Charity Workers Must Realize Their Value

To the Editor:

Jed Emerson is correct when he writes that in order to justify higher salaries, workers in the non-profit world “must be prepared to be accountable and hold ourselves to stricter measures of our value” (“Non-Profit Pay Scales: Getting What We Deserve,” My View, July 30). If we’re worth it, we should be proud of the fact that though we choose to work in the non-profit sector, we don’t take vows of poverty.

I’ve worked in the non-profit sector my entire life. When I began in the field, one of my early mentors told me, “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Never let anyone think that what you are doing is any less valuable than what people in the for-profit world do.”

I am grateful to my early colleague, who helped create in me a mindset that the work in which non-profit professionals are engaged, though often not as measurable as that of other jobs, certainly is as valuable. Non-profit professionals need to believe that and instill that philosophy in our boards and our funders.

If non-profit salaries aren’t competitive with the for-profit sector, we will see a “brain drain” in our sector that our country can ill afford. There is no shame in being paid a good salary for an exemplary job, and boards know that. Appropriate compensation is essential to insure an intelligent, creative, committed, and entrepreneurial non-profit work force and is an important measure of our worth.

Barbara Gross
Director of Development
Menorah Park Center for the Aging
Cleveland