We strongly believe that a very high percentage of jobs that most nonprofits fill should be comparable to others in their own economic region. All of their benefits should be comparable as well. Following that logic, national or regional (“the eastern seaboard”, the “southwest”, etc.) surveys are almost worthless.
The 2010 survey is the largest compensation survey ever produced for the Northern California nonprofit community, with 427 participating organizations reporting more than 20,000 individual jobs.
How does the survey help my organization?
The compensation and benefits survey helps your organization
- Set fair salaries and benefits to attract and retain the best employees
- Evaluate industry standards for compensation for a range of positions
- Budget and plan for the cost of adding new staff members
- Analyze your own jobs and compensation
- Stand up to the scrutiny of an increasingly skeptical public
- Compare your salaries and benefits with others in your community, not with organizations totally out of your local economic market.
The survey will be even more useful to your nonprofit because of extensive changes that the Internal Revenue Service has made to the Annual Form 990 information tax return.
Since 2001 the IRS has encouraged charities to go through a set of steps to ensure that executive compensation is set appropriately. On the new form 990, the IRS has standardized reporting to make comparing salaries easier and is requiring charities to provide information about the process they use to set the salaries of employees who receive $150,000 or more in total compensation.
The new survey will help your nonprofit organization navigate through this new process and will be a primary tool to help you document the rationale you use to set the salaries you pay your executives.
What does the survey analyze?
Over 150 positions are reported for the entire sample, with more details by:
- Organization's annual expenses
- Organization's location
- Organization's field of service
- Number of employees in the organization
- Number of employees managed by person in position.
Specific data regarding incentive pay is also reported for each position, including eligibility for incentive pay and actual incentive pay given.
Benefits and other policies are reported as well:
- Paid time off (vacation, sick time, holidays, other)
- Insurance benefits
- Retirement benefits
- Policies regarding compensation and employment practices
- Executive director/CEO perquisites.
History of the Survey
The survey was produced by The Management Center in San Francisco from 1978 to 2004, when TMC went out of business. From 2004 to 2009, it was compiled by Rita Haronian, under contract with the Center for Nonprofit Management in Southern California (CNM). This is the first year it is being produced by Nonprofit Compensation Associates, which has no relationship with CNM.
Bob is the Nonprofit Doctor, a consultant who, with his business partner, Rita, produces regional nonprofit organization compensation and benefits surveys and in-house surveys for national or regional organizations with multiple offices or chapters. He was co-founder of three of the most successful nonprofit management support organizations in the country – The Support Center in Washington, D.C. in 1972, the San Francisco Support Center (now CompassPoint Nonprofit Services) in 1975 and The Management Center in San Francisco in 1977. He now resides in Taos, New Mexico. Visit his
website 
Rita has served as Project Manager for the annual Compensation and Benefits Survey of Northern California Nonprofit Organizations since 2001. The 2009 edition reported data from 295 nonprofits, with over 15,000 individual salaries. In 2007, she took over the production of both the Northern and Southern California Surveys. She has also designed customized applications for nonprofit surveys in Louisiana, Seattle, Houston, Kansas City, Oregon and North Carolina.