mission impact.
Use code friend10 when registering to get $10 off!
Nonprofit Learning Library
Our nonprofit library contains hundreds of recordings and slides for nonprofit professionals on a variety of topics from marketing, fundraising, program management, diversity equity and inclusion, volunteer management and more.
Membership provides you with access to our previous nonprofit workshops. Interested in seeing what's in the resource library but not a member? Click here to see an abbreviated list of resources in our library.
Working on your continuing education credits and looking to get CFRE or CVA credits? Our library is filled with hundreds of sessions pre-approved for CFRE and CCVA credit! Additionally, as a CAE registered provider, many of our workshops qualify for ASAE credit as well!
Blogs on Staff Supervision & Management
Weekly blog posts on fundraising, nonprofit marketing, donor management software, nonprofit storytelling, volunteer management, social media and more!
Quick Link to all Leadership Blogs
Some of our favorite blogs for staff supervision & management:
How to be a Better Supervisor: Motivating Employees as they Work on Projects
Communicating with your Staff: Platforms for Organizing and Tracking Performance
Creating Project Timelines to Improve Staff Management at Your Nonprofit
From Onboarding to Supervision: How to Use Employee Development Plans for Staff Management
External Resources
Leadership Savvy was created to be your partner in times of decision-making, business improvement, professional growth, or times of change. Whether it’s building teams, strengthening partnerships, reorienting your career, or taking your leadership to the next level, we’re here to help you find clarity and reach your goals.
Consultants for Good is a dynamic, peer-driven collective of mission-driven consultants who are motivated to learn together, share work opportunities, swap business tips, and bond over shared experiences. Through online and in-person community, C4G hosts all of the peer-led education and opportunities to connect that consultants need to thrive.
The monday.com Work OS is a low code- no code platform that democratizes the power of software so organizations can easily build work management tools and software applications to fit their every need. The platform intuitively connects people to processes and systems, empowering teams to excel in every aspect of their work while creating an environment of transparency in business.
Martus is a cloud-based budgeting, forecasting and reporting software tool that allows organizations and businesses to create, execute, and analyze budgets with ease. Martus supports collaboration, is easy to implement and very affordable.
With Aplos, nonprofit groups and faith-based organizations of every shape, size, and mission can seamlessly run their finances and operations, manage their business and bottom line, and proactively engage their communities and donors when it matters most.
Philanthropy + Data + Social Equity and Inclusion = a virtual school where nonprofits can unlearn, learn, and evolve their equity-focused data practices. Offering trainings, workshops, and webinars on topics like inclusive data collection, equitable fundraising surveys, and human-centric AI.
Other Helpful Resources
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Job Boards
A central hub for national, international, Canadian, and local job boards
Nonprofit Learning Lab Job Board
Featuring jobs posted by our members, all over the U.S.
VolunteerMatch is the largest network in the nonprofit world, with the most volunteers, nonprofits and opportunities to make a difference.
The world's largest social-impact job board, featuring paid & volunteer roles from 150,000+ organizations
Guidebooks
We offer many free downloadable guidebooks to get ideas for fundraising plans, budgeting, board development and more.
Tip Sheets
Download free tip sheets on topics from nonprofit fundraising, board development, nonprofit marketing & volunteer management.