Pay at New York City Groups Rose 3 to 7 Percent Last Year, Report Says

The September 11 terrorist attacks, combined with the recession, slowed the growth in

nonprofit salaries in New York City last year, according to a new survey.

Salaries rose an average of 3 to 7 percent, depending on the size and type of organization, with most, if not all, of the growth coming in the first four months of 2001, the survey found. In 2000, salaries paid to nonprofit workers in New York rose 7 to 15 percent, a report on the survey said.

While salaries grew steadily at the beginning of 2001, the growth slowed or, in some cases, stopped altogether because of the economic downturn, the report said. The events of September 11 “had a profound impact on the entire nonprofit community in New York City and compounded the problem of an already shrinking pool of dollars,” it said.

Many charities, the report said, either experienced hard times or were preparing for them, and some made cuts in their spending, which kept a lid on salary increases.

The survey was conducted by Professionals for NonProfits, a New York recruitment agency that specializes in placing staff members at tax-exempt groups. The report contains information on salaries at social-service organizations, museums, and arts groups in the areas of administration and management, development, finance, information technology, and marketing and public relations.

The survey was compiled from information gathered by Professionals for NonProfits during hundreds of job searches, 1,500 interviews with job candidates, and discussions with nonprofit leaders.

Slow to Hire

Nonprofit organizations in New York hired relatively few employees at the end of last year. After the terrorist attacks, groups feared they would experience a plunge in fund-raising revenue and froze hiring plans, said Virginia H. Strull, co-founder of Professionals for NonProfits.

Meanwhile, employees were uncertain about the economy and hesitated to change jobs, she said. “September 11 really slowed things down on a number of levels,” she said.

Fund raisers at small groups, with annual budgets less than $1-million, earned $60,000 to $75,000, and those at large groups, with annual budgets larger than $20-million, were paid $135,000 to $270,000, according to the survey.

Executive directors of small groups earned $70,000 to $80,000 and those at large groups received $180,000 to $350,000.

While it is too early to tell how salaries of New York nonprofit workers will fare in 2002, nonprofit organizations appear to be in better economic shape now than they were last fall, Ms. Strull said.

“Nonprofit groups planned for the worst, but they did better than they thought,” she said.

While nonprofit groups have had difficulty in recent years hiring qualified employees because workers were being lured away by technology companies and other booming businesses, Ms. Strull predicted the opposite may be true now. She said groups will find more and more people from commercial businesses looking to work at nonprofit organizations, and organizations in New York are starting to resume their hiring.

“Nonprofits are starting to breathe again,” she said. “We’re back on an upswing.”

Free copies of “Salary Survey 2001″ are available from Professionals for NonProfits, 515 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022; (212) 546-9091. The report also is available online at http://www.nonprofitstaffing.com/salary_survey_main.asp.