Topic 5 of 15 · People and culture
Nonprofit HR policies and team culture
Free nonprofit HR toolkits, HR policy templates and team culture guides for small and growing nonprofits and NGOs.
- 11 resources
- 9 free
- 5 tools and templates
- 4 sub-topics
Your people are most of your budget and all of your delivery. Yet HR in small nonprofits is often a folder of policies copied from somewhere else.
This shelf gets the basics in place (HR policies, pay you can defend), then moves to culture: teams where people speak up, equity work that changes practice, and change your team can get behind.
You need this shelf if
- You've grown past 10 staff and still have no proper HR policies
- People leave and you hear why only in exit interviews
- Pay decisions feel ad hoc or unfair
- You're working across cultures or countries and keep misreading each other
Key questions for leaders
- Do you have the basic HR policies in place for your size, and are they followed? Human Resources (HR) Toolkit for Small and Medium Nonprofit Actors →
- Can you explain how you set pay, and would your staff call it fair? Equitable Compensation Playbook →
- Do people feel safe to raise problems and admit mistakes? The Fearless Organization →
- Who leaves, why, and what are exit interviews telling you?
- What are you doing about equity in hiring, pay and promotion? Awake to Woke to Work →
What's on the shelf
5.1 HR policies and practice
- 5.1C064
Human Resources (HR) Toolkit for Small and Medium Nonprofit Actors
A 32-page toolkit for small and medium nonprofit, humanitarian and development organisations that want a formal system for managing people. It offers guidance, tips and checklists for writing or strengthening HR policies, plus a set of questions to review an existing HR framework, find gaps and set priority actions. It is written for HR staff, programme and operations teams, and finance and admin managers who handle basic HR.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree - 5.1C061
Core Humanitarian Competency Framework
The sector competency framework for humanitarian staff, published by CHS Alliance. The package includes a printable framework, a full guide for HR staff and managers on adopting a competency-based approach, a shortened guide, guidance on combining it with other frameworks, 4 PowerPoint training modules with handouts, and a short animated video. Organisations use it for job descriptions, recruitment, performance appraisal and staff development.
ClassicTool or templateFree - 5.1C062
Equitable Compensation Playbook
A playbook for HR and reward professionals in international NGOs who want to rethink pay policy. It aims to help organisations reduce pay inequality, including gaps between national and international staff, and make reward more transparent. It comes with a companion Excel worksheet, a video on how to use it and a podcast discussion. Organisations use it to review their current approach and plan changes to compensation policy and practice.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 5.1C063
HR Toolkit for Racial Equity
A toolkit in which the W.K. Kellogg Foundation shares the HR practices it uses to advance racial equity. Its 10 sections give samples for equity standards and principles, an employee value proposition, employee resource groups, learning opportunities, recruitment partner talking points, interview questions, recruitment tracking, performance indicators, recognition programmes and a 17-item climate survey. HR teams adapt the samples for their own hiring, pay and promotion practice.
CurrentTool or templateFree
5.2 Teams and collaboration
- 5.2C067
The Fearless Organization
A book by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson on psychological safety at work. It explains what psychological safety is, why it matters for learning and performance, and what happens when people stay silent. Using case studies from many sectors, it gives leaders a set of practices for setting the stage, inviting participation and responding well when people speak up, admit mistakes or raise concerns. Team leaders and managers use it to build candid teams.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideBook - 5.2C066
The Culture Map
A book by INSEAD professor Erin Meyer on how national cultures differ at work. It sets out 8 scales: communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing and scheduling. Readers plot cultures on each scale to see where colleagues are likely to clash. Managers of international and multicultural teams use it to name sources of friction around feedback, decisions, trust and time, and to adjust how they work together.
ClassicKey manual or guideBook
5.3 Diversity, equity and inclusion
- 5.3C070
Awake to Woke to Work
A publication from Equity in the Center, developed with more than 120 DEI and race equity practitioners, on building a race equity culture inside an organisation. It sets out the Race Equity Cycle, a set of stages from awake to woke to work, and the organisational levers that move an organisation through them. It gives tactics and practices for shifting culture. Free companion tools include an action plan form, a glossary and a pulse check.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree with sign-up - 5.3C071
Creating Cultures and Practices for Racial Equity
A toolbox from Race Forward for arts and cultural organisations working on racial equity. It opens with a glossary and steps for building equity into culture and practice, then gives 5 tools: an organisational equity impacts and outcomes assessment, a choice points worksheet, DreamYard's Equity Prime, the R.A.C.E. Lens and a values-based equity tool. Teams use the worksheets to review policies, programmes, grantmaking, contracts and budgets.
CurrentTool or templateFree - 5.3C072
Awareness to Action
A BoardSource guide for boards and chief executives working on racial equity together. It offers 3 starting points to assess where a board stands now, each paired with action steps to move it forward. It notes that the work is nonlinear and needs sustained commitment. It also covers why the guide was written and policies and practices to avoid the glass cliff for new leaders of colour.
EmergingKey manual or guideFree
5.4 Culture and change management
- 5.4C073
A Change Management & Deep Equity Primer
A primer by Sheryl Petty, co-released by GEO, on leading organisational change with equity at the core. It introduces Equity-Embedded Change Management and covers readiness, assessment, buy-in, consultant and client challenges, communication, implementation, getting unstuck, what progress means and leaders' inner work. It ends with a glossary, resources and a framework for deep equity capacity building. Staff, boards, consultants and funders use it to plan equity change.
Start hereCurrentShort readFree - 5.4C074
Understanding effective safeguarding culture
A discussion tool from Bond, the UK network for international development organisations, for talking about what a positive safeguarding culture looks like. It describes behaviours that show whether a culture follows good safeguarding practice across 6 areas: policies and procedures, safer programming, a survivor-centred approach, awareness raising, safer recruitment and reporting. Staff at all levels use it in workshops, alongside a separate Bond tool for leaders.
CurrentTool or templateFree
Related project ideas
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HR policies & procedures development
“You have no formal HR policies — or what exists is a patchwork of outdated documents that staff and managers can't rely on when things get difficult.”See project
CSO integrity system
“You do not yet have in place policies and procedures that clearly describe expected standards of conduct, processes to help prevent violations, and fair processes for ensuring reporting and handling of violations that do occur”See project
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