Newsflash: People work for money.  

I get hot and bothered by articles like this one that call out the nonprofit sector — and a few ENGOs in particular – for high salaries. It suggests that environmental and conservation organizations should be recruiting executives and employees who are “motivated by a calling rather than by ambition.” 

I once saw a job posting for a full-time position with a local Vancouver environmental nonprofit for $36,000/year. This ENGO, it has to be said, was largely funded by a local credit union that touts the value of paying living wages. 

Does anyone else see the potential problems here? For one, diversity and inclusion: I’m willing to bet money that the person hired was financially privileged – they’d have to be to work for that wage in Vancouver. And most definitely, that person was inexperienced. (Never mind how infuriating it is that a funder can claim to be progressive while perpetuating such inequalities.)  

Many other rants have been written on the subject of nonprofit compensation. One of my favourites is, as always, by Vu Le of Nonprofit AF. In a post about nonprofit math from last fall, he calls out the absurdity of lower wages in the nonprofit sector:  

#10 – Nonprofit math is when an awesome staff asks for a raise of $5,000 and gets denied, so they quit, but no one would work at the current salary, so the organization has to raise the salary $10,000 and now has a less experienced staff.

I wish this weren’t so funny – and true.  

Bruce MacDonald, Imagine Canada’s CEO, wrote a reaction to the same article I quoted above. He argues that we need “decent work practices for our sector, including competitive salaries for our workers. That includes all workers, at every level of an organization.” 

Amen! How can we help, Bruce?! 

Let’s start by submitting a realistic project budget with your grant proposals. 

Admittedly, this is easier said than done because those of us whose budget includes competitive salaries risk being unsuccessful. We fear funders will get sticker shock and reward other organizations who lowball their bid. Unfortunately, these are valid concerns. 

But if your organization has strong relationships with certain funders, start there. And encourage them to fund living wages across all of their grantees. 

Nonprofits need to attract the best folks to solve the world’s most pressing problems, and someone needs to pay them for their work. 

I’m going to give the final word to Vu.

Read more Grant Writing Tips.