The Chronicle of Philanthropy

M A NAGING
Charities Face Quandary of Cutting Aid or Increasing Employee Pay

organizations. But some nonprofit officials worry that if the recovery picks up steam, finding people to fill demanding service jobs will become increasingly difficult at a time when more help is needed because the number of older Americans is growing so rapidly.

“At that wage level, you’re up against the fast-food industry,” says Angela King, senior vice president for aging and disability services at Volunteers of America. “You’re asking someone to provide compassionate, intensive personal care for the lady in the nursing home at the same rate that you’re asking somebody to take your order at the drive-through at the McDonald’s.”

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Unearthing Benefits

Nonprofit employers are constrained by marketplace forces they don’t control, says Irv Katz, chief executive of the National Human Services Assembly, an umbrella group for social-service charities.

“If XYZ Nursing Home run by a non-
profit were to say, You know what, I’m
going to increase our low-wage workers’
wages by 25 percent to bring them up
to a living wage, they would have to cut
services to do that,” he says. “So how
many fewer patients are you willing to
serve?”
Instead, the assembly has started a
new program that helps charities aid
low-wage workers by educating them
about government benefits. Bridging
the Gap features an online system that
human-resource departments can use
to screen whether employees and their

What Health- and Child-Care Workers Make

$10

Median hourly wage of nonprofit personal and home-care aides

$10.65 Median hourly wage of nonprofit child-care workers

$12.34 Median hourly wage of nonprofit health-care support workers

SOURCE: 2010 National Compensation Survey,

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake cut its turnover rate by adding benefits, such as financial counseling, to help its frontline workers.

families are eligible for the earned-in-come tax credit, children’s health-insurance programs, food stamps, or other government assistance.

Affiliates of Catholic Charities USA,
Goodwill Industries International, and
United Neighborhood Centers of Amer-
ica are now testing the program in four
cities. So far, 220 employees have re-
quested screenings, which have identi-
fied $100,000 in benefits for which they
qualify. (See Page 14.)

Sheltering Arms Early Education and Family Centers, which provides child-care and support services to low-income families at 16 centers in metropolitan Atlanta, already provides that kind of assistance informally.

The organization emphasizes professional development for all its employees. For example, when assistant teachers who start with only a high-school diploma earn their child-development associate credential through the group’s training program, their wages increase from $7.50 an hour to $8.50.

But Elaine Draeger, the organiza-

Continued on Page 14

A Social-Service Group Helps Workers Stretch Their Dollars at an In-House Grocery

WORKING at a nursing home or hospice or as a home-care aide is tough, and it doesn’t pay very well. As a result, many non-profit institutions struggle to attract and keep those workers. The Chelsea Jewish Foundation, which runs several long-term-care facilities just outside Boston, has taken an unusual step to aid employees: running an in-house grocery store.

Barry & Betsy’s—named for the organization’s top administrators and a play on Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture, a New England chain—stocks brand-name food items that it buys at a discount, along with paper goods, cleaning products, and school supplies. The store also sells special extras like holiday gifts at the end of the year and movie passes.

Betsy Mullen, the organization’s vice president for clinical operations—and the Betsy of Barry & Betsy’s.

“One woman, I’ll never forget, came to me and said, ‘This is wonderful because my daughter has wanted to take dance lessons,’” she recalls. “‘Now, I’ll have the money to let her take her dance lessons because I can come here and go shopping for food.’”

Earning Groceries

After employees have been on the job for three months, they earn points they can use at the store, based on the number of hours they work. A full-time employee earns 80 points a month, which translates into $130 to $150 worth of groceries.

That can make a big difference for the charity’s low-wage workers, says

Taming Turnover

But the store also benefits the organization by helping it retain workers and cut down on expensive hiring and training costs, says Ms. Mullen. The Chelsea Jewish Foundation’s turnover rate is just 5 percent annually, which is extremely low for the long-term-care industry.

When employees check out at the store, they get a receipt that shows how much they would have spent at a regular grocery store, says Ms. Mullen.

“If I gave you a $25-a-week raise, by the time you pay taxes on that $25 and got the net in your pay, you’d soon forget that you had gotten the raise,” she says. “If you go to the store and use your points every month, it’s constant reinforcement.” —NICOLE WALLACE