On Wednesday 23^rd February, the For Purpose team attended gradireland live. Gradireland is the perfect opportunity for students across Ireland to meet with prospective employers, discuss graduate programmes and consider career options.

For Purpose gradireland live 2022

Our Head of For Purpose, Rhonda and our Recruitment Coordinator, Shannon, met with students and explained different aspects of our programme. Several students had similar queries, some of which are listed below.

 

When can I apply to For Purpose?

Firstly, many students had queries surrounding when you can apply to For Purpose and if our roles were degree-specific. Our Graduate Programme is different to others in that there are job opportunities on a rolling basis throughout the year. Furthermore, most of our roles are not degree specific (unless specified). We consider relevant degree modules, work experience, personality and most importantly, your passion for the nonprofit sector.

Our team also provided advice to our students. It is important to read the desired skills of each role we advertise and how it matches to your skills and experience. Our team encourages students to wait until you are almost finished your degree, as we have graduate jobs available on a rolling basis. Most of our roles commence immediately!

 

What skills are required to work in the nonprofit sector?

Empathy, social understanding, interest in social justice. If you’re working for a nonprofit, you are working with a team to solve a social issues and you may work with individual who are vulnerable, requiring patience and understanding.

It is extremely important to have a genuine interest in the position you apply for, as this passion will drive you to succeed in your role.

 

Thanks to everyone who attended gradireland Live on Wednesday. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting you all and hope to see your applications for positions in 2022! More information on our programme here or contact Rhonda Wynne.

Investing in a Graduate with For Purpose

The Irish nonprofit sector provides crucial work to our social system. Since the pandemic, the sector faces many challenges and added stresses. Therefore, in order to respond to these challenges, building further capacity within the sector is necessary. Considering recruiting a graduate may be of particular benefit to your organisation and the future of the nonprofit sector.

Recruiting graduate students could have a transformative impact on the nonprofit sector, enhancing innovation through new ideas, energies, and perspectives, and building strategic capacity and insight through specialist skills.

Many private companies have developed graduate programmes. However, certain nonprofit organisations do not have the resources to recruit, train and support their own graduates. We wanted to provide a solution to this problem. The For Purpose Graduate Programme was then established in 2012.

About For Purpose

Why should my organisation consider a graduate?

Graduates provide a unique benefit to your organisation through their skills, ways of working and perspectives. For Purpose asked a sample of their employer partners about the value of recruiting graduates and what they can bring to an organisation.

Some particular benefits noted was the access to:

• Specialised and relevant skills
• Current information and education
• New or cutting-edge knowledge
• Relevant disciplinary expertise
• Academic knowledge which translates to work skills
• Research capability: recent experience of doing research, analysis, data management, report writing
• IT skills and social media savvy
• New ideas and perspectives
• Openness in ways of working – no hangs up or preconceived ideas about set ways or systems for doing things
• Diverse ways of thinking
• Approach to work: scientific method and good organisational skills
• Social skills working with graduates
• Communication and presentation skills which are valuable and necessary when out front representing organisations
• Values and commitment to social justice matters

By investing in a current graduate with these specific skills, you will not only provide value to your current team, but also provide a greater impact on the future of the nonprofit sector.

Why partner with For Purpose?

For Purpose assists nonprofits in attracting graduate talent in numerous ways. We liaise with our partner organisations to learn what works with the programme. We ask our partners how the balance of work will suit the employer and the graduate.

For Purpose asked employers about the value of collaborating with For Purpose. Employers noted how the support For Purpose provided with the recruitment process saved time, as For Purpose screened the candidates and selected on the basis of skillsets and interests. Our partners were pleased with the calibre of candidate recruited, and the contribution the graduates made to their teams.

Employers particularly valued the external mentor and access to support, guidance and expertise, which is not available within their own organisation. A key dimension of the programme is the ongoing professional development provided through learning seminars, with access to peers in other organisations.

Previous employees describe For Purpose Graduate Programme

Colette Nolan, CEO, Peer Advocacy in Mental Health (formerly known as Irish Advocacy Network):

“We are a small organisation, all about providing a quality service. Funding has been static, so we needed to take a more active role in fundraising and looking at our presence in the media. It is necessary to create an awareness of who you are for people to trust you with their money. We didn’t have much knowledge or experience of this area.

We went to a graduate fair in the RDS and realised that people make professions out of these areas, and it would be possible to recruit a graduate to work with us. For Purpose provided a one stop shop helping to develop the role and job description, advertise, and interview. An organisation like ours couldn’t provide anything like the mentoring support that they support the graduate and the organisation. Therefore, this was of value to a small organisation, particularly bringing a completely new role into the organisation.”

 

Stephen Lowry, Fundraising and Development Manager, Epilepsy Ireland:

“We recently engaged the For Purpose team to run and manage a recruitment campaign to fill a newly available graduate position within our team. From our very first meeting with the team at For Purpose, they made the process incredibly easy. Having simply given them a broad overview of the role itself and the general competencies we were seeking from prospective candidates, from there the For Purpose team took complete responsibility for every stage of the process including drafting the job specification, advertising the role, screening applications as well as preparing us for the final stage interviews.

At the interviews themselves, the real value of For Purpose became apparent as each of the shortlisted candidates they had invited for interview were nothing short of exceptional. While this made the decision around which candidate to select an extremely tough choice for us (which perhaps was the only hard part of the whole experience) this was not a bad complaint to have. We were delighted with the entire process and could not recommend the services of For Purpose more highly.”

Support Your Graduate Investment

We have developed a support document to justify the investment to your board, if you’re interested in investing in a graduate and want to make a business case. For details, contact Rhonda Wynne or for more information on our services, visit our website.

On Tuesday 9^th November, For Purpose kicked off their third session of For Purpose Tuesdays. A huge thank you to Rob Foley, Senior Consultant at 2into3, who spoke to our graduates about the Fundraising Landscape in Ireland. Much of Rob’s work centres on relationship-based fundraising campaigns, wider strategy development and board engagement. Rob presented his strategic fundraising process, and asked our graduates about the future of fundraising in their respective nonprofit organisations.

2into3 work with mission-driven organisations to build capacity, so that they can have a transformative impact on society in Ireland and the world. 2into3 help in early stage strategy implementation and guide clients through early prospect identification and fundraising.

Rob Foley works with nonprofits to transform their fundraising strategy, supporting organisations through the fundraising journey from assessing the level of funding required, to developing the optimal fundraising mix. We were delighted that Rob attended our For Purpose Tuesdays session to chat to our graduates about fundraising in their nonprofit organisations.

 

For Purpose- Fundraising Session

During yesterday’s session, the graduates were placed into breakout rooms to brainstorm ideas for future fundraised income. The graduates proposed fantastic ideas from increasing fundraised income in communities, to developing greater brand awareness for each nonprofit sector. Placing our graduates into breakout rooms introduced an incentive to discuss fundraising knowledge and develop ideas for the future of the nonprofit sector.

For Purpose Tuesdays has been an excellent opportunity for our graduates to build a rapport with their peers, whilst gaining knowledge from sector leaders. Our final session of 2021 will take place next month, on the second Tuesday of December. Thanks a million to all of our graduates for participating, and to Rob for hosting this session.

For more information on For Purpose Tuesdays, visit our recent news item, or contact Rhonda Wynne at Rhonda.wynne@forpurpose.ie.

Thanks for attending our first For Purpose Tuesdays session on 14^th September. Our first learning seminar was from John Evoy, General Manager of Grow Remote.

Structure of For Purpose Tuesdays

The For Purpose grads were placed into breakout rooms. This gave them a chance to understand each other’s role, responsibilities and to access peer-to-peer conversation.

Afterwards, John Evoy described his career journey to our graduates. From working as a farmer, to his career with ‘Grow remote’, John has many years’ experience in the nonprofit sector. He is the founder and previous CEO of, ‘Irish Men’s Shed Association’. This is a place where men can come together to learn skills and make long-lasting friendships together in their community.

The Men’s Shed has achieved significant success across Ireland, receiving governmental and European recognition of their contribution to Ireland. In 2018, the Association received the European Citizen’s Award after being nominated by Irish MEPs.

Hereafter, John discussed his career with ‘Grow Remote’ in a Q&A format with our graduates.

 

What is Grow Remote?

Grow remote is a community group who were initially curious about how remote working could help our communities.

Grow Remote’s aim is to develop the entire ecosystem for remote working. John believes there is unlimited potential for remote working in Ireland, as we can reduce traffic, create more co-working spaces, with less fossil fuels burned from travelling to work. More remote working could result in greater spending in local communities, having a transformative impact on smaller villages and towns in Ireland.

There are 50,000 remote jobs available in Ireland currently, including many startups which are now fully remote. The benefit of continuing to work this way is having the freedom over your own time and personal priorities.

John’s learning seminar was extremely beneficial for our graduates, because it opened the possibility of remaining remote after the pandemic is well and truly over.

 

Our first learning seminar of our For Purpose Tuesdays was extremely successful. We would like to extend a warm thank you to John for sharing his knowledge with our graduates. We look forward to joining our graduates next month at For Purpose Tuesdays!

For more information, contact Rhonda Wynne or visit our website.