Yes there are jobs and yes the non-profit industry needs your talents. Software jobs in the industry fall into one of 4 buckets in my experience. Don't expect much career growth or pay. Most of the work is in support of fundraising. Be willing to work at a vendor that serves the non-profit industry.
- Web development. Nonprofits need websites. Sometimes they may have a dev on staff, usually they at least have a digital director that can work with devs at web dev vendors. These vendors are usually solely focused on the non-profit market.
- CRM. Non-profits fundraise and they need people to manage the donor database. Usually this is bought from a vendor that specializes in non-profit CRM and those vendors also have devs/DBAs.
- IT. Non-profits need IT to manage networks, phones and equipment. Often they work with IT vendors.
- Devs for conservation work. This is more rare. Still, some non-profits have staff scientists, GIS people, and devs to build out conservation tools, such as data collecting apps, data visualizations or other things. This is rare because most non-profits are trying to convince the government to do the science because the government has much more money and power to recruit. It's rare and maybe a bit of a vanity project to do any science out of the non-profit, though there are a couple of groups that do that.
In my personal experience working in nonprofits there is a tendency for organizations to have the actual technical work done by vendors rather than staff unless the work is central to the mission of the organization. There's a feeling that this is cheaper than trying to hire and maintain staff with those skills.
It may be less about it being cheaper, and more that you know what your budget is for a given year but perhaps not what it is three years from now. You can spend this year's budget with confidence and not worry about having to lay off your dev staff next year when donations dry up. It also requires management expertise to manage a software building team - not something a lot of non-profits have.
I learned from your perspective here. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Interesting, because this trade study could be conducted by an engineer and a manager in a small company and still have starkly different results in the weighing of concerns.
Most of my early career was solo. I recognize the importance of a good team, but as a business you (even non profits and myself solo) have to understand the bottom line for all stakeholders.
If anyone else could expand on this person's ideas, please do!
- Web development. Nonprofits need websites. Sometimes they may have a dev on staff, usually they at least have a digital director that can work with devs at web dev vendors. These vendors are usually solely focused on the non-profit market.
- CRM. Non-profits fundraise and they need people to manage the donor database. Usually this is bought from a vendor that specializes in non-profit CRM and those vendors also have devs/DBAs.
- IT. Non-profits need IT to manage networks, phones and equipment. Often they work with IT vendors.
- Devs for conservation work. This is more rare. Still, some non-profits have staff scientists, GIS people, and devs to build out conservation tools, such as data collecting apps, data visualizations or other things. This is rare because most non-profits are trying to convince the government to do the science because the government has much more money and power to recruit. It's rare and maybe a bit of a vanity project to do any science out of the non-profit, though there are a couple of groups that do that.