GreatWork Blog

Building better workplaces through compliance, culture, connection

Nonprofits play a critical role in strengthening communities, but balancing competitive pay with a mission-driven purpose presents unique compensation challenges. Tight budgets, donor expectations, and a focus on social impact can limit flexibility, making it harder to attract, retain, and motivate top talent. At the same time, nonprofits must compete for talent against private sector employers who can often offer more generous compensation packages.

Cascade’s traditional Nonprofit Pay and Benefits Survey is being replaced with two separate surveys: Regional Pay Survey and Regional Benefits Survey. What does this mean for you, why is this an improvement and why should your participate now?

Nonprofits face many unique challenges when establishing executive compensation which oftentimes deals with issues like regulatory compliance, board governance, limited budgets and equitable pay across the organization. Nonprofits typically have a Board of Directors who have a financial responsibility when setting executive pay to ensure that it is fair and reasonable. This poses an ongoing challenge for many boards who are trying to be reasonable while either recruiting for top/key talent or retaining qualified and knowledgeable Executive Directors in nonprofits where the area of expertise is oftentimes very specialized.

At Cascade, we believe deliberate recognition is a sign of a great employer. And when a great employer gets recognized for being outstanding, we’d like to take a moment to congratulate them!

Cascade Employers Association is pleased to present key findings from the 2019 Nonprofit Pay and Benefits Survey report. Cascade’s Nonprofit Pay and Benefits survey is comprised of over 250 job descriptions and 100 benefit-related questions. This survey provides in-depth market pay and benefit data stemming from nonprofit organizations throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington.