West Coast Data Conference 2009

1. Nonprofit Wage Data Comparison Studies
Heather Carpenter
Melanie Hitchcock
Caster Family Center for Nonprofit Research
University of San Diego
April 2009

2. Practitioner Response to Nonprofit
Wages
Nonprofit Leadership Blog
Confusing because:
“You can't always call the nonprofit sector one sector when it comes to wages
- there are all sorts of different parts of the sector.”
“You can find quot;aquot; survey to support any pre-formed conclusion.”
“I would like to know more about how they compared quot;sectors.quot; And, of
course, their bias feeds into what numbers they chose.”
“A more fair comparison would be between like-sized organizations.”

3. Overview
Nonprofit leaders and the general public need clear in-sector
and across-sector wage data.
These data are important as they IMPACT:

4. 1. Policy decisions about hiring and
succession planning
Commongood Careers. (2008). The voice of nonprofit talent:
improving recruitment and retention by responding to the
needs of nonprofit employees and jobseekers Boston:
Commongood Careers.
Opportunity Knocks. (2008). Nonprofit retention and vacancy
report. Atlanta: Opportunity Knocks.

5. 2. People’s decisions to enter the
nonprofit sector workforce
Carpenter, H. (2008). Nonprofit careers month focus group
research. Working paper. University of San Diego.
Altman, S., Carpenter, H., Deitrick, L., Strom, S. A. & Van
Horn, T. (2008). Professional Education for the Nonprofit
Sector: Alumni Speak Out. Submitted for Publication

6. 3. People’s perceptions of nonprofit
executive salaries
McDougle, L. M., Deitrick, L., Libby, P., Donmoyer, B.
(2008). The appreciated sector: Public confidence in san
diego county nonprofit organizations. San Diego:
University of San Diego.
Spector, M., Banjo, S. (2009). Pay at nonprofits gets a closer
look. Wall Street Journal.
Willhelm, I, Williams, G. (2009). Salary under scrutiny.
Chronicle of Philanthropy. 9:12.

7. Problem & Purpose
Accurate wage data are needed, however…
Research on the relationship between nonprofit wages
and wages in other sectors has produced what appears to
be contradictory findings.
Examine data across three studies to find out why they
generated possibly antithetical conclusions.

8. The Studies
1. Compensation in the Nonprofit Sector (Ruhm & Borkoski, 2003)
Nonprofit workers earn MORE than for-profit workers.
2. Employment in America’s Charities: A Profile (Salamon &
Sokolowski, 2006)
Nonprofit workers earn MORE than for-profit workers.
3. Wages in the Nonprofit Sector: (three reports) (Butler, 2008, 2008a,
2009)
Nonprofit workers earn LESS than private and government workers.

9. Possible Explanations
• Different data sources
• Different foci of each study

10. Different Data Sources
Ruhm & Borkoski:
1. Current Population Survey (CPS)1994-98
Salamon & Sokolowski:
1. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)
2. U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey.
Butler:
1. National Compensation Survey (NCS)
2. NCS: Occupational Earnings in the United States, 2007

11. Data Sources: Different Units of
Analysis
Individuals: Ruhm & Borkoski, Butler
Organizations: Salamon & Sokolowski

12. Data Sources: Temporal
Differences
Ruhm & Borkoski data set from 1994-1998
Salamon & Sokolowski data sets from 2002, 2004
Butler data sets from 2007

13. Data Sources: Different ways of
Disaggregating Data
By Industry: Salamon & Sokolowski
By Occupation: Butler
By Industry and Occupation: Ruhm & Borkoski

14. Different Foci
Market Wage or Donative Hypothesis: Ruhm & Borkoski
Regional growth and variations of NP industries: Salamon &
Sokolowski
Wage differences between certain NP, Government and FP:
Butler

15. Comparison of the Findings
NP wage relationship to FP R/B S/S B
Social Services + + -
Hospitals + + none
Industry/occupation
Education + + -
Nursing/Personal Care
Facilities + + none

16. Possible Strategies for Dealing with
the Differences
Clarification
Translation

17. What do you think?