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Peggy Morrison Outon, executive director of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at its offices in the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown.
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Report: Gender pay gap shrinks, but remains, among Pittsburgh-area nonprofits

Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette

Report: Gender pay gap shrinks, but remains, among Pittsburgh-area nonprofits

A new report on wage and benefit data at Pittsburgh-area nonprofits shows that while there’s still significant pay disparity between men and women leading the organizations, the gap is shrinking.

The report from the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University showed that women in the top jobs at nonprofits earned 81 percent of what their male counterparts were paid.

But that’s an increase from the last survey in 2015 when women executives earned only 75 percent of male executives’ salaries.

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“The pay gap is looking better,” said Peggy Outon, executive director at the Bayer Center. “It’s up from 75 cents on the dollar but it’s still only 81 cents so we can’t declare victory.”

The survey includes data from 186 nonprofit organizations — 153 in Allegheny County and 33 in 10 surrounding counties — with combined employment of more than 14,000.

Survey participants ranged from large organizations such as Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania, which generates annual revenues of $54 million, to small groups such as the Fayette County Cultural Trust with annual revenues of $291,000.

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“This is not scientific; it’s a self-selected group reporting on their own practices,” said Ms. Outon.

Still, she believes the study is important because it provides a base of knowledge for a sector that is increasingly paying more attention to how to recruit talent as long-time nonprofit leaders from the baby boom generation begin to retire.

In a 2015 national study of more than 4,000 nonprofits conducted by the Nonprofit Finance Fund, a New York-based community development financial institution, nonprofits said their top challenges were achieving long-term financial sustainability and addressing staff retention and competitive wages.

The Bayer Center has been compiling data on compensation in the nonprofit sector since 2000 and uses it for research such as its 74 Percent Project, which tracks pay, leadership and other issues for women who work at nonprofits.

This year’s report was funded by the Richard King Mellon Foundation and produced by Nonprofit Compensation Associates of Oakland, Calif. 

Of all those who work at nonprofits surveyed, 74 percent are women, a figure which has held steady for years.

Part of the reason that women’s salaries have continued to trail men’s is because the largest nonprofits that pay the highest salaries typically have male directors.

That’s the case in the Pittsburgh region and nationwide.

A 2016 study by Guidestar, which tracks data on more than 2 million nonprofits in the U.S., said the pay gap between men and women chief executives at nonprofits with budgets of $25 million or more was 23 percent compared with a gap of 8 percent at small nonprofits.

In the new Bayer Center study to be released today, 58 percent of the nonprofits surveyed were headed by women whose average salary was $104,365, up from $101,475 in 2015.

Male top executives had an average salary of $128,779, down from $135,170 in 2015.

“The trajectory for women’s salaries is positive,” said Ms. Outon.

She attributes the improvement in part to more awareness of the issue raised in other industries such as entertainment, where film actresses including Patricia Arquette and Jennifer Lawrence have spoken out about gender inequality.

“This issue has been on the front burner like it’s never been,” said Ms. Outon. “Society is saying, ‘What’s up with this?’ I think younger people are going to be really impatient with pay inequity.’’

Joyce Gannon: jgannon@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1580.

First Published: February 10, 2017, 5:06 a.m.

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Peggy Morrison Outon, executive director of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at its offices in the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown.  (Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette)
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