Those of us who are drawn to occupations with a social impact are passionate about the causes that our work promotes. We have bills to pay, just like everyone else, at the same time.
So what do we do when our income is insufficient to cover our living expenses? Many idealists struggle with the following question, which can take many various forms:
- Does money from a Programme get taken away if I ask for a pay raise?
- How do I strike a balance between my needs and those of my family while yet supporting such risky Programmes and services?
- Is it a sign that my dedication to my cause and organisation is eroding if I struggle with these issues?
Without careful consideration, these worries could have a negative impact and foster a sense of tension and anxiety among colleagues. Continue reading for our advice on how to think about these ideas and factor your nonprofit pay into your entire spending plan.
Regarding Your Financial Needs, BE PRACTICAL
Get the data in front of you so you can assess whether your present plan is effective before moving on. Use tools for predicting and budgeting like Mint, You Need a Budget, or GoodBudget. Choose an option that provides the features you need from the many available possibilities.
Give yourself carte blanche while creating your budget, and use labels to classify your expenditures, such as:
- Essential
- Important
- Reasonable
- Bonus
- Excessive
Consider whether guilt creeps into the process when creating your hierarchy of spending. What do you let yourself indulge in? Do you want to create your budget in respect to your highest aspirations or should it be created in response to another standard? What is your standard?
Check Your Financial Thinking
Is guilt a significant factor in your financial evaluation? What about a lack? Think about whether you actually want those feelings to have a major role in your decision-making.
We are unable to draw water from a dry well, as Lynne Twist wrote in The Soul of Money. Who do I need to be to keep my promise? she questioned. What kind of person do I need to become in order to achieve this? What tools do I need to be prepared to use on myself, my coworkers, and my environment?
Take note of your nonprofit salary and overall compensation package as you develop your budget; you might discover that what you're now making or hoping to earn is insufficient to meet your needs. It's crucial to look at how you think about money at this point.
- Do you think that if you ask for more money, you are robbing someone or something else of their money?
- Are you using all of your energy, health, and financial resources while performing the work you're doing?
Find out what your fundamental assumptions are towards money and your spending; this will help you create a plan of action to close the gap between your heart and your pocketbook.
Advice: Use our nonprofit wage survey, Idealist Salaries, to examine the salaries of your colleagues before deciding how much money to allocate. You can easily determine whether you're being paid fairly by learning what people in similar roles are making at other companies around the nation.
Establish The Value You Produce
Your effect stems from far more than the tasks you cross off your daily to-do list, and you are not your job description. You can decide if it's time to ask for a raise when you can identify and explain how your presence benefits your company.
Here is an illustration of how a task item and a statement of value differ from one another:
Task: "In charge of providing both individual and group counselling to young people."
Value Proposition: In both individual and group counselling sessions, "use empowering language to engage with juveniles, encouraging gradual forward movement in clients' goals."
It matters what you do and how you do it. Knowing how your presence enhances a company's objective puts you in a position to assess if the pay (which includes your salary and other employee benefits) is sufficient to justify your time and effort.