Web developer needs some guidance

Make sure they are secure!
https://www.google.com/search?q=harden+wordpress
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search.php?q=BulletProof+Security
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search.php?q=wordpress+security
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search.php?q=User+Enumeration

Security is key. Don’t play with that. Don’t skim or take shortcuts.

Read up on basic SEO. A lot of SEO is crap. But there are some important things to know about WordPress (duplicate content, for instance) that you just need to pay attention to. Yoast is a good resource here https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

Get something like Wappalyzer in your browser (https://wappalyzer.com/)… it will tell you what people are running on their website. I don’t know you. I don’t know how often you are online. I am certain you’ve seen more than three different sites on WordPress. Wappalyzer is my proof of that ??

Meet other people in WordPress. You’re new to it? Cool. Welcome. Go to a meetup in your city. Go to a WordCamp. Meet people and learn from them and share what you learn. You really only learn so much reading up on things. The community here is very strong.

Mobile Responsive design: imho, don’t even bother with anything non-responsive at this point. If you’re new to HTML/CSS, or new enough you can’t write it from scratch, learn it the right way and learn responsive design. It’s just too important to treat like an intermediate or advanced topic anymore. Focus on that, and fast.

I am not a developer and probably need someone to set up my site and give guidance and after installation support. The following is the general spec and explanation of what I need.

Newbie seeking information and advice to build web site for non-profit organization

I know nothing about building a web site but do have some general requirements and want to determine if WordPress and plug-ins will meet the need. My experience is in MS SQL but most likely will use MySQL instead.
The following are general requirements
1) Forum. Mingle looks appealing but when I click any of the icons above I get text: List [list][/list], Embed YouTube video [embed][/embed] , Smiley . Is this a configuration issue or is it my browser? IE 9
2) Blogs
3) Members database and registration tools that will allow standard registration or from Facebook but must be verified against master lists in regions and districts.
4) Groups: Need ability to establish groups for regions and districts for members to join. The hierarchy is national, regional, and district. Might change in the future to add city.
4) Non-Profit Organization that survives on donations. Need donation links for pledges that can draw on credit card or PayPal or simply record the pledge and wait for personal check.
5) Voting Issues will be presented to members so they can vote. Admins should be able to create and perhaps super user or owner/author of the proposition. Each group has a speaker so speaker, owner, author, super user are all synonymous in this context, I just don’t know the common term in word press.
6) Will need surveys. I don’t know if this would use the same module as #5 but members can create in district groups and admins or the speaker can edit or remove. Should be able to block any user who abuses the privilege.
7) Petition + Snail Mail + email mass notification. Members notified of petition by mass email to include petition content and request for small donation of $5 to cover cost. Members are instructed to sign petition and mail to central office. Responses are scanned and tallied via OCR, bar code or any technology that is reliable. Summary tally in district main page, sum of districts displayed in regional and sum of regional in national.

Some of the folks here work for hire, but that all takes place outside these forums. So, do some searches for the kinds of things you have mentioned to see who is doing what, then ring a doorbell or two:
https://jobs.wordpress.net/
https://www.google.com/search?q=elance
https://www.google.com/search?q=wordpress+developers