Fundraisers’ Pay Can Vary Widely at Nonprofits That Serve Different Causes

As Mark Crozet’s fundraising career progressed, his bosses piled on expectations and gave him more responsibility. But even as he managed a larger staff with each successive job, his salary remained flat.

That’s because Mr. Crozet left behind fundraising for hospitals and universities to work for charities involved in social and religious issues. Medical research centers and universities, with large budgets and endowments, tend to pay development chiefs more than fundraisers for other causes, like in the arts and the environment, according to a new Chronicle study.

In 2005, after working for hospitals and universities in Canada for more than a decade, Mr. Crozet was named senior vice president for development at Habitat for Humanity. In 2011, the latest year for which data are available, he made $144,507 in total compensation.

In 2013, Mr. Crozet left Habitat for Humanity to lead fundraising efforts at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit advocacy group. Mr. Crozet declined to give specifics, but he said he did not receive a raise to join the alliance.

Salaries at religious charities tend to be lower because most of their work is in direct aid, according to Mr. Crozet.

“A dollar spent on salary is not spent helping somebody,” he says.

Track Record

The huge sums raised by major hospitals and universities help explain some of the gap in pay between their top fundraisers and those at other types of nonprofits. However, disparities persist even when the amounts raised are similar.

Natalie Carlisle, vice president for major gifts at Food for the Poor, earned $178,356 in 2011, a small slice of the $930.2-million she helped raise that year. Similarly, John Clause led World Vision’s efforts to raise $848.3-million while earning $192,319.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which drew $58.3-million in private support, paid Stuart Sullivan, its chief development officer, $752,291 in 2011.

Mr. Sullivan says the hospital raised $131-million in 2013, well above an internal goal of $90-million, thanks to a $50-million gift for a pediatric care center from the Buerger family, who are longtime donors.

To keep development officials on the job, Mr. Sullivan says, organizations should take questions of pay “off the table” and be prepared to pay more. However, high salaries, he says, will be paid only to fundraisers with a track record.

“They have to say, ‘I’ve done it before. I’ve led a staff. I’ve led volunteers. I’ve managed a budget,’” he says. “You’ve got to demonstrate that you’ve been there and done that.”

Attitudes Matter

Nina Diefenbach has that kind of experience. She worked her way to the top fundraising position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York after starting as an executive assistant in the general counsel’s office 33 years ago. Along the way, she has helped land many big gifts, including a $1-billion collection of cubist art donated by Leonard Lauder. She was the highest-compensated development officer working in the arts in 2011, according The Chronicle study, earning $410,338.

Ms. Diefenbach’s compensation, says Harold Holzer, a spokesman for the museum, was set after the museum’s board studied comparable salaries among arts development officials in New York and nationwide.

Social-services groups tend to offer lower pay, says Pamela Cook, a California development recruiter, because they don’t want a big disparity between staff members and clients.

She says that, not surprisingly, organizations with large budgets tend to pay development officers high salaries. But other factors, such as experience and location, as in Ms. Diefenbach’s case, also play a large role in determining compensation, Ms. Cook notes. So do attitudes about pay, which vary among nonprofits.

“There’s no hard and fast rule,” she says.