Hello everyone! There was a pioneering and radical exercise that was done a few months ago, that I had the pleasure to coordinate - a hundred nonprofits from across India pooled in their data, to create a community-driven benchmark, of the salary scales that they give their employees, and the benefits that they provide. And then they said, 'why don't we make some of this data available to the public, so other nonprofits can also take use of what we have created?' And so, there is a public versio
n of the report that has been launched, and the link to that is available in the description below. What we will do in this video that accompanies the report, is to look at the structure of the overall report, talk about some of the highlights of the data, share some guidelines for how to read and how not to read the report, and finally, share a thought for what some of this data means for the sector. Let's dive in. [Raahi Music] The report broadly has five sections.
First, the context and over
view; second, the core report, which has three parts
in it; and finally, the closing thoughts. In the context and overview, there
is a background to the report and the process by which it was created. There is a
section explaining what Rahi impact is about, and there is an important section which gives
guidelines to the reader around how to look at this report and how not to look at it. Now, we
will get into some parts of it in this video, but do check that out, especially if you
are readi
ng such reports for the first time. Getting into the core of the report, there are three parts:
- An overview of the participants by different cuts like by sector, by the age of
the organization, and by geography of operations. Coming into the second part of the main
report, which is the compensation benchmarks, in the public version, there are a set of
important cuts given by budget size ranging from, let's say, 5 to 50 lakh budget size
organizations to 50 to 200 CR size organizations givin
g benchmarks of the salary
for different roles across the leadership, the program teams, and the support
teams or the organization teams. Finally, coming to the benefits benchmark, there
are broadly five categories of benefits that the organizations were asked about, and their
responses have been recorded in the report. Additionally, one of the important things that
a lot of organizations looked forward to was getting an idea of the increments that were
being planned for the year 2324 in d
ifferent organizations, which has been included
under the section of performance bonuses. And finally, in the closing thoughts, there is
a pay-as-you-wish option for the report. There are acknowledgements to the many people who have
leaned in and supported for the Outreach to the 100 organizations and for Pure moral support
for such a new initiative. And at the end, there are links to other useful resources,
including other Rahi initiatives as well as other compensation and talent benchmark
ing reports
that have been done by different organizations. The overview of participant section
is useful to help you understand if this report is relevant and contextual for
your organization and for your situation. You will find a non-exhaustive list of the
participants who have given their data for this report. You will find cuts by sector and
by organization type. Broadly, if I look at it, the organizations that have participated have
0 to 125 employees, and they are less than 25 years
old. They come from different parts
of the country. In terms of sectoral focus, there is some bias towards having more
organizations working in education, and that's just a result of the way the networks worked
as we were doing the Outreach for this report. Now, coming to the compensation benchmarks,
there are three main types of graphs that have been there. I wanted to call out the details
just so it's easier for you to read the report. The first is the table; second are some bar
graphs;
and third are certain line graphs that are there. If you look at the table, the
table has on the rows it has the minimum, maximum, and average salaries that
are provided, and on the columns, you have the different roles which are there.
The first two columns for the leadership, the next few columns for the program teams, and
final five, six columns for the support or the organization teams, which include monitoring
and evaluation, fundraising, HR, and Finance. In the bar graphs, there are
two different
types of views provided. In the first view, we have the different budget sizes
of organization in the x-axis and each bar represents a different role in
the organization, color-coded as you can see on the legend on the top right. In
the flipped view, you will find that you have the different roles in the x-axis and the
different bars actually represent the salary, the average salary provided for that role in
different organization sizes. Now, this might sound a little confusi
ng, but if you take a look
deeply at the page, it'll start to make sense. And the final type of graph that is there is in
the Deep types. This goes a little deeper because averages often don't tell the full story. So,
there are a set of different graphs which talk not just about the average but put the table into
graphical view by giving a view of the minimum, maximum, and the average for the different
roles and on the x-axis as before, you have the different budget sizes of organizations f
rom
5 to 50 lakh at the Left End to 50 to 200 CR at the right end. The data points that will matter
to you would look different depending on what organization budget size you are interested
in and is relevant for your context. However, I would strongly encourage you to not anchor on
a single data point. Remember that the definition of these roles have been approximate and
have been understood by organizations potentially a little differently. So the larger
archetype of manager you could lo
ok at together, the larger archetype of associate you
could look at together, and so on. Coming to the benefits benchmarks, organizations
were asked about what are the different types of benefits you provide given by these categories and
reading all the information that came in here's the big story that comes out first in terms
of leaves there are the standard sick leave, casual leave, privilege leave, etc., that
are there and the additional leaves like maternity leave, paternity leave, ber
eavement
leave that organizations generally provide different organizations provide different cuts
and different types in different numbers all of which could not be captured in this benchmarking
and additional to that different organizations have called out some special types of leaves
that they provide while these are not common they have been collated here for inspiration
and for you to think whether it would apply in your context some of these include menstrual
leaves, study leaves, bi
rthday leaves and so on. Second, if you look at the PF, ESI, gratuity in
ense organization provide them to the best way possible. Third, looking at the wellness benefits
that are provided organizations take different approaches to this all of them in general provide
health insurance but beyond that organizations call out having mental health support for their
employees call out keeping a little budget for wellness activities or giving it as a benefit to
their employees so that they can go o
ut and do the sort of we activities that make sense for
them. One thing that is interesting for a lot of organizations to look at especially in March
2024 is what is the increment percentage that is provided by different organizations um in summary
people look at it differently and there are different ranges provided on average the single
number it comes to is somewhere between 7 to 12% 10% is the most common number that is there at the
same time it's important to recognize that this also i
s a range many organizations give details
around the fact that they have a tiered structure of increments that is provided let's say from 5
to 15% with the average performer getting the 10% and a lot depends on your organization's
context around how you look at this. Now, before you go off and read
the report in your own time, in your own way, there are a few
important things for you to keep in mind. First, remember that this report is indicative
and not authoritative. While a lot of care
has been taken in making sure that this
information is correct and the report is as robust as it could be, it is important to keep
in mind that this was a self-reported survey, and there will be differences in
understanding the questions across organizations, which will lead to some
room for errors that you have to keep in mind. Please take this report as indicative,
and nothing in this report as gospel truth. Second, please use the data and information in
this report for the benefit of th
ose who are working in the development sector and not
to anyone's detriment. A lot of wonderful organizations have taken a risk and put their
information out there to create this benchmark, and so I would love for all of us to
collectively respect that confidence that they have imposed in us and ensure that
we use this in positive and constructive ways. Third, remember that every organization's
context and journey is unique. While the information in this report may be useful,
please do not
let anything in this worry you unnecessarily because even among
the participants of this report, you will find significant variation
if you only look close enough. Finally, if you are someone who is working
in a nonprofit or someone who is interested in working in nonprofits, I would love
for you to make sure that you use this information to engage with the organization
leadership constructively and positively. It's incredibly hard to run an organization,
to build a nonprofit that is supp
orting its employees and its beneficiaries meaningfully,
and it would be fantastic if the approach that you take with this information is one that enables
them further and supports them in a positive way. And one final thought before we close the video:
if we look at the trends in the compensation as you find the budget size increasing, you find
that there is an increase in the salary levels of the leadership team, which is absolutely
understandable given the effort and drive required to bu
ild and grow an organization and
therefore the need to retain and attract talent in the leadership teams. But unfortunately, when we
look at the salary levels across the other roles, somehow they seem to broadly be stagnant.
And something that comes up as a question is, will we be able to attract and retain talent
in the development sector if there is no increase in salary for the roles beyond the
leadership team? There are a lot of dynamics and complexity that is associated with this
ques
tion. There are funding-related questions, there are questions around should there be more
salaries fundamentally for those who are trying to do good in the world versus those who are
trying to make things easier for consumers and so on. I would love to keep this conversation
alive and would love to get your thoughts on this in the comments below. And if videos like
this are useful and interesting to you, please do consider subscribing so that you get notified
and we can grow this channel.
And beyond all that, I hope that the information in the report, which
again is available in the link in the description, I hope the information in that is useful for
you, and I hope you can use it to support your employees and your beneficiaries
in the best way possible. Thank you.
Comments
What are your takeaways from the report? Let me know in the comments! 😊
Very relevant stuff. Thank you for sharing this. 🙌