For nonprofits
Managing nonprofit staff without an HR department
You are the executive director, the operations director or the one finance-and-admin person at a nonprofit of ten to a hundred and fifty staff: program staff, case managers or educators, a development team, and an office that also handles HR. Some roles are paid for by a grant with an end date. On a busy week, volunteers outnumber staff.
The moments where people work goes wrong
The board asks how performance is managed
A board member who runs a company asks, at the finance committee, how staff performance is reviewed. The honest answer is that some managers do reviews and some do not, and nobody has the list.
A grant-funded role with deliverables and an end date
A program coordinator's salary comes from a two-year grant with specific deliverables. Her goals should match them. Nobody wrote the two on the same page, so the report to the funder is assembled in the last month.
Mission work that does not reach the review form
A case manager's year is full of the mission. Her review is a blank form and a conversation about timesheets, because nothing connected her work to the plan the board approved.
The best caseworker becomes a program manager
The organization promotes its strongest direct-service worker to manage four others. She has not run a check-in or written a review before, and the executive director has no time to show her how.
Pay that cannot compete, and people who stay anyway
Salaries are below what the same job pays elsewhere. The people who stay do so for the work and the team, and the thanks they get is a line in the annual report.
What it costs the organization
The board's question has no answer
Without a record of who was reviewed and when, the executive director answers a governance question from memory, and the board notes it as a risk.
Burnout in the people the mission depends on
Direct-service staff carry hard stories home. Without a regular check-in or a way to say how the month went, the organization learns about burnout from a resignation.
Grant reporting turns into archaeology
When goals and grant deliverables live in different places, the report to the program officer is rebuilt from email and memory each cycle.
How LVL Up helps
Review cycles with a status the board can be told
Open a cycle with self-review and manager review, and see who has started, who has finished and who has not been reviewed. The executive director can give the board a factual answer and the report behind it.
Goals written from the strategic plan and the grant
Each goal has an owner, a due date and a status, so a coordinator's goals can be written from the grant's deliverables and checked at every 1:1. On Growth, OKRs let each team's goals cascade from the organization's objectives.
1:1s and pulse surveys for the people doing the hard work
A new program manager gets a shape for her check-ins: a shared agenda, notes and action items that carry over. A short pulse survey lets staff say how the month went, with results shown once at least three people have answered.
Recognition tied to your values
Staff can recognize each other for a specific thing and tag the value it showed. It costs nothing, it stays on the person's record, and it reaches the people the annual report leaves out.
Where we are the wrong answer
LVL Up is for paid staff. It does not manage volunteers: no volunteer scheduling, hours or recruitment. It does not do grant management, fund accounting or donor records, and it does not connect to your donor CRM or accounting software. It does not run payroll or split a salary across grants. It holds employment records for your staff, not client or customer records, and it does not replace your practice-management, matter-management or job-management software. OKRs, career paths and the skills matrix are Growth features; on Team, goals stand alone.
Which plan, and what it costs
Team — Up to 25 people
$29/month, or $278/year
A nonprofit of up to 25 staff fits Team, which includes reviews, goals, 1:1s, pulse surveys, recognition, time off, documents and staff records at one flat monthly price. A larger organization, or one that wants each team's goals to cascade from the strategic plan, picks Growth for the same core plus OKRs, career paths and API access.
- • Performance reviews & 360° feedback
- • Goals & progress tracking
- • Structured 1:1 meetings
- • Pulse surveys & eNPS
- • Recognition & team directory
- • Standard reporting
- • Included people records, PTO & documents
- • License and certification expiry alerts
- • AI coaching (100 requests a month)
- • Founder-led email support
No credit card. The trial runs on Growth so you can see everything; pick Team when it ends.
Getting set up
- Start the trial and import paid staff from a spreadsheet with each person's manager. Leave volunteers out.
- Write each grant-funded person's goals from the grant's deliverables, with due dates that match the reporting calendar.
- Open a review cycle with self-review and manager review, and decide the date you will report completion to the board.
- Turn on a monthly pulse survey, and give each new manager a monthly 1:1 with each person they manage.
Common questions
Does LVL Up manage volunteers?
No. It is for paid staff. Volunteer scheduling, hours and recruitment belong in a volunteer-management tool.
Why does flat pricing matter for a nonprofit?
Team and Growth are each one flat monthly price for a band of people, not a price per person. Hiring a grant-funded coordinator inside the band does not change the bill, so the budget line can be set at the start of the fiscal year. Every price is published on the pricing page.
How do we show the board that reviews are happening?
Open the cycle in LVL Up and use its status: who has a self-review in, who has a manager review in, and who has not started. That is a factual answer to the governance question. The board needs the completion picture, not the contents of anyone's review.
Can goals follow a grant's deliverables?
Yes, in the sense that you write them that way. A goal has an owner, a due date and a status, so a coordinator's goals can mirror the grant's deliverables and be checked at each 1:1. LVL Up does not hold the grant itself or produce the funder's report.
Can board members give feedback on the executive director?
They can use the external feedback link, which collects feedback on a named person from people outside the staff, with the relationship marked as other. It is input, not the board's formal evaluation of the executive director, which stays the board's own process.
What happens when the trial ends?
The trial is 14 days, no credit card, then read-only until a plan is chosen. Nothing you entered is deleted while it is read-only.
Related:
Start with your own staff list
Import your staff, write three goals straight from the strategic plan, and open the review cycle the board asked about. Team fits an organization of up to 25 people.