Why We Keep Our Fees Low – And Fair

In the beginning...

Action Appointments was born out of my direct experience as an NGO HR Manager in the early 1990s. Tasked with growing the NGO’s staff complement from 20 to 120 members, I quickly realised that there was no conventional recruitment agency that could help me. A few corporate agencies were willing to try to support the process, but their fees were too high to even consider, and they didn’t fully understand the needs of the nonprofit sector.

On leaving the NGO I decided, with a colleague, to set up a recruitment agency that would focus exclusively on sourcing talent for NGOs and other nonprofit organisations. My underlying mission was to ensure that busy, overworked NGO staff could outsource their recruitment and engage expert services at an affordable rate.

For the past 30 years Action Appointments has provided a service that is both effective and affordable for the sector tackling some of the most insurmountable problems facing humanity. We have kept our running costs and overheads modest while maintaining our unique brand and keeping our excellent systems, database, website and overall service up to date and in sync with the times. Having become a household name in the NGO sector in South Africa, Africa and now globally, we attract clients and professionals from all corners of the nonprofit world.

In this sector, a little goes a long way

We are a fair, worker-centred company with a dedicated team of recruitment officers who grew up in Action Appointments, are deeply loyal to our mission and committed to delivering professional services. Staff earn market related salaries, profit share and good benefits.

The organisations we serve all rely on donated funds for their existence. We don’t believe this should make them unable to access the expertise they need in order to attract the best talent and make the most informed hiring decisions. The cost of a bad hire is a lot in any sector, but for an NGO on a shoe-string budget it can inflict a heavy blow, even threatening the organisation’s continued existence.

We believe that over the past 30 years, by providing expert and affordable recruitment services, we have saved NGOs millions in both money and time.

Keep in touch with us as we roll out our #CostOfABadHire campaign over the next few weeks.