Fair Pay for Northern California Nonprofits:
The 2024 Compensation & Benefits Survey Report

Publication Date: April 12, 2024

The 2024 survey results are in!
More than 790 nonprofit organizations have participated, making it the most comprehensive in the survey's 46-year history.

A tight labor market, high costs, and pandemic-related impacts to the workplace present challenges for nonprofit employers who manage their organizations’ compensation and benefits policies.

Here's how your organization will benefit from the "the best survey of its kind:"

  • Current, local compensation data on 290 jobs found in nonprofit organizations throughout Northern California, including the metropolitan areas of the San Franciso Bay Area and Sacramento
  • 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 the past year and expected during the next year
  • Policies with respect to on-call work, overtime, shift differentials, pay for bilingual skills, introductory periods, performance reviews, DEI-related practices and more
  • An updated "Economic Environment" section providing an assessment of the current economic environment and continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on issues such as remote work and changes in workforce size

The survey will also help your organization find out how the local nonprofit community is responding to current economic conditions. Here are some questions the survey can help nonprofit managers answer:

  • For what kinds of jobs are nonprofits having difficulty hiring and retaining employees?
  • Are nonprofit employees working remotely, in person, or a combination of both?
  • What employee turnover rates have organizations experienced during the past year, and how concerned are they about turnover in 2024?

The survey serves all kinds of nonprofits in all 48 Northern California counties, from Del Norte County in the far northwest to Inyo County in the far southeast. And we make special efforts to serve both larger and smaller nonprofit organizations, as weel as those from both urban/suburban and rural counties.


Nonprofit Compensation Associates Also Conducted a Southern California Survey for 2024.

If you are looking for information about the Southern California survey, please click here.

What Nonprofit Managers Say About the Survey...

"The California Fair Pay for Nonprofits survey is the gold standard for many nonprofit professionals looking to provide equitable compensation to our teams. For the last decade that I've been in HR, my colleagues and I have relied on the Fair Pay survey to ensure that what we are offering our staff is in line with the market and organizations of our size in the Bay Area. It is an invaluable tool in helping us communicate our compensation philosophy to our staff, as well as to our board, and has increased transparency in our compensation practices. With new upcoming pay transparency laws going into effect in 2023, this tool will be more essential than ever!"

Wendi Deetz
Director of Human Resources
Huckleberry Youth Programs, San Francisco

"In creating three year strategic plans, the Fair Pay Nonprofit survey has served as an excellent planning tool. We know we are using the most reliable and relevant data in determining competitive wages and benefits for our valuable staff. I know this has helped us to attract and retain the best people!"

Michele Grupe
Executive Director
Cope Family Center, Napa

"Determining compensation is never an easy task. Access to an up-to-date, comprehensive guide as a reference has been instrumental for our organization. Having accurate data, defined by region, has allowed us to provide competitive offers to new hires and existing employees. We refer to the guide regularly and consider it a great value."

Charles Cormany
Executive Director
Efficiency First California, Sonoma

"We have relied on the Fair Pay Report every year to determine how our salary ranges track to other organizations of similar size. It helps inform us on budgeting for raises and salary adjustments. Our organization has grown significantly over the last couple of years. In 2021 we did a full HR audit to ensure we are keeping up with the Bay Area trends. The Fair Pay report was so helpful. It was great to review how we stack up to other organizations for salary,job titles and descriptions, benefit packages, holiday and vacation time. We are beyond grateful that this data is collected annually and presented in such a useful way. It also helped us think about how to organize and present our recommendations to the executive team making decisions. Thank you!"

Laurie Zerga
Finance and Operations Manager
Daily Acts, Petaluma

"Thank you for all you do! The publication is extremely valuable to our BOD Executive Committee. The Fair Pay survey results provide the main data the Committee uses to determine annual raises and benefit offerings for our management and staff members."

Laura Bloch
Business and Accounting Manager
SFArtsEd, San Francisco

"REACH Project has utilized the Fair Pay for Northern California Nonprofits survey for many years. To say it has been a value resource is an understatement. We could not operate without it! Its vast and relevant data is critical to our annual operations planning including staffing and budgeting of expenses. Thank you to all who make this outstanding resource available."

Mickie Marchetti
Executive Director
REACH Project, Antioch