September 12, 2024
Elliott Valentine, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra

How I Make the Most of the 2024 AFP Compensation and Benefits Report

 

The 2024 AFP Compensation and Benefits Report came out in June, and as I do each year, I read it to take stock of where we are as a field and to assess my own position and organization in greater context. In this post, I’ll share how I read it each year and how you can put it to work yourself.

Broad strokes of the report

The 2024 AFP Compensation and Benefits Report is a comprehensive survey conducted in January and February 2024, with respondents answering about 2023. This year, 3,500 AFP members in the U.S. and Canada responded (that’s out of 26,000 members). At 139 pages, it’s a lot to take in, providing both overall analysis and fine-grain detail.

Here are some highlights that stood out to me:

  • The mean salary (U.S.) of all respondents is up less than 1% to $96,126, which is much lower than the U.S. national inflation rate in 2023, around 3%.

  • 20% of U.S. respondents plan to leave their current employer in 2024. Among that group, a quarter plan to leave fundraising entirely.

  • In the “East North Central” region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin), mean and median salaries are lower than the national numbers by 12% and 7%, respectively.

How I process the report each year

If you have a Sociology degree like me or just get excited by the words “cross tabs,” then the appendices are where it gets really good. Each year, I make a mini spreadsheet to compare myself to the different factors the study tracks.

First, look at pages 48–52 for broad categories: job title, cause area, region, employer’s geographic scope, population of service area, organization’s budget, and dollars raised in a year.

The report then slices even further to add factors cross-tabulated by specific job titles: number of FTE fundraisers at your organization, years with employer, years of experience, and education level (plus two factors that shouldn’t matter in compensation: age and gender).

The report provides a mean and median salary number for all of these factors, as well as markers for the bottom and top 25% of respondents.

All taken together, these numbers provide a range of salary levels I can use to contextualize my situation.

  • Does my salary put me near these averages?

  • Am I further ahead or behind these averages compared to last year?

  • Where would I expect to be if I have, for example, four years’ more experience?

How you can make it work for you

So how can you make this report work for you? The old adage “knowledge is power” does apply here.

I’ve directly referenced this report and brought numbers to my organization’s CEO when it was time for the conversation about raises and promotions. Our cause area-specific professional association doesn’t seem to have anywhere near this thoroughness of compensation reporting and analysis, and my boss appreciated having real-life numbers in the conversation.

Try this question in your next raise negotiation: “Would you consider me just an average fundraiser? If not, let me show you what an average fundraiser with my qualifications is making these days.”

Also, I’m not the hiring decision maker in my organization, but I’ve used this report to advise my CEO and colleagues when we’ve hired other Development roles. This report helps answer the question, “Is the salary range we’ve listed fair and competitive?”

Reflection questions

I’ll leave you with these reflection questions that I’ve kept asking myself since reading this year’s report:

  • Are your peer fundraisers at your organization or in our chapter among the 20% not planning on staying with their employer?

  • How can we support our chapter members and local fundraisers in achieving appropriate salaries and longevity with the organizations they want to work for?

  • Everybody’s organization has a tight personnel budget. At the same time, we know longevity and relationship-building are key parts of strong fundraising. How can we have more candid conversations with organization leadership about the salary levels that will retain fundraising staff long-term?

Want to learn more about this year’s Compensation and Benefits report? There’s a lot I didn’t cover, including analysis of benefits and PTO. Read the report yourself and check out this summary coverage from NonProfit PRO and AFP Global itself.

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