I’m not sure what first sold me on Sydney, the gorgeous beaches, universal healthcare, heaps of hip coffee shops, or the perfect weather.
I thought it couldn’t get any better until I discovered that the minimum wage is $17/hour, compared to New York City’s $8/hour. In Australia, waiters, bartenders, day laborers, and yes, even nonprofit/social enterprise employees get paid competitive salaries.
Photo credit: @MichaelMcdonough
To be fair, it’s quite necessary to earn high salaries considering the insane prices of food and housing. Mind you, I spent the last year living in Brooklyn, so I really understand the clinically insane life decision of spending your paycheck on your small cramped apartment, and squandering the remainder of your life savings on awesomely delicious restaurants.
Amazingly, Sydney seems even more expensive than New York City. Without exaggeration I spent $16 USD dollars on oatmeal, and felt like I got a fairly good deal. It did came with local honey, delicious passion fruit compote, and a hunky waiter with a great accent. My mouth dropped when I got the bill, and I immediately questioned how ANYONE affords to live here.
Photo credit: @Mathfinancial
I quickly learned the answer is quite a simple. People get paid a living wage. For an American, this concept is foreign. My friends and former colleagues working in the nonprofit sector barely scrape by on their meager salaries and we often laugh at our paychecks post deductions. I assure you, we only laugh because otherwise we might cry.
This leads me to by far my largest frustration with the nonprofit world, the inadequate pay. I believe this quality prevents the entire sector from thriving for two major reasons:.
1.Talent is drawn away from the nonprofit sector because of low wages. Smart innovative folks opt for a better salary in other sectors.
Say you’re a young recent graduate from a top school with over $150,000 of debt. Would you choose to move to the New York City and accept the entry-level nonprofit job offering $35,000 pre-tax or opt for the $85,000 corporate job? This question plagues many inquiring young minds who want to make an impact, but simply cannot make the irrational decision to chose a nonprofit job.
Over time, this draws talent away from the sector and many of the brightest minds leave. Fighting the world’s toughest challenges requires all of the genius in the world. The sector needs to position itself to be competitive, not a place best suited for people with rich parents or rich spouses.
2. Low-wages maintain the idea that nonprofit work has less value than other types of work
People making the largest amounts of money are seen as more prestigious, more successful, and more valuable. Nonprofit’s small budgets and measly salaries give off the impression that these organizations create less value and are in turn, less important. If nonprofits want to be taken more seriously, and be seen as a force to be reckoned with, we need to start paying people competitive wages.
Imagine a world where organizations and companies addressing social and environmental ills are seen as equally valuable to Fortune 500 companies.Think of a reality where the most competent and highly skilled individuals happily leave their corporate jobs to fight poverty, and do so without a significant pay cut.
Now stop We should stop dreaming of that world and go out and fight for it.
