2022 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Report Shows Continued Gains in Diversity, Voluntary Benefits
The Council on Foundations (“the Council”) today announced the release of the 2022 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Report (GSB), an annual analysis of key human resources trends that includes the most comprehensive data on the composition and compensation of U.S. foundations. Published for the first time in 1980, the GSB is an essential resource to help inform grantmaker decision-making around budgets, salaries, and benchmarking personnel policies and practices. This year, the Council has also released the 2022 GSB Report's Board Compensation Tables to provide foundation boards and staff the tools to benchmark their policies and practices against peers in the field.
This year’s GSB Report shows that that while age and gender ratios are largely static across responding foundations, racial diversity continues to increase: People of color accounted for 31 percent of reported full-time staff in 2022, up from 29 percent in 2021 and 27 percent in 2020. People of color also make up 14 percent of foundation CEOs among responding organizations, up from 12 percent in 2021.
In another measure of diversity, grantmakers reported the gender of 44 people among 9,935 staff positions as nonbinary (0.4 percent). While the number may not fully represent all nonbinary staff, as it relies on self-reporting by staff, it’s a valuable data point in only the second year that the GSB has offered the nonbinary option.
Another potential trend is the steady increase in offering “other voluntary benefits” like Healthcare Flexible Spending Accounts and payment for professional membership dues and professional development. In 2020, 25 percent of foundations offered benefits outside the typical. In 2021, this number rose to 28 percent of participating foundations, and it increased again to 31 percent of respondents in 2022.
“Though progress still remains too slow, seeing increases in the diversity of philanthropic leadership and staff for the third year in a row gives me hope,” said Council on Foundations President and CEO Kathleen Enright. “Given the continued stresses of COVID and our nation’s financial turbulence, I am glad to see foundations prioritizing additional ways to care for and support their staff. The Council will continue to support our members and other grantmakers to keep making progress on these fronts.”
The GSB Report includes salary, benefits, and diversity data for full-time staff at U.S. foundations. Information is presented by grantmaker type, foundation type, asset size, and geographic location, and available data. Respondents included community foundations, corporate foundations, operating foundations, public foundations, and private foundations (including family foundations).
Free for Council members and available for non-members to purchase on the Council’s website, the GSB Report includes salary, benefits, and diversity data for full-time staff at U.S. foundations. Information is presented by grantmaker type, foundation type, asset size, and geographic location, and available data includes:
- Salary data on 10,304 full-time staff from 1,003 grantmaking organizations;
- Increase, bonus, and severance eligibility and activity figures;
- Staff counts for full and part-time staff by grantmaker type and asset size;
- Gender, race/ethnicity, age, and disability data;
- Staff tenure, departure, and turnover rates;
- CEO-specific compensation, benefits, and discretionary grantmaking practices; and
- Benefits practices and employer costs.
For more information and to access the report and the board tables, visit the Council on Foundations website.
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About the Council on Foundations
The Council on Foundations exists to help philanthropy be a trusted partner in advancing the greater good. Building on our 70-year history, we are charting a course where funders earn and maintain the public's trust by advancing equity, operating with high integrity, collaborating on broadscale challenges, and serving as ethical stewards. Learn more about the Council and become a member by visiting cof.org.
