Opportunity Knocks, a national online nonprofit job board, HR resource and career development destination (and program of the Georgia Center for Nonprofits), has published its latest edition of the National Nonprofit Wage & Benefits Report. With data from more than 1,600 nonprofits nationwide, this report offers comprehensive and solid evidence to use as you build your organization's salary, health insurance and retirement packages.

Though not statistically representative of all nonprofit organizations nationwide, this large-scale national survey is a useful guide for informed decision-making. This report will enable your HR staff to assess the competiveness of current compensation packages internally and against the broader market; more successfully recruit new staff; explore innovative benefit options; and compare organizational practices by subsector, city population, and budget size.

RESULTS

The full report breaks down the numbers by job description, organizational budget size, environmental context, and more. Examining this year's data relative to previous years' reports allows us to highlight two high-level insights that prove to be thematic to the data.

Over the five years since the original 2008 publication, employee wages have mimicked the economic recession and subsequent rebound. Below, we've mapped the percent of nonprofits who saw increased wages over time. Mirroring this trend, the average raise (among those organizations who reported increased salaries) dropped drastically between 2008 and 2010, and is on a slow but steady incline. Mirroring this trend, the average raise (among those organizations who reported increased salaries) dropped drastically between 2008 and 2010, and is on a slow but steady incline.

Although salaries are recovering, health-related benefits continue to decline in recent years, even as many other indicators show continuing recovery from the Great Recession.

Make evidence-based HR decisions. Purchase the full report to see detailed trends within specific positions, subsectors, budget sizes among other organizational and environmental characteristics.

Tommy Pearce is Communications Coordinator at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits.