June 29, 2017 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The median salary for all full-time foundation employees in 2016 was $77,561, up from $76,905 in 2015, according to the Council on Foundation’s annual compensation survey.
Family foundations paid the highest median salaries ($94,000), while community foundations paid the lowest ($64,000). Regions with the highest median salaries were the mid-Atlantic (New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), followed by the West Coast. The lowest median salaries were in the southern states of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Chief executive and chief governing officers earned a median salary of $175,000. Two-fifths of those leaders had been in their positions for at least one decade. Just 10 percent were racial or ethnic minorities.
The median salary for all staff stayed slightly ahead of the Consumer Price Index rate of inflation.
Titled the “2016 Full Grant Maker Salary and Benefits Report,” the survey includes position, salary, and demographic data on 9,945 full-time employees at 944 grant makers. The report includes community, independent, family, and public foundations as well as a small number of corporate grant makers.
Nearly nine out of 10 foundations reported increasing salaries in 2015, while three-quarters said they had already raised salaries or planned to do so in 2016. The median increases in 2015 and the planned increase in 2016 were both 3 percent.
New Talent Needed
More than one-third of staff were ages 50 to 64 years old. Six percent were at or above retirement age, while 11 percent were under the age of 30. Minorities made up just over a quarter of foundation employees, according to the report. Ten percent were black, 7 percent Hispanic, 6 percent biracial or multiracial.
“The philanthropic sector is teetering on the edge of a work-force sustainability cliff,” Vikki Spruill, president of Council on Foundations, said in a statement. “Our long-term viability as a sector is now directly linked to the field’s ability to attract, develop, and retain a new generation of philanthropic professionals.”
Women made up more than three-quarters of foundations’ staff and more than half of CEOs in 2016, the report found.
