While the world of nonprofits is known for favoring altruism and the public good, all employees still expect to earn fair compensation for their labor. When it comes to interviewing for a nonprofit position, the topic of salary and compensation is an understandable...
My recent one-hour interview went very well. It is an exciting opportunity for the right person, and what they propose is a needed initiative in the community. My challenge is that the position pays $80K with full benefits, but I currently earn almost $140K per annum. A $60K drop would be a financial disaster as I wouldn’t be able to afford my mortgage let alone other necessary bills. I did not react to this figure. Help!
Q: I have made it to the second round of interviews for a position that interests me, and I need to address salary. I am a female executive with 20 years’ of solid, leadership experience. How should I go about approaching this sensitive issue?
During the past 30 years, the nonprofit world has grown tremendously, and it is now also considered a much more “glamorous” career path than when I began in it. I, along with many others, just “fell” into it. Now, it is more of a chosen and planned career path, and the sector is attracting more people who have put thought and study into ideas, philosophies and missions through post-graduate programs in nonprofit and public sector studies.
But, I, and many hiring and recruiting professionals, feel the interest explosion and rapid onset of attraction to the sector has also given people an unrealistic expectation about the compensation to expect within it.
For the vast majority of the country’s more than 1.2 million registered 501(c)(3) organizations, the development function, and therefore development professionals, has always been of critical importance.
In part 1, I outlined a model of human resources maturity among nonprofit organizations based on the clear delineation of position, person and performance. I also examined the first two phases of this maturity including their implications for the design and the effectiveness of key human resources processes. These processes include recruitment and selection, compensation, performance management, professional development and career/succession planning.
During my years working as a consultant to nonprofits, I have observed three basic phases of organizations' human resources maturity. This maturity can be defined in terms of how much delineation exists between position, person and performance. Each phase has...
In my previous post, I made a case for the use of salary ranges as the foundation of a formal compensation program for nonprofit organizations. Particularly for organizations experiencing or have experienced significant growth, the use of salary ranges can go a long...