The Northern California survey, as well as other recent nonprofit surveys and reports, all suggest that nonprofits have been slowly recovering from the recent economic recession over the last several years and predict growth and increased hiring in the nonprofit sector in the year ahead. This in turn will result in greater competition to attract and retain the best staff members possible. According to co-publisher, Rita Haronian, “Nonprofits will, more than they have in recent years, need the wealth of information produced by this large and robust survey to compete successfully with other nonprofits and for-profit businesses in their community.”

They will also need help in combating the related challenge of high employee turnover. In 2013, the Northern California survey reported a 14% turnover (voluntary and involuntary) for full-time employees and 19% total turnover for part-time employees. Given the huge financial outlay for job recruitment and training, turnover costs are extremely high in the nonprofit sector. High-quality data about compensation and benefits can lead to important decisions by nonprofits that can limit this wasteful expense.

Here are other ways your agency can benefit from what we consider to be the best survey of its kind in the country:

• Current, local compensation data on 177 jobs often found at nonprofit organizations
• Base pay levels and bonus/incentive pay for each job with details by annual operating budget, location within Northern California, number of employees and primary field of service
• Employee benefits in detail: paid time off, insurance, retirement
• Salary increases over past year and expected during next year
• Policies with respect to on-call work, overtime, shift differentials, pay for bilingual skills, introductory periods, performance reviews and more.

The survey also helps your agency find out how the local nonprofit community is coping with the recession.  Here are some questions the survey can help nonprofit managers answer:

• How do the salaries paid at our organization compare with those paid at similar, local organizations?
• Are organizations still freezing salary levels, or are more planning to increase salaries during the next year?
• How common are bonuses or incentive pay for jobs like ours?
• Are organizations shifting benefits costs to employees?
• How do pay levels for male and female Executive Directors compare?

To see how the survey will be of special help to larger nonprofits, click here...