Nonprofit organizations are mission-driven. It’s in the name: our primary goal isn’t to make money, we’re here to change the world for the better. Nonprofits (or nongovernmental organizations) play a vital role in communities across the globe, and the good work of the nonprofit sector is only possible through people. In the United States alone, over 12 million people are employed by nonprofit organizations. And yet, research has shown that 20% of nonprofit workers struggle to afford basic necessities.

In the farmed animal protection movement, our purpose is to prevent animal suffering and end the exploitation of many billions of animals. This is our North Star. But for most people, we don’t have the luxury (literally) to spend 40-plus hours per week on this work without being paid. In order to dedicate an entire career to animal advocacy, compensation is usually necessary. Just like nonprofits come at a cost, the people behind them have bills, rent or mortgages, student loan debt, healthcare costs, familial obligations — life isn’t cheap.

As a nonprofit leader, one quickly discovers that paying people a fair and living wage isn’t always easy. Not only is it challenging to fundraise for compensation due to the overhead myth, it can be even harder to figure out how to compensate staff in an equitable and transparent way. That’s why Faunalytics conducted a pay and benefits benchmarking study among U.S. farmed animal advocacy organizations. The project was a behemoth (hence why we had to limit it to one country for starters), but our goal was to shed some light on this topic for leaders and advocates alike. Specifically, the intention of our report is to help organizations make more informed decisions and to improve working conditions for a growing movement.

This blog serves as a companion piece to that study. Below, we’ll dive into the topic from the perspective of farmed animal protection leaders in an effort to learn how they approach compensation, their worries, and their wishes as they navigate this terrain. We’ll also make the case for more transparency around this topic, because our movement may depend on it.

When It Comes to Funding, Uneasy Is The Head That Wears The Crown

As Faunalytics began to seriously consider conducting a salary benchmarking study, I started to ask leaders in the movement for their reactions to the idea. It was a mixed bag. Some were apprehensive — they knew the wages they provided were low, but didn’t think the study would give them a chance to explain how funding constrains their ability to do more. Some were excited — reliable benchmarking data is hard to come by and this would help them make the case for improved pay. Some were skeptical — to conduct such a study would be difficult. 

All had great points. At Faunalytics, every few years we embark on a research project that we suspect won’t make everyone happy. This was probably going to be one of those studies, but at the end of the day, that kind of research is often what’s needed the most. So we proceeded, but we knew we’d need to give leaders a chance to share their approaches, concerns, and limitations beyond providing quantitative data.

After reviewing the anonymized, qualitative responses to our study, two themes to leaders’ worries were clear: limited funding and organizational sustainability. Below I’ll share excerpts from email correspondence with other leaders and written-in responses to the survey question: 

“Is there anything else you would like to add about any barriers your organization may have in providing compensation to your employees? Please feel free to share any additional thoughts or insights on this topic.”

Limited Funding:

• “My goal is to pay a living wage, but funding is very challenging.”
• “Barriers are related to how much funds are raised and the perceived idea that large donors will only pay for the minimum salary for any position.”
• “Wish we could pay more. We’re too small still.”
• “We are unable to pay people what they deserve as funding in the space is sparse.”

What does the data say? According to Animal Charity Evaluators, the annual funding going toward farmed animal advocacy in the U.S. is estimated at around $91 million, which is just 0.018% of all U.S. charitable giving. This puts leaders and fundraisers in our movement in a particularly challenging position, as total giving to environmental and animal organizations is estimated to have decreased 1.6% between 2021 and 2022 (8.9% when adjusted for inflation). 

Given the limited funding in our movement, addressing the issue of low pay isn’t always possible. Securing unrestricted donations that can go toward compensation is all the more challenging, as the nonprofit sector has historically been judged on the concept of overhead. But this mindset is changing among funders, and there’s data to support that shift. A study by Giving Evidence suggests that “low admin costs do not signal that a charity is good. They signal the converse.”

Organizational Sustainability:

• “It is challenging to predict what our financial outlook will be like year over year.”
• “The main barrier, somewhat obviously, is limited funding. Obviously we would love to pay more but balancing that with organisational sustainability is the tricky thing.”
• “We generally provide an annual cost of living increase that is tied to inflation as well as an increase for performance. However, we had to freeze these […] due to a downturn in funding.”
• “We want to make sure we will always have enough money to pay all the salaries we set, at least for the foreseeable future.”

What does the data say? The Nonprofit Finance Fund found that achieving long-term financial sustainability is a major financial challenge for nonprofit leaders: 82% of BIPOC-led organizations reported this as a top need, as did 69% of white-led organizations. 

Long-term financial sustainability is supported in part by multiyear funding, which gives nonprofit leaders the ability to plan for the future, the capacity to invest in staff, and “ultimately, increase the impact they can have on society” according to research from the Center for Effective Philanthropy. And yet, while 63% of foundations reported being in favor of increasing the percentage of grantees that receive multiyear general operating support, most “did not report any plans to change their current practices.”

The Risk To Our Movement

As leaders grapple with limited funding and uncertainty around sustainability, many fear that their inability to provide more competitive compensation puts their organizations at risk of losing the people who make our work for animals possible. 

• “While salaries have trended upwards in animal protection as the movement professionalizes, they haven’t done so uniformly. This means we see more junior employees working their way up a career ladder – moving from smaller organizations to larger ones already investing heavily in their talent.”
• “In a movement as small and under-resourced as ours, where the risk of burnout looms large, attracting and retaining top talent is crucial for the impact we’re trying to make for the animals. The reality is, turnover is incredibly costly, both financially and in terms of momentum and impact […] It’s not just about numbers on a payroll; it’s about ensuring that those driving our movement forward feel valued, supported, and empowered to stay for the long haul.” 

What does the data say? A study by the Council of Nonprofits found that almost three out of four respondents (72.2%) said salary competition affects their ability to recruit and retain employees. Our own findings also support leaders’ fears of losing talent due to pay constraints: 36% of farmed animal advocates said that they would leave the movement if offered a similar role with better pay elsewhere. These figures more or less align with Faunalytics’ previous research on advocate experiences and turnover, which found that one in five advocates who had left an animal advocacy organization reported dissatisfaction with pay as a reason for leaving (and that was before inflation skyrocketed). 

Compensation Philosophies: The How

While we’ve focused so far “the what” — factors that keep leaders from providing higher salaries and the risk that poses — let’s turn now to “the how.” Exactly how do leaders go about setting compensation? Overall, our study found that the most common strategy for setting salaries was relying on processes set by other organizations, companies, or government institutions (44%), and most organizations determine raises based on cost-of-living increases (70%).

Because most organizations rely on processes set by others, we thought it might be helpful to share a couple of examples in greater detail. Since a benchmarking method is rather straightforward, we’ll instead share an algorithm approach and a flat compensation structure approach. And because our research in and of itself implies that we believe greater transparency on this topic is a good thing, we’ll share our approach first.

Faunalytics’ Approach:

When Faunalytics set out to create our own Compensation Philosophy (i.e., our “approach” or “structure”), we too looked to outside inspiration. Would a variation of the U.S. government’s General Payscale make sense for us? Or perhaps a pure benchmarking approach, where we take data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics or from other nonprofits? As a data organization, it may not come as a surprise that we went with an algorithm approach. Inspired by our friends at Wild Animal Initiative, we determined that an algorithm was the best way to stay as objective and equitable as possible.

We landed on the following: Base Rate + Cost of Living Adjustment + Title Adjustment + Years Adjustment = Salary. We use the NIH-NRSA stipends to set our base rate, which is a commonly used benchmark for postdoctoral salaries in academia. The base rate is then adjusted slightly for employees in areas with high cost of living, using data from the Economic Research Institute. Title adjustment ranges from intern to CEO, and the years adjustment provides a small increase for each full year with Faunalytics. 

We then check our algorithm outputs against what we call three “Equity Checks.” The first is a living wage check. The second is a benchmark check against comparable positions at other animal organizations (if your organization doesn’t list salaries in your job descriptions, you really should). The last is a wage ratio check. We believe that while C-level positions carry significant responsibility, they should never earn an egregious amount more than their teams. We therefore ensure that our wage ratio does not exceed 3:1 (though at the time of this blog’s publication, our actual ratio is 1.55:1). 

Note that our algorithm is far from perfect (and it would need a lot of rethinking for international teams). We’ve committed to reviewing it regularly and strive to improve upon it in the future. However, we felt that sharing this imperfect approach might benefit other organizations who are just beginning to think about how to tackle compensation in their organizations. We’d also invite you to reach out to Culture Canopy for support in developing your own compensation philosophy.

A Range of Perspectives:

Our thoughtful friends at Pax Fauna take a different approach:

• “We practice a flat compensation structure: all full-time employees receive the same salary package. Detaching salary from role makes it that much easier for us to assign each partner the responsibilities that they’ll be most effective at. If people need to seek out management positions to get increased salaries, it can create an artificial incentive to move people out of roles where they might be more impactful. We also find that this flat structure gives everyone a greater sense of ownership over the work, leading to greater initiative-taking across the team.”

They also hope to minimize the gap between “professional” advocates and volunteers, to support mass movement organizing.

This point of view is a pretty valid one. Indeed, at the inaugural Animal & Vegan Advocacy Summit, I spoke on a panel about the challenges of leadership, and how many of us in leadership positions ended up where we are not because that was our end goal or where we could have the biggest impact or even be the most fulfilled. In many professional contexts, “climbing the ladder” seems to be an accepted default goal, if not for the title then for the money. And I see the risk that poses to our organizations’ and our movement’s success, and others undoubtedly do, too. 

This concern parallels an anonymous comment we received from another leader: “We need to strive for parity of wages at a new higher level across the movement so that employees can find the organization that’s the right fit for them, not just the one offering the next step in their careers.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

By now you’re thinking, what am I supposed to do with all this information? For funders, ensuring your philanthropy is effective while staying human can ironically feel at odds. For advocates, you’re trying your best to change the world for animals while making ends meet. And for leaders, the task of raising enough money and setting compensation equitably and sustainably can be overwhelming. 

Our hope is that our benchmarking study is empowering. We hope the data and perspectives we’ve shared are not divisive, but a cause for reflection and discussion. Remember, there is no single, perfect solution. But we can do better. 

Our benchmarking report has several recommendations for organizational leaders and funders alike. Below are a few highlights, but I’d encourage you to check out the main report for full details. 

Leaders:

Transparency should be embraced, not feared. Leaders may not share how salaries are set because how they set salaries isn’t perfect. But I’d argue that you should share that too and commit to improving. Be honest with your teams: share your philosophy and your current approach, share your funding limitations, share your goals. And please stop salary cloaking. 

If nothing else, work with the resources you have. Many organizations that have limited funding are pivoting to improving their employee benefits packages when they can’t increase salaries. Improving benefits like paid time off may not technically be free, but it goes a long way. Here’s the data on the most desired benefits as reported by Forbes Advisor. 

Funders:

Give unrestricted support that can go toward compensation and operating costs, because those investments make our programs possible! Make multi-year commitments when you can so that organizations can make informed long-term strategic decisions. Share your stance on salaries to remove ambiguity. 

As one leader from our survey shared, “many major donors recognize the importance of paying animal activists competitively. It will help if donors continue to bang the drum of market wages for employees so that we can continue to attract professional skills […] and reduce the dropout rate from the movement.” 

Empowered With Data

Armed with data from Faunalytics’ benchmarking study, we hope that leaders feel empowered to take steps toward creating (or improving) their organizations’ compensation philosophies, working with what they can, and embracing transparency with their teams. We hope that you’re comforted in knowing you’re not alone as you embark on this challenge, and motivated by the knowledge that an imperfect start is a great first step. Together, we can do better by our teams and by the movement, and that’s a win for the animals.