There are no nonprofit leaders or managers with any significant experience who have any doubt that the single most critical contributor to a nonprofit's success is its people. Regardless of the mission, size, history, or geographic location of the organization, every nonprofit must be able to attract, retain, reward, and motivate its people. Unfortunately, experienced leaders also cannot deny that some of the most important yet vexing aspects of nonprofit leadership and management are directly related to the work of leading and managing people. When it comes to people, there are no magic bullets or special techniques that will make the process simple and easy. But there is a valuable body of knowledge about human resource management and how it can be handled effectively and (relatively) efficiently. The chapters of Part Five apply the insights of this field to the work of nonprofit managers, most of whom have little or no training in this aspect of their management work. These chapters provide an important foundation for understanding the basic elements of human resource and personnel management—for paid staff and for volunteers—and share useful insights for how nonprofit managers can make effective use of this information to motivate and mobilize their people to accomplish the results they seek.

Mary R. Watson and Rikki Abzug lead us into the topic in Chapter Twenty-Two, to explain the overall process of human resource management and detail the human resource systems, processes, and practices that are important to any well-functioning nonprofit organization. Building on the foundation presented by Watson and Abzug, Nancy E. Day explains in Chapter Twenty-Three how to approach one of the most challenging yet important of human resource management issues, the challenge of compensating work and rewarding performance. Day explains the orientation known as the Total Rewards approach to compensation and benefits from the perspective of the characteristics and expectations of people working in the nonprofit sector, and shares insights into some of the most useful ways that this approach can be employed. Finally, in Chapter Twenty-Four, Jeffrey L. Brudney discusses the segment of the human resource world that is most unique to the nonprofit sector—the volunteer. Brudney presents a comprehensive explanation of the effective volunteer management program, and how it should be developed and operated, and explains how a nonprofit can systematically and strategically implement a program that will enable it to attract, organize, lead, and manage the volunteers it needs and wants. Building on the insights shared by Jeavons in Chapter Seven, each of the chapters of Part Five gives careful attention to the ethical and legal aspects of working with people, employees, and volunteers alike, while emphasizing the importance of keeping the mission and people at the forefront of the leadership and management process.