Sociology Career in Nonprofits: Skills & Research

For far too long it seemed sociologists could only apply their skills as long as they were not profiting off their work. Because of our disciplines history in critiquing capitalism, there seemed to be an unspoken association between for-profit organizations and exploitation. In some ways, this makes the nonprofit sector more palatable to sociologists looking for work outside of academia.

Nonprofits which offer a social solution to a problem rather than operating simply for profit make a nice destination for sociologists to apply their skills and not feel (as) guilty about their role in capitalism. So there is a good reason to get a sociology career in nonprofits.

Of course, making hoards of money is not the only reason that a person might find a job fulfilling. As mentioned, nonprofit organizations are often designed to offer solutions to social problems. For applied sociologists, working for an organization designed to solve problems, can be a great fit. For some people working with a nonprofit organization or starting your own might be a great career choice.

Finding the Right Sociology Career in Nonprofits

For any sociology student or graduate student preparing for a sociology career, we always recommend performing both a second domain analysis and self-audit.

A second domain analysis is a way of learning about the professional domain in which you would like to apply your primary domain of sociology. For instance, perhaps your interest in the field revolves around the sociology of medicine. In this case your second domain analysis will involve looking into public health nonprofit organizations, patient advocacy groups. Another example might be a sociologist who studies the impact of AI on society. In their case, the tech industry makes a great potential second domain for them.

In short, for a second domain analysis, you should reach out to people who work in these organizations, read as many job postings for jobs, and generally conduct extensive research in these types of jobs. Ideally, you would conduct your second domain analysis early in your education so as to give yourself time to gain experiences and skills that nonprofit organizations are looking for in employees.

In addition to conducting a second domain analysis to better understand your future job prospects, you should be auditing your own skills and experiences. We always suggest conducting a self audit at the same time you are doing your domain analysis. As you conduct a self audit, it may have impacts on the type of job or position you are interested in researching for your second domain analysis. For your self audit, you should dig extensively into your educational and work experiences.

Analyze every course, workshop, conference, or job you have taken throughout your training. Some items may seem irrelevant to your future career goals, but all of your experiences have contributed to the person you are today, so really dig into everything. During this process you may notice professional skills you are lacking, in this case, try to gain those skills as you finish your training.

Valuable Skills for a Sociology Career in Nonprofits

We have reviewed several job postings for sociology careers in nonprofit organizations. We use Indeed and Google to find job postings at nonprofit organizations that ask for an applicant to have a degree in sociology. The following is a list of skills that we found to be valuable for sociology jobs in the nonprofit sector.

Skills Development

Often in our sociology education, we spend a lot of time working on professional development activities. Maybe it is networking at conferences, presenting research to colleagues, and preparing for our future careers. It turns out all that time spent developing our professional skills can be used to teach others how to develop professional skills.

Take, for example, a job posting for a Career Case Manager at Goodwill. The salary appeared to start around $40,000 per year and requires at least a bachelor degree in sociology or related social science. The job listing describes one responsibility as, “Maintain client caseloads by supporting clients’ development with respect to resume building, job applications/job searching, interviewing, and employment related soft skills.”

In short the job is helping others through the professional development process that you yourself have been through. Especially if professional development was a central part of your sociology education, job training is a valuable skill in the nonprofit sector.

Research

Research is another valuable skill across industries including the nonprofit sector. Sociologists, in particular, generally receive broad training in research methods to include both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis techniques. This breadth of methods serves sociologists well.

One job posting for a Research Associate at the National Safety Council is looking for someone with at least an MA in sociology or other social science. This particular research position offers a starting salary of around 60-65,000 dollars per year. The job requires a researcher to write background and literature, collect data, and analyze data. All of these are tasks that someone with a sociology degree would have experience with.

Grant Writing

More often than not, nonprofit organizations rely upon grant funding to maintain their operations and provide their intended function. Therefore grant writing is a valuable skill for a sociology job in the nonprofit sector. While grant writing experience is more common among graduate students, there is no reason an undergraduate student couldn’t seek out guidance and training in grant writing.

There may be professors in your department who would be happy to mentor you through a grant application. Further, reach out to smaller nonprofit organization in your community. In most cases, such organizations would be delighted to allow students to help them with their grant writing to gain experience. After all, equipping the next generation with grant writing skills only works in their favor.

Applied Sociologists Working in the Nonprofit Space

Our Profiles in Applied and Clinical Sociology series features many sociologist working in the nonprofit space. Below, we list a few profiles we think are great examples of applied sociologists working in nonprofits.

Final Thoughts on Finding a Sociology Job in the Nonprofit Sector

In short, your best advice for finding a sociology career in the nonprofit sector is to start early, ideally when you are in school. You can use this time to conduct a strong second domain analysis and track changes in trends over time for a couple years. While you are tracking trends in the nonprofit sector you can also be constantly evaluating your own skills and experiences to make sure you are prepared to take on a full time career in nonprofit work from the time you graduate.