Frequently Asked Questions

Why are you doing this?
Our goal is to help build and strengthen Canada's non-profit sector by connecting non-profits across the country with job seekers as well as suppliers of services or products - at prices that even the most financially challenged of non-profit organizations can afford - free!

Why is WorkInNonProfits.ca so much cheaper than other sites?
Well, there are numerous reasons. We don't employ sales people to convince organizations to advertise on our website so we can generate more profits (hopefully you've already noticed the acute lack of distracting banner ads on our site). Every cent that other sites spend on advertising and sales is ultimately added to your cost of posting a job on their site. We firmly believe that if we offer an unbeatable service at unbeatable rates (can't really beat free) people will use our site and spread the word themselves. Our site is designed from the ground up to be fully automated. This means we don't need to have employees manually checking and posting each job. An additional benefit to you is no delays when you decide to make your job live. We also keep our infrastructure costs to a bare minimum by using only best-of-breed open source and free software.

Everything on WorkInNonProfits.ca is free - will you ever start charging?
As we said above, we keep our costs to a bare minimum by having a fully automated site. There are costs involved though, and at the moment we're paying for those ourselves in order to keep the site free. We will do this as long as possible but our goal is to have the site become self-sufficient. To achieve this we may eventually need to start charging a nominal amount for some services to cover these costs. We'll provide plenty of notice before we make any changes of this nature.

I'd heard you planned on donating 50% of any profits you made back to non-profits. How does that work?
Yes that is still our intention. Once we start charging to cover our costs and, given that it is difficult to accurately predict those costs in advance, we will donate 50% of any net profit made back to the sector. Click this link for more information on our Profit Donation Program.

I really like what you guys are doing. How can I help?
There are several ways you can help in spreading the word about WorkInNonProfits.ca.
• Send a quick email to your friends and colleagues.
• If you know of a regular email list or newsletter aimed at non-profits, let them know about us. If there is a specific website that you think should link to us, let them know. Alternatively, you can send us the information and we'll contact them, however references tend to work best when coming from 3rd parties.
• If you have a web site and can place a link on it to our site, that always helps.
• If you apply for a job you found on our site, please mention this fact in your cover letter. Likewise if you contact a supplier on our site, let them know where you found them.

If you have any other suggestions, by all means  tell us.

Can I put a link to WorkInNonProfits.ca on my site?
Absolutely, we'd love you to. We're happy with just a plain simple text link to our site, however if you prefer a graphical image, button or icon your users can click on, then please follow this link.

How long has WorkInNonProfits.ca been up and running?
We officially launched on the 1st of July 2006. What better day to launch an all-Canadian non-profit work site than  Canada Day?

How do I post a job?
First of all, if you don't already have an account, you need to create one by clicking 'Create Account' (top-right corner of page). Once you have your account, simply log in and click on the 'post jobs' tab (top-right). Follow the links from there to create a job posting in your preferred language.

How much does it cost to post a job?
There is no cost to place a job ad on our site, regardless of it being in English, French or both. Your job will be posted publicly for up to 180 days. After that your job will remain in our database and visible only to you.

Do you charge more to post in 2 languages?
Absolutely not! Last time we looked Canada had 2 official languages, English and French. We think it's rather cheeky for other sites to charge substantially more for bilingual job postings. Quite un-Canadian, eh?

How much does it cost to post an internship position on your site?
Internships, like other jobs, are posted free of charge. It's our way of helping expose Canada's youth to non-profit careers and opportunities.

Can I post a Request For Proposal (RFP) on your site?
Absolutely. You post an RFP exactly the same way you do a job. Just select RFP from the job type list when prompted.

How long can I post a Request For Proposal (RFP) for on your site?
Up to 6 months, same as a normal job.

How much does it cost to post a Request For Proposal (RFP) on your site?
RFP's can be posted free of charge, like any job.

How do you manage to be so much cheaper than other sites?
Answered here, click to view.

Can I apply my own formatting to my job ad?
Yes. We think it's only fair that you control the font formats, bullets and colour, not us.

Can I put our logo on my job posting?
Short answer - no. Long answer - after doing research and consulting with numerous people, the overwhelming response we got was that a job seeker really couldn't be bothered about seeing a logo on the job posting. Remember your job posting here is not like a print media advertisement where your colourful logo is what initially grabs the job seekers attention to that section of the page and hopefully makes them want to read further. Job seekers on our site are focussed and looking at your posting because they've already searched for certain conditions and seen the job title as well as which organization is posting the job. In fact, many job seekers found logos distracting while they were trying to quickly find the important facts about a job (bear in mind they're browsing through perhaps dozens of jobs at a time).

The most important requirement for a job seeker is getting at the information in each posting quickly and effectively. Logo files tend to be fairly large in size. This is problematic because they slow down page load times for busy job seekers and are especially problematic for people with slower internet connections, not to mention that they guzzle bandwidth and increase our operating costs. Because logos also vary dramatically in shape, supporting the use of logos would mean that we would need an employee spending hours manually checking and resizing all logos submitted so that they would fit in the display pages without messing up the entire layout or the original logo. Again, this would result in increased operating costs and require us to charge for postings.

So, given the negligible benefits of displaying logos on job pages, as well as our policy of keeping our costs down in order to keep postings free, we decided against providing this facility. But don't despair - when a job seeker wants to find out more about your organization, they'll follow the link to your website where they'll then see your logo and any other details you provide.

How do I make a change to my job posting?
Just log in, click on the 'post jobs' tab, and you will be able to edit your job. No waiting for approval or intervention from our side. The only thing you cannot change once a job is public is the job title.

Can I extend the deadline on a job posting?
Yes. Simply edit your job and change the closing date. No waiting for approval or intervention from our side. For your convenience we also send you an email reminder 2 days before your job closes so you can decide if you'd like to extend it.

How much will you charge if I need to extend the deadline on a job posting?
Nothing at all.

How do I close a public job early?
If you decide to close a job earlier than the posted closing date, you may do so by simply logging on and then clicking on the 'close' action link next to the public job you want to close. This closes the job immediately and the job will no longer be displayed in regular job searches.

How do I delete a job completely?
Any job in unreleased state can be deleted completely by hitting the delete button while in edit mode. Alternatively clicking the 'delete' action link before going into edit mode will also achieve the same result. Once a job has been made public however, it can no longer be deleted. This is by design so that you (or someone else in your organization, if you're unavailable) can refer back to it at a later date. You can of course still close a public job any time you want to.

It turns out that I sometimes need to repost jobs. Do I have to waste time re-typing everything?
Not at all. You can view every job you have posted with us, even if it has long expired. With one click you can copy an old job, make any changes you desire, and make that new job live. No more hunting through old files for previous job description examples, when you need to advertise a new job. You'll always have an electronic record of all your jobs posted on our site just a login away.

Can I fax you my job description?
Sorry, no. One way we keep our costs down is by minimising human intervention in the entire process. Our site has been designed from the ground up to be easy for you to help yourself and is fully automated. Plus, the trees tend to like it better this way.

I already have the job description in a nicely formatted Word document. Can I email it to you?
Sorry, no. However you can cut and paste your description from your favourite word processor into our editor. It is smart enough to try and interpret the formatting and does a reasonably good job of doing so. Any minor deviations and you can correct them yourself after pasting. Our built-in editor allows you to change many formatting options with the ease and familiarity with which you do it in Word. Try it out.

I have 3 different positions to advertise. Can I post them all in one ad titled 'Multiple Positions'?
Sorry, we don't allow this for the following reasons. By placing multiple positions in one ad, you miss out on your job posting being emailed to potentially many users who have set up email alerts that trigger on words in the job title. For example, someone who has an alert for titles containing the word 'manager', will not be notified when you post your job which only has those words in the job description itself. Also, most job seekers don't like to have to click on obscure titles like 'Various Positions' in order to find out what exactly an organization is looking for. It wastes their time (imagine sifting through many postings like that) and they are very likely to not bother clicking on it in the first place - again reducing your list of potential applicants.

I need to fill 4 identical positions. Can I post them all in one ad?
Yes, in cases where you have multiple identical positions to fill within the same organization, you can post them as one job ad. If you like, you can mention that there are multiple positions in the body of the posting or even add something like '(x4)' to the end of job title.

Do you have any job posting tips or suggested guidelines?
We sure do - click this link for job posting tips and guidelines.

We already have a job description on our own website. Can I just put a link to our site for the job description details?
You can, but we strongly recommend that you don't for these reasons:
  1) Many users of our site set up automated email alerts that notify them whenever a job matching certain keywords in the description is posted. This means that any jobs posted without detailed job descriptions are not likely to trigger the alerts and therefore possibly qualified candidates will not be notified of your job posting.
  2) A reasonable number of visitors to our site search for jobs containing certain keywords from the search page. Once again, if your posting on our site does not have any details in it, then it will likely not be brought to the attention of job seekers browsing for jobs in this manner.
  3) Postings with minimal descriptions typically get few click-throughs because job seekers are often browsing quickly through available jobs and, unless they know the organization or are particularly captivated by the job title, they tend to skip it and move on to the next job posting, rather then break their train of thought and go hunting on another site for one specific job posting.

I posted a job on your site but have now found my listing on site xxxxxx as well. Are you affiliated with this site?
No, not at all. Unfortunately there are some unethical sites out there that 'scrape' jobs off legitimate job sites like ours and then re-post the jobs on their site without permission. They do this to make it look like their site is the most popular when judged on sheer volume of jobs posted, and because many people aren't aware of this practice they're often fooled into thinking the site has a lot more traffic than it actually has. Frustrating as it is for us, unfortunately there's not much we can do about these leeches. If you object to your ad being posted on the other site, the most effective solution is to contact them directly and insist they remove your posting.

I'm a recruiter, can I post a job on your site?
Yes, in the same way as any other job poster. You also need to abide by all the Terms and Conditions of Use. More specifically, we'd like to highlight the following:
1) No résumé farming. You are not allowed to post an open ended, generic job to accumulate résumés. Why? Because it frustrates the heck out of job seekers. You may only post a specific job ad on behalf of a client with a specific opening for that job. We reserve the right to ask for proof that a job exists.
2) No duplicate postings of the same job. This practice frustrates our job seekers and therefore is not allowed. Post a specific job once and once only.
3) No teaser jobs. Do not post a job title and then require the job seeker to go to your site for any further information about the job.

What is the Supplier directory?
The Supplier directory is a listing of individuals or companies that supply any kind of services or products to non-profit organizations. Some examples are bookkeepers, consultants, special event coordinators, investment advisors, auditors, cleaning services, website developers, event photographers, caterers, software vendors, etc. You can think of this section as a "Yellow Pages" type service aimed solely at non-profit organizations. Our aim is to provide one central place that any non-profit can go to in order to find a supplier of services and/or products matching their individual needs.

How do I post a supplier profile?
First of all, if you don't already have an account, you need to create one by clicking 'Create Account' (top-right corner of page). Once you have your account, simply log in and click on either the 'My Account' link (top-right) or the 'manage supplier profile' link (left navigation pane). Follow the links from there to create your supplier profile in your preferred language.

How much does it cost to post a supplier profile?
Nothing. Posting supplier profiles on our site is currently free of charge provided that you are a supplier of services and products to the Canadian not-for-profit sector.

I'm paying $300 a year for a 200 word description of the services I provide on another site. What do I get for free here?
For $0 per year (that's right - for free) you get an approximately 10,000 word description of the services and/or products you supply. This, in essence, means no practical limit since 10,000 words is about the amount of text in a 20 page document. If you even get close to this in your supplier description, chances are you've lost your audience anyway. Another plus - you get to control the formatting of your profile. Yep, you can play with formats, colours, bullets, etc. until your profile looks the way you want it to look.

Still want more? Ok... in addition to a hotlink from the profile page to your website, we also provide a facility to upload your fancy brochure with logos, graphics, etc. or any other document you think potential clients might want to download. This facility is particularly useful for suppliers who perhaps don't have their own websites, but would like potential customers to see a polished document.

Another benefit of listing your profile on our site is that each supplier profile is indexable by search engines. For suppliers with their own websites, this can help boost their site's rankings, however for smaller suppliers without their own websites, this is a huge help and can place you on the map. Think of it as your profile being presented to anyone on the web seeking your services, not just to visitors to our site. Another bonus - the uploaded file contents are also scanned by most search engines.

All these facilities are provided as part of the service and at no cost whatsoever.

Can I apply my own formatting to my supplier profile, or does it have to be a dreary block of text on a white page?
Yes, you can. You get to control the way it looks, not us.

How much do you charge each time I need to update my profile?
Absolutely nothing! You can log in at any time of day (or night) and update your profile as many times as you wish, at no cost whatsoever. Maintaining your profile information is your responsibility and we encourage you to keep your profile as up to date as possible.

Can I put our logo on our supplier profile?
We do not allow logos on the supplier profile pages, for these reasons. Remember though, that visitors are free to follow the hotlink from our page to your own website if they want more information. Additionally you have the facility to upload a PDF document, like a brochure for instance, which can contain logos and any other pertinent information you want people to see. Visitors are able to view, download, save or print this file like any other document.

I have a nice 4-page brochure with graphics I'd like to allow people to download. Can I do this?
Absolutely. You may upload one document of your choice which anyone who reads your profile will be able to download. The only conditions we impose is that a) it is in PDF format, and b) it is less than 500kb in size.

Why do you limit the PDF document that I can upload to 500kb?
A couple of reasons. Firstly, not all non-profits have broadband connections, so downloading anything larger than 500kb becomes really problematic. Secondly, we have to pay for all traffic to and from our servers. So in order to keep our costs to a bare minimum, we have to impose a limit on file sizes, which can be big bandwidth guzzlers.

How do I create a PDF document? Do I have to buy special software to do this?
Nah, we'd be annoyed if you went and wasted good money on software to create PDF's. We'd much rather you donated that money to a worthwhile cause (like one of the non-profits advertising jobs on our site!). You can install free open source software that allows you to create a PDF by simply printing from whatever software package you're comfortable with using. Find out more in our Technology FAQ, including where to get it.

How much does it cost to advertise on your home page as the 'Featured Supplier'?
Nothing. Our system randomly picks a supplier from the database periodically (currently every 15 minutes) and showcases their information in the Featured Supplier box on our home page. There's no charge for this service.

Can I be automatically notified when an RFP or contract job is posted matching the services I provide?
Yes. The way to do this is to simply create a 'Personal Job Alert' for yourself and select the 'RFP' and/or 'Contract' job types. Optionally you can refine all the other alert parameters too (e.g. pick specific regions, etc.) and if you'd like, provide some keywords.

An example - you are a consultant interested in RFPs on planning, organizational development or advocacy in Alberta and BC.
You login, go to the 'My Account' page, click on 'Manage My Personal Job Alerts' (in the job seeker section) and create an alert. While editing your alert, you give it a nice, meaningful name (I've always liked 'Fred'), select 'RFP' as well as 'Contract - part time' job types and select 'AB' and 'BC' regions. Then in the keywords field you type 'plan develop advocacy' and make sure the 'ANY' button is checked as well as the 'Job Description' box is checked. Click 'Save & Exit'. That's it! Your alert is set up. You'll receive an email each time an RFP or part-time contract job containing any of those words is posted.

Three days ago, I saw a job that was closing in 2 weeks time. Today I decided to apply and saw that the job is already closed, more than a week early! Why do you let job posters close the jobs earlier than they originally advertised?
Sorry to hear about your missed opportunity. Unfortunately, sometimes an organization's situation changes and they have to close the job early. Forcing the job to remain posted for the original advertised duration makes no sense because 1) many job seekers would waste time applying for a job that is no longer available, and 2) organizations would continue to be bombarded with résumés they have no intention of processing. We're sure you agree this is a total waste of time for everyone concerned.

To avoid possible frustration, we encourage you to apply for a job as soon as you spot one you're interested in.

Is there a way to quickly display a specific job without having to scan through all jobs again?
Yes. If you have the job number, go to the Search Options page, type in the job number and select the 'just the above job number' search option. This will return only that one single job even if it has already closed, provided that it closed within the past 90 days. When you view any particular job, the job number is displayed in the top-right corner.

Another option, if you want to keep tabs of an interesting job, is to place that job in your personal job folder (by clicking the 'add to job folder' button when viewing the job). After that, just go to your job folder (little blue folder icon, top-right) to see the jobs you've flagged.

I hate it when a job closes on job sites and disappears forever. My retentive personality causes me to print out reams of jobs just so I can refer back to them if I need to later. What shall I do?
Save those trees!!! We offer various ways for you to find recently closed jobs.
1) If you know the job number, just type it into the keyword box on our 'Search Options' page and tick the 'just the above job number' search option.
2) In the 'Advanced Search Options' section, simply select the number of days back you want to search and you will see jobs that closed in that period. For example, for jobs closed in the last 2 weeks, just type '14' in the box. Closed jobs are highlighted in bold, red text in the deadline column.
3) Any jobs you placed in your personal job folder, stay there even after they've closed. They only get cleaned out of your job folder 3 months after they've closed.

I put a job in my personal job folder a while back, but now it's gone. What happened?
For your convenience, jobs in your personal job folder can be accessed up to 90 days after the job is closed. Thereafter it is automatically removed from your list. If you'd like to keep a copy of a job for longer than that we suggest you make a print out of it for your records.

Can I save a job alert that emails me when any new jobs matching my requirements are posted?
Yes, you can create job alerts in one of the following 2 ways.
1) Any time you are on the search jobs page, where you normally enter your search criteria, you can simply click on the 'save as job alert' button;
2) From the 'My Account' section, you can choose the 'Manage my personal job alerts' link to create, edit, delete, de-activate and schedule your job alerts.

Note that in order to save job alerts, you need to have created a free account on the site.

I created a job alert, but it never sends me any emails. How do I know if the alerts are working?
First of all, login to your account and go to 'Manage my job alerts' from the 'My Account' section. This page shows you the last time your alert scanned for new jobs, as well as the last time it found some matching your criteria and tried to email you. Review your alert parameters... a reasonably common mistake is to enter a search keyword with a typo (e.g. "exceutive"). For obvious reasons, not many jobs will trigger this alert! If the last-emailed date on the alert says it recently sent you an email but you didn't receive it then please:
1) check the email address shown on that page and verify that it is your active email address;
2) Check that you do not have spam filters on your email client that may be incorrectly deleting emails from WorkInNonProfits.ca.

Can I post my résumé and skills on your site for prospective employers to see?
No, sorry. We do not offer résumé or skills posting facilities on this site. This site is for employers to post their job vacancies only.

I forgot my password. Can I recover it?
Sure, these things happen. Click on Login, then click on the 'I forgot my password' link. Enter your user name and we will send a reminder email to the email address on our records.

Ummm, this is really embarrassing, but I forgot my user name as well. Can you help me?
Sure, no problem. We know working in non-profits can be stressful and occasionally lead to short-term memory loss. Just click on Login, then click on the 'I forgot my password and/or user name' link. Enter your email address and we will send you a reminder email if your email address exists in our database.

The person that usually posted jobs has left our organization and we have no record of our account information. I know we've posted jobs on your site, that's how I found mine! Can you help us?
We'll certainly try. Send us an  email with your name and organization's name. We'll check our database and contact you at the telephone number provided when the account was first created to verify your identity.

What are cookies and why do you use them?
Your browser communicates with our server as follows. You create a connection to our server and request a page to view. Our server acknowledges your request and sends the page to your browser. Your browser displays the page and breaks the connection. Next time you want to view a page, it creates a new connection and repeats the entire process. The problem with this procedure is that we then have no way to know what you requested as you navigate through our site.

Enter the cookie. A cookie is a tiny file that our website uses to keep track of you while you are connected to our site. The cookie we set contains a few random characters (for example, QW8d3Ef12) that allows us to identify which browser made a request from our database so that we can deliver the requested data back to that browser. This cookie can in no way identify you personally or give us any personal information. As soon as you close your browser the session cookie is automatically deleted. Since all our data is stored in a database, without your browser accepting cookies, there is no way for us to display our data to you.

We also use a 2nd cookie to remember your search preferences when you search for a job. If you allow persistent cookies (cookies that are kept even after your browser closes) then we can provide this functionality. If not, you can still use our site but you will have to re-enter your preferences each time, which could become a pain.

A cookie is not a program and does not run or do anything on your computer. A cookie can not read other data off your hard drive or read cookie files created by other sites.

What are the minimum requirements to use your website?
You need to have a modern web browser. We recommend using the excellent and free  Mozilla Firefox. Your browser must accept cookies from our site and have javascript enabled for certain functions to work.

This site is designed and best viewed in 1024x768 screen resolution (or higher) which, according to research, is the preferred resolution of more than 70% of web users. It will also display correctly in 800x600 mode; for optimal screen space usage we recommend hiding the left pane when browsing in this mode.

Which browsers do you support?
Any modern browser that has javascript enabled and accepts cookies should work with our site. Having said that, most browsers have certain quirks, bugs or 'undocumented features' that can be quite unpredictable. Safari (Macintosh) users specifically will notice that when creating a job, the formatting buttons just do not work in some versions of Safari. You can however sometimes still use your Command key combinations to apply formatting to your jobs or paste in formatted text directly from your word processor. Additionally Safari users searching for jobs will find that their search preferences cannot currently be stored due to a Safari cookie handling bug. All we can suggest is to upgrade Safari and your operating system to the latest versions available or else to use another browser on the Mac (like Firefox).

Safari (Mac) users who intend posting jobs or profiles, please follow this link for important bug information.

Supported browsers:
• Internet Explorer (6.0 and greater)
• Firefox (1.0 and greater)
• Safari (webkit 412 and greater)
• Google Chrome
• Opera

Unsupported versions (browsers with known severe bugs):
• Internet Explorer versions lower than 6.0.
• Safari on Mac versions lower than 412 of the webkit.

Which site accessibility standards for the visually impaired have you implemented?
We have implemented as many accessibility features as possible and have followed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG v1.0) to the best of our ability and knowledge. If there is anything on this site not according to the standard, please contact us and we will attempt to fix it. Please see the Accessibility section for details of which features are implemented as well as Access Key mappings.

What software can I use to create a PDF document?
We use a free open source software program called  PDF Creator for all our PDF creation needs. Click on the link to download the latest version of PDF Creator for your operating system. Once it is installed, it simply appears as another printer in your print options screen. Select it instead of your regular printer and it prompts you for the PDF document name to save to. Simple as that.

What is Open Source software?
Open Source software is software whose source code is published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. Open source code evolves through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual programmers and, in some cases, even very large companies. These people volunteer their time and expertise to create and maintain products that anyone in the world can use free of charge. Many of these organizations are non-profits themselves. We'd like to extend a big thank you to everyone involved in the open source software movement worldwide. Find out more about  Open Source Software.

What software does WorkInNonProfits.ca use?
We're big fans of open source software and encourage all companies and especially non-profits to consider using quality, free software. It just makes no sense to keep paying large commercial software companies for often inferior products.
Consequently our entire site uses the following best of breed open source components.

• Our site runs on the  Linux operating system ( Red Hat Enterprise version).
• It is written in the powerful  Python scripting language and uses the  Karrigell web development framework.
• We use the  Apache web server - currently powering over 50 million websites.
• For the database backend we rely on the robustness and industrial strength of  PostgreSQL.

That's the end of our FAQ section. If your question was not answered above, please feel free to send us your question by  email.