ProInspire in Stanford Social Innovation Review: How Fellowships Can Inform Talent Management

ProInspire’s latest research on the social impact fellowship industry was published in a new article in Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Talent Matters series.

How Fellowships Can Inform Talent Management

A new study traces the evolution of social impact fellowships and highlights what organizations can learn from the industry.
By Monisha Kapila

If you’ve searched for or posted a nonprofit career opportunity lately, then you’ve probably noticed the large number of fellowship opportunities in today’s marketplace. Increasingly, fellowships are serving to address gaps in how the social impact sector recruits, develops, and supports talent across the career life stage. In fact, ProFellow, a source of information on professional and academic fellowships, has nearly 20,000 fellowship seekers and 400 professional-focused fellowships in its global database.

Why are fellowships so attractive to participants and organizations alike? Common benefits include:

• An intentional focus on leadership development
• A combination of on-the-job experience and theory, allowing for real-time application and deeper learning
• The creation of support systems in the form of cohorts, mentors, and networks

With so much interest, we wanted to better understand the fellowship field and harness those learnings for sector-wide benefit. In 2014, ProInspire and ProFellow conducted a survey and analysis of fellowship programs to gather the first benchmarking dataset in the field. Forty-six fellowship programs participated in the survey, including well-known programs from organizations such as Acumen, Ashoka, Aspen Institute, Echoing Green, and Independent Sector.

Our research documented the rapid evolution of the fellowship field over the past 15 years. In fact, 76 percent of the programs in our survey started in 2000 or later. The research also confirmed the primary focus of fellowship programs on “emerging leaders”—individuals under 40. We also identified some clear takeaways for how social impact organizations and funders can infuse fellowship practices in their own talent management strategies.

Read more here.