logo
  • Nonprofit News
  • Management
    • Boards and Governance
    • Communication
      • Framing & Narratives
    • Ethics
    • Financial Management
    • Fund Development
    • Leadership
    • Technology
  • Philanthropy
    • Corporate Social Responsibility
    • Donor-Advised Funds
    • Foundations
    • Impact Investing
    • Research
    • Workplace Giving
  • Policy
    • Education
    • Healthcare
    • Housing
    • Government
    • Taxes
  • Economic Justice
    • Economy Remix
    • Economy Webinars
    • Community Benefits
    • Economic Democracy
    • Environmental Justice
    • Fair Finance
    • Housing Rights
    • Land Justice
    • Poor People’s Rights
    • Tax Fairness
  • Racial Equity
  • Social Movements
    • Community Development
    • Community Organizing
    • Culture Change
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Gender Equality
    • Immigrant Rights
    • Indigenous Rights
    • Labor
    • LGBTQ+
    • Racial Justice
    • Youth Activism
  • About Us
  • Log in
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Webinars
    • Leading Edge Membership
    • Sponsored Webinars
    • Economic Justice
  • Tiny Spark Podcast
  • Magazine
    • Magazine
    • Leading Edge Membership
Donate
Management, Minimum Wage

Some MN Nonprofits Step Up Their Game to Ensure Living Wages for Employees

Ruth McCambridge and Angie Wierzbicki
October 27, 2016
Share63
Tweet
Share38
Email
101 Shares
Increase-salary-game
Salary / Evan Jackson

October 23, 2016; Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)

More nonprofit organizations are putting their money where their mouths are for living wages for their employees. Minnesota’s Star Tribune ran a story earlier this week about several nonprofits bumping up their employees’ wages.

Nonprofit landlord and developer Aeon raised the minimum pay for its workers to $15 this year, $5.50 more than the state’s minimum—ensuring a raise for 34 of its 119 employees. People Serving People, which helps homeless families, has set a minimum wage of $14.50.

Jon Pratt is the executive director of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, and he says that the stance needs to move beyond individual nonprofits and into nonprofit culture and practice. “The goal is to get nonprofits out of the church basement. We don’t want to be second-class employers…Do we want our employees to be eligible for our services? Are you actually creating more of the problem than you’re solving?”

The state association recently rejected the offer of a Minnesota legislator to make an exception for nonprofits in the state’s new minimum-wage standards. Pratt said such an exception would have sent the wrong message. “We are in a competition for talent,” he said.

At People Serving People, the change affected 20 of 70 staff members. “A budget is an expression of your values and where you want to go in the future,” said Gwen Campbell, the organization’s development director. Joc’Quil Crawford, who works in the kitchen and computer lab, says that it is a relief that she can now pay the rent with one check. This may allow her enough to buy her eleven-year-old daughter the computer that she needs for her schoolwork

Neighbors, a South St. Paul nonprofit, pays all 13 of its full-time workers who see to the basic human needs of others at least $14 an hour. “We try very hard to make sure we are paying a wage that hopefully they are able to live on,” said Executive Director John Kemp. “I would rather we be light on people than have people we are not paying a decent wage.”

Not all nonprofits are there yet, however, which places Pratt’s group in one of those leadership positions where it can at times be uncomfortable. For instance:

Arnie Anderson, executive director of Minnesota Community Action Partnership, says, “All community action agencies philosophically would love to be able to pay living wage. The resources just aren’t there to do it. Each one deals with that locally.”

“The tension is, do you use the resources available to serve low-income people to meet basic needs or do you use the resources for staffing?”

Nonprofit Quarterly has covered this issue extensively over the last year. NPQ newswires and editorials point to arguments like this one: It’s simply hard to fill jobs at lower wages with qualified people because nonprofits’ revenue stream is largely dependent on outside funding (government and foundation grants, corporate and individual donations, etc.). And outside funding often frowns upon “administrative” costs.

Enter #passiondoesntpaythebills—a hashtag that nonprofit professional Jennifer Laurie launched in May on various nonprofit social media circuits after a fundraising blogger’s article about the new overtime rules.

Granted, some nonprofits are apparently not able to pay living wages because they lack the resources. These organizations need to realign their programs to meet their financial capacity to deliver them. But for some nonprofits, the decision to pay their employees poorly is strategic. As NPQ recently discussed, excessive executive pay can deprive employees of the income their work generates. But by and large, nonprofits, like other sectors, are realizing that to attract and retain competent employees, they must make sure they are able to pay their employees at least a living wage. Otherwise, at least for a social service organization, a troubling scenario arises in which impoverished employees become recipients of the nonprofit’s services.—Angie Wierzbicki and Ruth McCambridge

Share63
Tweet
Share38
Email
101 Shares

About Ruth McCambridge
Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor in Chief of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

About Angie Wierzbicki
Angie Wierzbicki

Angie Wierzbicki is Executive Director for Cullinan Park Conservancy in the suburbs of Houston, TX. She has been involved in nonprofit leadership roles for almost 10 years, mostly in Texas. Angie has an MS in Recreation, Park and Tourism Administration from Western Illinois University and a BA in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Southern California. In addition to nonprofits, Angie has served in the Peace Corps in Malawi, Africa, and dabbled in retail management.

Related
When For-Profits Aren’t Doing the Job, Nonprofits Replace Them
By Ruth McCambridge
November 7, 2019
Heads Up! Nonprofits and the New Federal Overtime Rule
By Ruth McCambridge
September 25, 2019
Wealthy Nonprofits in Washington Oppose New Overtime Proposal
By Sheela Nimishakavi
August 9, 2019
Oregon Hospital Workers’ Contract Places Patient Needs at Its Center
By Karen Kahn
August 2, 2019
US House Votes to Raise Federal Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour by 2025
By Steve Dubb
July 19, 2019
Suit Filed to Hold Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to Purpose
By Marian Conway
July 16, 2019
other posts by The Authors
With Donor Households Declining, Will Universal Charitable...
By Ruth McCambridge
December 4, 2019
Schwab Charitable Won’t Approve Grants from Its DAFs to...
By Ruth McCambridge
December 3, 2019
Study on Overhead and Donors Suggests “Mum’s the Word”
By Ruth McCambridge and Sarah Miller
November 27, 2019
A Series on Sensemaking Organizations
The Sensemaking Organization: Designing for Complexity
The Sensemaking Mindset: Improvisation over Strategy
Structuring for Sensemaking: The Power of Small Segments
logo
Donate
  • About
  • Contact
  • Newsletters
  • Write for NPQ
  • Advertise
  • Writers
  • Funders
  • Copyright Policy
  • Privacy Policy

Subscribe to View Webinars

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by GDPR plugin
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.