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Item: Foundation search for program officer with fice years’ experience offers slave wages, $45,000 to $60,000.
I am preaching the gospel of the nonprofit sector to my USC/Annenberg Masters in Communications students, encouraging these bright, creative, competitive best of the best, to take jobs in what I believe is a great, important and viable career field. I cannot do this in earnest and good conscience when these are the types of salaries being offered by foundations who give away millions of dollars.
Perpetrating an Injustice
I asked the person recruiting for this position, “Who with any sense of self and value is going to take a professional position that after five years of experience pays them so little?” The response: “Anyone smart who wants to work in grant-making…these jobs are few and far between. People take them and stay with them for 30 years.”
This well-intended person is probably unaware what the far-reaching results of this action are. Acquiesing to do a search for a foundation position with such insultingly low pay perpetrates a gross injustice upon the work force of a new generation. In the field of philanthropy, where it is all about doing “good,” we each have a responsibility to continually ask ourselves the question, “Is what we are agreeing to do, doing good?” We, more than any segment of society, must be critical, questioning thinkers, on behalf of human dignity. And then have the guts to respond appropriately.
In any major American city, on a $45,000-$60,000 salary, you don't live very well. Your everyday life is wrapped up in ongoing financial stress. This job is a professional position for someone with a college degree — chances are a master’s degree — and five years of experience. They don't want a recent student who is willing for a few years to live in this situation. If this is what you are valued at after five years in a field, how are you going to feel about yourself, the investment of time and money you paid for your degree, only to reach this point?
One of Wealthiest Families
Let's unravel this further. The foundation searching for this person has been established by one of the wealthiest, mega-money families in America. What is the potential employee supposed to take away from this? That in the name of helping create a better world funding millions of dollars in causes, the foundation cannot afford to pay a respectable salary?
Let's realize something about the foundation world. With all their vetting, due-diligence and evaluations, every year there are millions of dollars of philanthropic investments that don't pay off. They know this. They expect it. So if they can “lose” millions in this way, why can't they afford to pay a few thousand more to their employees, showing them respect and giving them a sense of value? Is the dignity of their employees not as important as the dignity of the people they are helping?
What About Big Salaries?
Of course, many of you will say, “But what about all those nonprofit execs who are making over-the-top salaries, paid for by monies that people give away to help those in need?” A fair question. Those people are few and far between. The amounts of people on the low end, toiling for the cause, are massive in numbers. The injustice being cast upon them cannot be left out of this discussion.
A Big Mistake?
How is the nonprofit sector going to attract the best and the brightest when offering uncompetitive, unacceptable salaries? The best and the brightest is what I am trying to teach my students to be. Am I making a mistake teaching Nonprofit Marketing and American Creativity, encouraging them to enter into the nonprofit world? Unless this situation changes, it's a major question I have to confront.
Pro-Bono Offer to Resolve Injustice
This conversation needs to be seized by a new generation. If they are organized, they have the power to push the foundation world to confront this injustice. In order to Seize the Conversation, their activism needs to be driven by big bold ideas.
If there are influential activist leaders of the generation, ready to identify themselves, we will work with them pro-bono to get them started with the kind of creativity and idea creation that emerges from our Re-Wire the Nonprofit Brain Seminars. To learn more about them, see http://www.seizetheconversation.com/rewired-brain-video/
Write us back if you are a next gen leader ready to move.
