Nonprofit Leaders Join Forces- the story behind the Central Virginia Nonprofit Compensation survey & how your organization can participate
Written by Esther Nand
Take the Survey and Receive the Data! Free for Eligible Participants!
The Central Virginia Nonprofit Compensation, Benefits, and Work Culture surveys are designed for RVA nonprofits seeking local and tailored data on pay, recruitment, and retention strategies.
The surveys are available online now until November 22, 2023. Any nonprofit with employees working in RVA (inclusive of the tri-cities) is eligible to participate. The surveys and the report published from the survey data are free to participants!
To register, click here.
The survey data will be published and distributed to participants in early 2024.
Overview of the survey project
After the pandemic, employers have embraced a new perspective that places greater importance on the employee and their overall well-being by prioritizing work-life balance, pay equity, and professional growth. In this new landscape, nonprofit leaders have faced significant challenges adapting to this new environment, especially considering their sometimes limited budgets and, by default, lean staff. As a result, higher than usual employee turnover has become a serious concern.
As a result of this new set of challenges, a group of nonprofit leaders in the RVA community recently joined forces by creating the “Central Virginia Nonprofit Compensation and Benefits Task Force.” The task force’s primary objective is to help Richmond nonprofit organizations re-examine and refine their strategies for compensation & benefits, recruitment, and retention.
The eight RVA nonprofit Executive Directors and CEOs launched this task force during the fall of 2022. They quickly realized an essential aspect of this project was to collect relevant compensation data for nonprofit employees at all levels in Richmond, Virginia. With that being a big undertaking, the group knew they needed to bring on board a third party to facilitate and oversee the project. Warren Whitney was selected as the consulting firm to navigate the process. We started our engagement by conducting one-on-one interviews with each nonprofit leader involved — our goal was to understand their perspective. Here are the most relevant learnings from our discussions:
- Employee salaries are top of mind, especially with high inflation. Budgets have been stretched to meet the changing expectations around pay, even resulting in less funding for some programs.
- Professional development is essential to stay relevant. Seeing the limitation of one organization’s budget, one leader shifted their recruitment strategy to “hire right out of college and focus on training.”
- Pay equity is top of mind for leaders. With pay equity being an essential component of social justice to help reduce economic disparities and create fair opportunities for all individuals, the task force wanted to understand better what pay equity meant and if they could afford it.
- Pay is not everything. While fair compensation is paramount, the leaders know that effective retention strategies consider the whole employment experience, from the cradle to the grave. This meant examining employee benefits that supported families, retirement, and time off.
- Healthy and positive work culture is crucial for retention. But what did this look like with staff’s changing expectations and engagement level? One member explained, before the pandemic, “nonprofits had an edge on work-life balance [for a long time], but now employees can find that in for-profit work.” Several members emphasized the shifting mindset around effective mental health support.
Many of the nonprofit leaders interviewed shared that they felt like a hamster running and spinning on a wheel; every time a team member leaves, the trust built to create a positive change within their community walks out the door with them.
Following our listening sessions, Warren Whitney shared our findings with the task force group leaders. While the leaders felt strongly that accurate compensation data was critical, they reached out to 18 other local nonprofits to validate their direction — Everyone agreed that accurate compensation data was essential to the project’s success. The Warren Whitney team then developed the Central Virginia Compensation, Benefits and Work Culture surveys.
While the leaders recognize that a compensation survey is not a complete solution (e.g., inflexible, variable funding structures, size of their operational staff, client trust, etc.) – it is a start. The results from the survey are a way to help other nonprofits “find their feet” and determine if their pay, recruitment, and retention strategies are meeting market demand.
If you’d like to register for any of these free surveys, click here.
Meet the Task Force
We are pleased to share the thoughts of leaders with you who make up the task force. We applaud their proactive initiative to make positive changes for our community!
Beth Vann-Turnbull, Housing Families First
Damon Jiggetts, Henrico Education Foundation
Elvira de la Cruz, Latinos in Virginia Empowerment Center
Sheree Hedrick, Hanover Safe Place
Tyren Frazier, Better Housing Coalition
This project was co-sponsored by Susan Hallett from Bob and Anna Lou Schaberg Foundation, Scott Blackwell from the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond, and Courtney Rice from the Richmond Memorial Health Foundation.
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Warren Whitney consultant Esther Nand oversaw the implementation of this project. Esther works with organization leaders to strategically evaluate the best path forward. In addition to collaborating on projects, she provides a range of HR consulting services and solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of each organization. Esther’s expertise are nonprofit HR, planning, projects, and policy development. If you would like to learn more about our services, please call us at 804.282.9566 or email Stephanie Ford at sford@warrenwhitney.com. We do not charge for the initial call. We want to learn more about your business needs.
Making Potential Happen.
