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Nonprofit Pay Gap: Poor Helping the Poor in Ohio?

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Monday, April 7, 2014   

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Income inequality has been big news in the private sector, with some CEOs of major corporations bringing in hundreds of millions, while front-line workers make minimum wage. It turns out the nonprofit world is not so different.

Rose Frech, policy and planning associate, Center for Community Solutions, Cleveland, said many direct-service staffers at nonprofits bring home just 10 percent to 15 percent of the earnings of top leadership.

"Wage studies suggest that a lot of nonprofit organizations are not paying their staff a living wage. It's an interesting juxtaposition," she commented. "Could some of these organizations that are designed to help lift people out of poverty actually be contributing to the poverty problem?"

Frech said nonprofit leaders make about $126,000 a year, social-service workers average about $35,000, and non-degreed staff members make as little as $12 an hour. She noted that offering top administrators higher salaries helps groups attract high-quality candidates, whose networking power and fund-raising ability may be worthwhile investments.

In her own experience as a supervisor at a large nonprofit, Frech said, the starting pay for new hires was just above $12 an hour. It wasn't enough for some workers, she added, many of whom had bachelor's degrees, were single mothers or were their family's primary breadwinner.

"These women every day were going into homes and helping families apply for SNAP, or child care vouchers, or to access resources in the community to help support their family," Frech said. "Often, these women were having to rely on those same services to support their own family."

While many in the social service field aren't in it for the money, she said, low wages, along with burnout and secondary trauma, can lead to a high turnover rate, which can also affect client outcomes.

"If you're working with somebody as your therapist or as your home visitor, and they need to leave that job for whatever reason, it really affects the services that you're receiving," she said.

Because all nonprofits are funded differently, she said, it is tough to specify changes that could be made. Her point was that it's important to invest in the nonprofit workforce and, as in any other field, ensure that these workers are able to earn a living wage.




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