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During 2023, CNJG gathered benefits information from our members to generate our 2023 New Jersey Philanthropy Benefits & Salary Summary Report. Members tell us that this report is one of the most important and effective benchmarking tools for our field. A statistically significant number of members completed our Benefits Report. We are grateful to those that completed the survey, which is a major investment of time, to help us gather this useful data.
The report consists of two sections:
CNJG Benefits Survey
CNJG and our members want specific data about the benefits offered to their employees, board, and more. Therefore, CNJG created our triennial Benefits Survey that gathered this comprehensive data specific to New Jersey’s grantmaking community.
For the second time in this survey’s history, we asked for board and staff demographic data. As more attention is focused on racial equity in our work, it is helpful to benchmark this data in graphical form. We hope it sparks conversation at your organization.
Council on Foundations (CoF) Salary Survey
The salary survey was administered by our partners, the Council on Foundations. This annual nationwide effort by CoF (with the assistance of other Philanthropy-Serving Organizations across the country) benchmarks the salaries of employees at foundations, corporate giving programs, and other philanthropic organizations. CNJG encourages any and all members to complete this survey each year.
Salary information from CoF presents national, mid-Atlantic, and New Jersey data for over 40 staff positions. Salary ranges are only given for positions with five or more reporting organizations. To report on more New Jersey salary data, we hope more members will complete this annual survey.
CNJG reminds our members and other foundations across New Jersey to complete both surveys when they are available – CoF’s is EVERY YEAR, and CNJG’s is every three years. The more data we and CoF can gather, the better and more accurate the results will be for the philanthropic community both in the state and nationally.
Download the 2023 New Jersey Philanthropy Benefits & Salary Survey Summary Report here. You must be a member of CNJG and logged in to access the report.
CNJG's past Summary Reports may be found on our website:
2020 New Jersey Philanthropy Benefits & Salary Survey Summary Report, released in January 2021
2017 New Jersey Foundation Benefits & Salary Summary Report, released in September 2017
2014 New Jersey Foundation Benefits & Salary Summary Report, released in February 2015
2011 Mid-Atlantic Foundation Benefits & Salary Summary Report, released in June 2012
Get on the map and give smarter
Get on the Map is an exciting data-sharing initiative designed to dramatically improve the quality and availability of giving data for our region. Using this tool to put your grantmaking in context will provide valuable insights that can transform your giving.
Knowing how other foundations or corporations are funding in a certain geographic area or with a specific nonprofit can make everyone’s work more effective.
Imagine real-time answers to questions like:
- How are others serving at-risk youth?
- Are organizations in our region receiving enough capacity building support?
- Who else funds economic development in our rural communities?
Through a partnership with Candid (formerly the Foundation Center) and the United Philanthropy Forum, Get on the Map enables CNJG members to see the scope of their grantmaking, find natural funding partners, and gain deeper understanding of New Jersey’s philanthropic landscape.
Watch the short video below to learn how easy it is to Get on the Map!
It starts with sharing your giving data
Your data will power valuable resources for your organization and our region, including access to the CNJG Foundation Funding Map, a special interactive searchable mapping platform, engineered by Candid.
When you share your data, you control your story. No one knows your grantmaking better than you. Tell your story, your way is good for the sector because better information benefits everyone. Join the community of funders sharing their data to ensure the field is acting on the best possible information. Share Now!
Self-Paced Training for Funders on Using Candid
Candid has also launched a new, free self-paced course for funders: Funding Smarter: Using Candid Tools to Inform and Share Your Foundation’s Work. The course is meant to help funders use Candid’s mapping, data, and knowledge tools to better identify funding peers, potential grantee partners, identify funding connections and gaps, and learn from knowledge other funders have already shared. It also highlights the value of sharing data with Candid.
Multi-year Grants
Affirmation: Multi-year funds provided both reliability and breathing room for nonprofits.
Making fundamental and long-lasting change comes with the promise of reliable investments. Longer grant terms create an environment where collaborative partnerships can flourish, and trust and transparency break down power dynamics. The result is that nonprofits have the “breathing room” and financial stability to focus activities where they are most needed.
Although many funders award grants to the same nonprofits year after year, they often require submission of annual applications that request information they already have and are complex and needlessly lengthy. These processes can heighten mutual distrust. From a practical standpoint, multi-year awards reduce paperwork for both funder and nonprofit and open communication channels promoting shared goals, mutual trust, and increased overall impact.
Activities
• For funders that historically award repeat annual grants to the same nonprofit partners, shift from an annual grant/proposal cycle to a long-term, multi-year commitment with an annual outcomes/progress report in lieu of a full application.
• Tailor grant terms to suit grantee timelines and needs (negotiated outcomes and milestones).
• If data collection is required solely to meet a funder’s compliance requirements, the funder should assume this responsibility or provide sufficient funding and/or capacity for the nonprofit to meet the requirement.
Short-term Outcomes
• The number of funders making multi-year grants increases by 50% over the previous years.
Long-term Outcomes
• More funders convert an annual application process for repeat grantee partners to a multi-year commitment with an annual outcomes report at the most, instead of full proposals each year.
• Funders assume responsibility for data collection or provide sufficient funding and/or capacity for the nonprofit to meet the requirement.
• Grant terms are suited to grantee timelines and needs (negotiated outcomes and milestones).
How to Begin Doing Good Better on Reliability
Learning opportunities
• What barriers keep funders from making long-term commitments to repeat grantee partners? Are any of these barriers legal?
• What are the minimum data requirements for funders to collect from repeat grantee partners?
Pre-Work
• Address the barriers to awarding multi-year grants through tested tools.
• Learn about how multi-year grants strengthen grantee partners and improve philanthropic, nonprofit, and community impact.
• Research mechanisms funders can use to meet legal compliance requirements while gaining trust in their grantee partners.
Right Size Applications; Simplify Reporting
Affirmation: Paperwork hinders us all.
Duplicative or complex proposal and reporting requirements divert time and resources for both nonprofits and philanthropy, needlessly burdens nonprofit partners and siphons scarce resources away from where they are most needed. Funders can lessen the burden on grantee partners by streamlining the application and reporting processes, especially for repeat grantee partners; decreasing the required data to only the most necessary for decision-making; taking on some of the burden of data collection by gathering data from central repositories such as Candid (formerly GuideStar) and the IRS; and retain and use data already collected from repeat grantees. Funders should require updated information such as annual budget, staffing, board member changes, etc., in their grant applications only when the nonprofit is the only source for this information. Collaborate with other local funders and agree to common GOS application questions and budget templates; streamline tools through technology and offer innovative ways for organizations to apply for and report out on grants; limit written requirements to information that is relevant to the request, and which moves the needle on critical social issues.
Activities
• Reduce rigidity and increase the flexibility of what nonprofits must submit for their applications in creative, egalitarian, and less burdensome ways.
• All funders right-size their application and report requirements relative to the grant amount.
• Shift from reports to conversations or other lower time-intensive means.
• Develop agreed-upon common questions for use across the philanthropy sector for general operating support grant applications.
• Explore the efficacy of using common applications for general operating support grants.
• Change site visits for compliance to goals of learning.
• Consider developing a central data repository for New Jersey nonprofits and funders, where applicants can submit and update basic information once a year, and funders can access the necessary information.
Outcomes
• 75% of funders begin to reduce the size of applications and reports relative to the size of the grant.
• 75% of funders shift from reports to conversations or other lower time-intensive means, like site visits geared to learning and relationship building.
• 50% of funders making general operating support grants accept creative, egalitarian, less burdensome applications including other funders proposals.
• Nonprofits have increased capacity to dedicate time to other activities and efforts.
How to Begin Doing Good Better on Reducing Burden
Learning opportunities
• For funders who do not right-size their applications, what are the barriers to reducing paperwork?
• Who is making the decisions about the application and reporting requirements, and how can they be reached to encourage change? How can we involve more board members of funders in this effort?
• For funders who require reports, determine what is “nice to have” vs. what is needed and used and consider eliminating the rest; what are expeditious ways to collect data including accepting other funders’ reports?
• Which funders who make multi-year grants require a full application for the first year and updates for subsequent years?
Pre-Work
• For funders who already report tailoring their applications, consider how to further simplify processes for grantees; share these practices with other colleagues in philanthropy.
• Learn how information is collected without burdening the applicant.
• Review and implement recommendations already provided by nonprofit networks and philanthropy-serving organizations for concrete examples such as centralized document repositories; allowing nonprofit partners to re-use other proposals and reports; holding check-in meetings in lieu of written reports; and other helpful practices.
• Seek promising practices of funders who use site visits as opportunities to build trust and understand the programs and organizations they support instead of as compliance reviews.
Notes:
See, for example, SMU DataArts (formerly the Cultural Data Project), https://culturaldata.org, a nationwide research and data repository for the arts and cultural community. DataArts serves as a collector and clearinghouse for a wide array of data, which funders can access instead of requiring nonprofits to provide it separately.
Despite a field replete with research, analysis, recommended policies and practices — not to mention an abundance of educational programs and frameworks for grantmaking to diverse communities — philanthropic leaders have been slow to advance these values in their foundations. Philanthropy Northwest (PNW) wondered: what is getting in the way? Why are good intentions, buttressed with theory and practical advice, not achieving better results on measures of diversity, equity and inclusion?
With the support of the D5 Coalition, PNW began a year-long study to explore these questions. The study was divided into two parts. They began with personal interviews of 23 philanthropic leaders in the Pacific Northwest. In order to better understand how these organizations incorporated diversity, equity, and inclusion into their work and workplaces, they collected baseline information about their staff composition, leadership styles, and organizational practices/policies.
This report details their findings. It includes an in-depth look at the peer cohort model, in which ten foundation leaders met regularly to discuss these issues and support each other in advancing their own leadership. It also includes practical lessons about shifting organizational cultures towards greater diversity, equity and inclusion — lessons drawn directly from the experiences of peer cohort leaders.
PNW presented this work in a webinar hosted by the D5 Coalition. The webinar recording and slides are below.
Small BIPOC organizations and/or historically excluded/led
organizations have greater access to funding.
Affirmation: We must center the most marginalized, underfunded, and impactful organizations.
BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded1 leaders are the most proximate to the populations and communities that face the most pressing social issues and should be central to designing solutions and funded; yet they are often overlooked or ignored as real change-makers.
They are underinvested in by major funders and are often left to struggle on their own; and when they are funded, grants are small and often highly restricted.
Some funders have artificially high budget requirements, require collaboration with larger “more sophisticated” organizations, won’t fund fiscally sponsored groups, or emphasize leadership requirements that are increasingly out of date or exclude vital lived experience.
Community organizations are exploring innovative and egalitarian management structures, such as co-directorships, collectives, and collaboratives, that do not resemble the constructs of the past.
Leadership comes in all structures, sizes, and identities; funders must seek to recognize and fund those who are doing effective work and re-evaluate their views of accepted leadership patterns. For BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders to succeed, we must provide flexible resources and professional development support while they are leading.
Activities
Below are activities your organization can engage in that will advance your equity focus
• Agree as a community of practice to a shared definition of BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded-led organizations to foster a common frame of reference to help guide this work.
• Create networking and referral opportunities for BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders to expand their access to funding and opportunities similar to that of larger, mainstream groups.
• Invest in the development and pipeline of BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders.
• Remove funding barriers for small BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded organizations that have traditionally been precluded from funding because of budget size, leadership structure, auditing requirements, and similar obstacles.
• Actively partner with BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded organizations to make funding decisions on issues closest to their communities.
• Provide significant, multi-year, general operating funding to organizations and movements led by BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded communities.
Short-term Outcomes
• Progress is tracked into addressing the barriers to funding BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded-led organizations in NJ.
• A greater number of BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded-led organizations are funded than before, by new and existing funders.
• Professional development and capacity building as requested by BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders is funded.
Long-term Outcomes
• BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders can access funding and opportunities similar to that of larger, mainstream groups.
• A greater percentage of support to organizations and movements led by BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded communities is provided as significant, multi-year, general operating funding. In this context, “significant” can refer to both the quantity, size or percentage of grants awarded by the funder in any given year.
How to Begin Doing Good Better on Equity
Learning opportunities
• Which criteria and practices are creating, perpetuating or exacerbating exclusion of BIPOC, grassroots, and or historically excluded-led organizations?
• For funders that exclude or limit funding to small organizations, why are these barriers in place? What biases or missed opportunities are resulting from these obstacles?
• When funders are actively prioritizing BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded -led organizations in their philanthropic partnerships, what definitions, outreach, and partnership strategies are being used? How has this evolved based on lessons learned?
Pre-Work
• Funders should become educated about how traditional ways of identifying grantees and other criteria often excludes BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded-led organizations.
• Actively seek and share ways to center, identify, fund, and partner with applicants or community-based partners to create solutions in all efforts.
• Identify forums or protocols for introductions, dialogue, and relationship-building between funding community and BIPOC, grassroots and/or historically excluded-led organizations to pave the way for ongoing or stronger partnerships.