Just recently, I was talking with a young man who was telling me that he and a friend had run up a bunch of credit cards starting what is now a successful youth organization; a risky strategy harkening back to Spike Lee’s early movie making. When you got that fire in your belly to do a thing, you make it work — hopefully within the confines of the law.

Hiring staff on and keeping them when you have an unstable or serious ly constrained budget is not always easy but many small and mid-size nonprofits are nothing if not motivated and creative, and sometimes this includes being imaginative about their compensation strategies. For that matter many larger nonprofits have thought up some ingenious schemes — largely for their higher ups.

So we have a very important question for you and we need as many answers as possible. What are the innovative compensation strategies you have seen put to use in your own nonprofit or in another?

We’re putting together an issue of NPQ on human resources and we are interested in what people are doing with regards to such things as bonuses, benefits, time off (such as sabbaticals), and other mechanisms besides salaries. And, for that matter is there a way you are managing your salaries that you think is innovative? Let us know.

We’d like to hear what you (or colleagues) are doing and what the theory is behind it.

Of course, we will keep your responses confidential unless you give us express permission to do otherwise. Can’t wait to share this information back with you in the next issue of NPQ!