FAIRPAY is a service of Bob Orser and Rita Haronian, for the production of compensation and benefits surveys in the nonprofit sector.  Doing business as Nonprofit Compensation Associates (NCA), Bob and Rita are capitalizing on their combined 50 years of experience in producing salary and benefits surveys with accurate and detailed data, beginning with The Management Center's northern California Survey, first produced in 1978.  We can now work with local sponsoring organizations to produce a survey for your local community.

Surveys completed to date include:

Southwest Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh area)    
Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, Robert Morris University   
2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010

Delaware Valley (Philadelphia area)
Nonprofit Center at La Salle University
2005

Central Florida (Orlando area)
Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership Center at Rollins College
2007, 2009, 2011

Massachusetts and adjoining areas (compensation only)   
Third Sector New England
2010
                                                                                             
Rita and I are also co-producers of "Fair Pay for Northern California Nonprofits: The 2011 Compensation and Benefits Survey". With 431 participating organizations, reporting on over 23,000 jobs, the 2011 survey report is the largest and most robust in the survey's 33-year history. We think it is the best survey of its kind in the country.

We strongly believe that a very high percentage of jobs that most nonprofits fill should be comparable to others in their own economic region.  Their benefits should be comparable as well.  Following that logic, national or regional (“the eastern seaboard”, the “southwest”, etc.) surveys are almost worthless.

You would be providing a community service by bringing the best survey of its kind to nonprofit organizations in your region.  Specifically, you would help them:

• Set fair salaries and benefits to attract and retain the best employees
• Evaluate industry standards for compensation for a range of positions
• Budget and plan for the cost of adding new staff members
• Analyze their own jobs and compensation
• Stand up to the scrutiny of an increasingly skeptical public
• Compare their salaries and benefits with others in their community, not with organizations totally out of their local economic market.

A new FAIRPAY survey will be even more useful to your nonprofit community because of extensive changes that the Internal Revenue Service has made to the Annual Form 990 information tax return.

Since 2001 the IRS has encouraged charities to go through a set of steps to ensure that executive compensation is set appropriately. On the revised form 990, the IRS has standardized reporting to make comparing salaries easier and requires charities to provide information about the process they use to set the salaries of employees who receive $150,000 or more in total compensation.

This survey will help nonprofit organizations in your region navigate through this new process and will be a primary tool to help them document the rationale they use to set the salaries they pay their executives.

Bringing this survey to your nonprofits will also help your organization, itself.

FAIRPAY enables your organization to:

• Increase your visibility in your community
• Collect data to inform your member funders, policy makers and other stakeholders
• Generate a new source of revenue.

What does being a host or partner mean?

We produce our surveys in three ways:

1.    Under contract with a local host organization
2.    In a 50:50 partnership with a local organization
3.    On our own

Here’s how each one works:

1.    Under contract with a local host organization

We have produced eleven surveys to date under this model:

Southwest Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh area)
Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, Robert Morris University   
2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010

Delaware Valley (Philadelphia area)
Nonprofit Center at La Salle University
2005

Central Florida (Orlando area)
Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership Center at Rollins College
2007, 2009, 2011

Massachusetts and adjoining areas (compensation only)   
Third Sector New England
2010

Once you sign up with us, we would:

• provide you with a project timeline (see sample timeline and proposed NCA/local host responsibilities).
• advise you on how to finance the survey, including sharing a case for support you can customize to approach local funders.
• help you to develop a pricing plan for subscribers and non-subscribers. We would also share our own survey income/expense experience with you.

Regarding the actual production and distribution of the survey:

Your job would be publicize the survey to local organizations (emails, phone calls, distributing flyers, etc.). We could provide you with our own survey’s email text.

You would also be responsible for distributing the completed survey report in whatever way you choose, and publicizing its post-publication.

We would:

• Handle all matters relating to computer operations and the writing of the text of the report
• Provide you with an electronic copy of a survey questionnaire customized for your community
• Respond to any questions that arise as participants are completing the questionnaires
• Collect the completed questionnaires from the participating agencies, who forward them electronically directly to us through our website
• Provide you with weekly updates of organizations that are completing or have completed the online questionnaire
• Send you a camera-ready copy of the survey report (estimated 200 pages) and/or computer file not more than eight weeks after our receipt of the last questionnaire
• Provide advice on how to market the survey, both to participants before publication and to the general nonprofit community after publication
• Help you to design a workshop on how to use the survey report so that your local nonprofit organizations get the most possible benefit from the information.

The cost for producing the survey under the local host organization option depends upon the number of participants, as follows:

• $8,500 for up to 100 participating organizations
• $11,000 for up to 200 participating organizations
• $13,500 for up to 300 participating organizations

The cost for additional participating organizations would be $25 each.

These prices would be paid in three installments.

Once these fees have been paid, your organization then owns the survey through a joint copyright agreement with us.  The latter is solely for the purpose of allowing us to protect our intellectual property against copyright infringement.

2.    In a 50:50 partnership with a local organization

To eliminate all financial outlays by the local organization and significantly reduce its risk, we offer an attractive partnership option.

NCA and your organization would enter into an equal partnership agreement to produce the survey in your community, with agreed-upon specified responsibilities and tasks for both of us. Generally, with advice from NCA, the local organization would be responsible for all survey marketing to local nonprofits and the recruitment of financial sponsors, if any, and NCA would be totally in charge of producing the survey report (see sample timeline and proposed NCA/partner responsibilities).

Under this agreement, there would be no "ownership" financial payments by the local organization to NCA. After all pre-agreed upon expenses had been paid to each of us from survey revenues, we would then split net income from the survey on a 50:50 basis.

The above contract would only be for one survey (the 2012 survey, for example).

3.    On our own

This is how we do the northern California survey.  We do all the work and we own it.

Over one hundred fifty positions are reported for the entire sample, with more details by:

• Organization's annual operating budget size (up to 7 categories)
• Organization's location (up to 6 categories)
• Organization's field of service (up to 15 categories)
• Number of employees in the organization (up to 9 categories)
• Number of employees managed by person in position (up to 4 categories).

Specific data regarding incentive pay is also reported for each position, including eligibility for incentive pay and actual incentive pay given.

All category descriptions are customized to suit the community or association being surveyed. Additional categories can be added as an option.

Benefits and other policies are reported as well:

•     Paid time off (vacation, sick time, holidays, other)
•     Insurance benefits
•     Retirement benefits
•     Policies regarding compensation and employment practices
•     Executive director/ceo perquisites.

Your income from a FAIRPAY survey could come from one or more of the following sources:

• Full or partial sponsorship by a foundation, corporation or service provider in your community. The Greater Delaware Valley and the first central Florida surveys were subsidized by local foundations and the Southwestern Pennsylvania survey is funded in part by the United Way of Allegheny County.
• Fees from subscribing organizations
• Sales of the survey to non-subscribers.

Simply contact Bob Orser at 1-541-929-7169 or bob@nonprofitdoctor.com. He would be glad to send you a sample copy of one of our surveys for your review.

Bob and Rita have been working together for 28 years now, beginning at The Management Center in San Francisco in 1984.

Bob is the Nonprofit Doctor, a consultant based in Corvallis, Oregon, who has been a key leader in the nonprofit organization management movement for 40 years now.  He was co-founder of three of the most successful nonprofit management support organizations in the country – The Support Center in Washington, D.C. in 1972, the San Francisco Support Center (now CompassPoint Nonprofit Services) in 1975 and The Management Center in San Francisco in 1977.

For a number of years, Rita served as Project Manager for the annual Compensation and Benefits Surveys of both Northern and Southern California Nonprofit Organizations.  She has also designed customized applications for nonprofit surveys in Philadelphia, Louisiana, Seattle, Houston, Kansas City, Oregon and North Carolina.

For more information about FAIRPAY, contact Bob Orser, The Nonprofit Doctor, at:
1-541-929-7169 or Bob@nonprofitdoctor.com.