Recruitment for Charities: EA, PA, HR and Business Support

Many charities avoid recruitment agencies altogether, and cost is usually the reason. A percentage fee on a senior appointment can scale into a number that is hard to justify against a tight budget, so the search stays in house instead. That often means a smaller pool of candidates, a longer time to fill the role, and sometimes a hire who is not quite senior enough for what the organisation actually needs. The problems that follow from that tend to surface months later, once the role is already struggling under the weight of it.

Here is where we differ. A typical specialist recruitment agency charges 20 to 30 per cent of first year salary, with no ceiling on the fee at all. Our fee for charitable and not for profit organisations is 18 per cent of first year basic salary, capped at £7,000 per placement, up to £60,000 basic salary. That cap is the reason this page exists.

Some of our favourite work over the years has been with charities. We wanted to put something concrete in writing, so an organisation can decide whether it wants to work with an agency before a single phone call, rather than finding out the real cost only after time has already gone into a briefing conversation.

There is a wider transparency problem across recruitment as an industry, and that is a bigger conversation than this page can settle. Charities should not be dragged into it. The rest of this page sets out the detail: how the fee compares in practice, what stays the same, and what to look for in an agency working in this space.

Who We Are

Lily Shippen is a specialist recruitment agency placing Executive Assistants, Personal Assistants, Chiefs of Staff, HR professionals and wider business support talent across London, Manchester, Cheshire and the UK. Charitable and not for profit organisations have been part of that work throughout our history.

Search for a charity recruitment agency and most results are built around fundraising, CEO and board level search. That is a different hiring problem to the one most charities face day to day, which is finding the person who runs the operational and people side of the organisation. The Executive Assistant who keeps a small leadership team functioning. The HR Advisor building process from nothing. The Chief of Staff holding the whole thing together.

How Much Does a Charity Recruitment Agency Charge?

Many agencies will reduce their fee for a charity client, and it would be insincere to suggest otherwise. What tends to vary is what that reduction actually means in practice, the seniority it applies to, and whether it is written down anywhere before you ask.

What we think sets us apart is not the idea of a charity discount, but the combination of specialist market insight, a genuinely high calibre candidate pool, and a fee that is capped rather than simply reduced. The cap makes the biggest practical difference at the more senior end, where a percentage fee has the most room to run. On a £45,000 appointment, our fee is £7,000 rather than the £9,000+ a typical agency fee would produce. On a £55,000 appointment it is £7,000 rather than £11,000+. Above £60,000 basic salary, the role reverts to our standard charity rate of 18 per cent without the cap, so the fee scales again above that point, but every appointment up to £60,000 carries the same £7,000 ceiling regardless of seniority.

In practice this means a charity can stretch to hire the right level of person, a Head of People rather than an HR Manager, a senior EA rather than a PA, without the fee itself becoming the reason to hire smaller. Most agencies do not publish a number like this until you are already in a conversation with them. It is not a starting point for negotiation. It is the fee, for every eligible charity, on every role up to £60,000.

The service does not change to reflect the lower fee. Organisations on these terms work with the same consultants, receive the same curated shortlist of three to five candidates, and get the same salary benchmarking, job advert review and interview guidance as every other Lily Shippen client. Every permanent placement carries our standard guarantee. If a candidate leaves within twelve weeks of starting, we recruit a replacement at no further cost.

Not Just EA and PA Hiring

Charity recruitment conversations often start with an Executive Assistant or PA search, because that is where the immediate gap is felt. The same pressure sits across HR just as often. A charity growing past the point where a founder or CEO can manage people issues personally needs an HR Advisor or HR Business Partner just as much as a commercial business does, usually with a smaller budget to find one.

We recruit across both, from HR Administrator through to Head of People, and from Personal Assistant through to Chief of Staff, with the same team and the same charity terms applying regardless of which side of that line a role sits on. A charity hiring its first Head of People and a charity hiring its first EA are solving a similar problem. Finding someone who can carry real responsibility before the organisation has built the infrastructure around that role.

What to Look For in a Charity Recruitment Agency

We appreciate we might not be the right agency for every client. Here are some practical things to look for when you are choosing who to work with, whether that is us or someone else.

A published fee, fixed in advance, rather than one negotiated privately after you have already invested time in a briefing call.

A shortlist genuinely suited to the seniority the role needs, rather than one scaled back on the assumption that a charity budget means a junior hire will do.

A genuine understanding of mission driven candidates, who are often weighing a role against its purpose as much as its salary, and need to be represented to employers accordingly.

Honesty when a shortlist is not where it needs to be. We would rather tell a client the market is thin than send a high volume of CVs that do not reflect the brief.

A single point of contact throughout, rather than a role passed between consultants once the brief has been taken.

Getting in Touch

If you have a role coming up, or would just like to talk through hiring plans for the year ahead, email Matt directly at matt@lilyshippen.co.uk – There is no obligation to proceed, and no charge for the conversation either.