Understand what effective performance looks like.
Competency models delineate the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that are required for optimal performance in a particular job or profession.
Don’t just know — do.
Our models help you understand and apply the behaviors of meaningful, high-impact philanthropy in your work and relationships.
Support equitable and inclusive hiring and staff retention.
Competency-based hiring practices have been shown to increase the hiring of people of color and improve staff retention.
Program Officer Competency Model©
Chart a path toward transformative grantmaking and trust-based relationships.
Foundation program officers play a critical, nuanced role at the intersection of resources, strategies, and stakeholders. The Program Officer Competency Model captures this complexity.
Development of the model included an analysis of more than 100 job descriptions, a review by competency model experts, and the input of nine focus groups with grantmakers and nonprofit leaders to determine and define the essential competencies of the program officer role.
- Current and prospective program officers: Use the model to check in on and advance your own learning and proficiency.
- Hiring managers: Adopt competency-based hiring practices by utilizing the model in position descriptions, interviews, and hiring.
- Leadership: Amp up your grantmaking strategies by ensuring your team has the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
We encourage you to use, adapt, and share this model to map your professional journey, structure position descriptions, design training programs, and so much more.
Download the PDF or explore the interactive model below!
Key Definitions
Sources: Campion et al., 2011; Shippmann et al., 2000
Reuse and Licensing Information
We encourage you to adapt, share, and otherwise use this competency model to advance your own work and partnerships in philanthropy. The terms of that use include:
- Attribution: You must give proper credit to the work of the Johnson Center in any materials you use, create, or distribute. This attribution must include a link to this license and make clear that use of this model does not in any way imply an endorsement of your work by the Johnson Center (unless by prior arrangement). Attribution should appear as follows:
The Program Officer Competency Model was created by the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University © 2021. Use under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
- NonCommercial: You may not use this material for any commercial purposes, unless by prior arrangement.
- ShareAlike: Any materials you create and distribute must be subject to the same terms as this license.
Program Officer Competency Model by the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
For inquiries, please contact the Johnson Center at jcp@gvsu.edu.
Nonprofit Competency Model for Inclusive Leadership
There are a variety of routes to a career in the nonprofit sector. People become leaders by leveraging undergraduate and graduate degrees, working their way up through organizations, and, particularly in the case of board service, through personal and professional connections. Once you’re in, performance and promotion practices vary widely in method and quality.
The paths to these positions have contributed to a sector whose leadership is lacking in diversity — especially racial diversity — and by extension, inclusive leadership practices. Because competency models rely on KSAOs, they have the potential to contribute to a stronger, more diverse sector that leads with inclusiveness.
A Resource to Support a More Inclusive Workforce
Many frameworks for nonprofit leadership already exist in the field. What we have done is to take the collective wisdom of many organizations and tools — and our own decades of experience in nonprofit leadership — and integrated it all into two summative and interrelated tracks (one for nonprofit staff leaders, one for board members), with an emphasis on KSAOs that contribute to cultures of belonging. The competencies are the same for both staff and board members, rather it is the behaviors that vary depending on each person’s role.
Key Definitions
Sources: Campion et al., 2011; Shippmann et al., 2000
Reuse and Licensing Information
The Competency Model for Nonprofit Inclusive Leadership represents a unique compilation of material from existing sources, expertise from Johnson Center team members and colleagues, and original writing and research. As such, the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University asserts copyright in compilation for the Competency Model for Nonprofit Inclusive Leadership. Cited content included in the model is subject to the copyright of the source material.
We encourage you to engage with, adapt, share, and otherwise use this competency model to advance your own work and partnerships in philanthropy. The Competency Model for Nonprofit Inclusive Leadership is available for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
For inquiries, please contact the Johnson Center at jcp@gvsu.edu.