Top College Fund Raisers’ Pay Rose 5% in 1998, Survey Finds

Median salaries for chief development officers at colleges and universities rose by nearly 5 per cent last year, to $83,941, according to a survey by the College and University Personnel Association.

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Median Salaries of College Fund-Raising Officials, 1998-99

Top development officials who did double duty as public-relations officers saw even larger gains: Their pay rose by 12.7 per cent, to $91,550.

Median salaries mark the point at which half of the officials earn more and half earn less.

Directors of corporate and foundation relations in higher education saw their median pay increase by 1.9 per cent, to $52,958. Directors of major gifts earned $60,000, while directors of planned giving received $59,258.

Salaries vary widely within job classifications, depending largely on an institution’s size and scope. Among top development officials, for example, median salaries ranged from $58,381 at two-year colleges and $80,000 at four-year colleges to $87,000 at institutions that award master’s degrees and $127,475 at those that award doctorates.

Men generally earned more than women who held the same job. The exceptions were at two-year colleges, where salaries of female chief development officers who also handled public relations surpassed those of their male colleagues, for example, $61,452 to $50,549. Only at two-year colleges did women outnumber men in the top development posts.

The association compiled data on 174 positions at 1,456 public and private institutions for its recent survey. Almost 90 per cent of the institutions had also submitted data for the previous year.

A free copy of the “Administrative Compensation Survey: 1998-99″ has been sent to every institutional member of the association. Additional copies are available from the association through its Web site (http://www.cupa.org) or by contacting it at 1233 20th Street, N.W., Suite 301, Washington 20036; (202) 429-0311. The price is $80 for survey participants, $130 for members that did not participate, $180 for non-members that participated, and $300 for all others.

Customized reports are also available. Based on subsets of the association’s data, they allow institutions to compare their own salaries with those of their peers — selected by type, size, or geographic location, for example.