Q. I raise corporate and foundation funds for a charity in the Boston area. I am currently a development associate, making in the mid-40s, and earn less than my colleagues who have less education and experience, and who have lower annual fund-raising goals assigned to them. (Mine for 2009 is $500,000, 25 percent higher than last year.) I have approached my boss for a raise and title change. What's my market value?

A. Yours is a good question, and one you perhaps should have asked before approaching your boss. "Even if you're working hard and you think you add a lot to the organization, you need to come in with information," says Susan Egmont, a recruiter in Boston who works with nonprofit clients.

What you need to pinpoint is not so much your general market value as your value to the organization in which you work, Ms. Egmont says. That value depends on the financial condition of the charity and the type of organization it is; an organization on shaky financial ground will be less likely to give you a raise than one supported by the Bill &amp Melinda Gates Foundation, she says. A hospital may pay more than a neighborhood child-care center, and a large charity more than a small one.

The pay structure of your organization also comes into play, she says. What do big-gifts fund raisers make, compared with staff members who work on the annual fund or raise money from corporate and foundation grants? Would you make more if you had a supervisory role?

For more information about salaries, consult the annual survey produced by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Also, Professionals for Nonprofits, a recruiting organization, released in March its annual surveys of nonprofit salaries in two markets it serves, New York and Washington.

While it's important to arm yourself with data, clarifying the pay structure of your department should not be your responsibility, says Sue Rapple, chief fund raiser at Harvard Medical School, in Boston.

Your department's leaders, she says, should regularly compare the organization's pay scale to that of other, similar local charities, write clear job descriptions for every position within the department, and set fair standards for compensation based on job duties.

Ms. Rapple says that if a clear pay structure doesn't exist where you work, you might respectfully request that your supervisors review job descriptions and salary levels throughout the department, rather than just your own.

She also recommends not making your case based on how much you're expected to raise. "Whether you're raising $15-million or $500,000, the work is really the same," she says. Instead, compare your existing job description with your actual duties. If there's a big disparity between the two, you have a good case, she says.

If you don't get the raise and title change you've asked for, ask your supervisor when he or she will be able to reconsider your request, for instance at the beginning of a new budget year or when new financing comes in, Ms. Egmont says.

Then again, "in this economy, where people are laying off development staff, it's probably not the best time to be asking," she says. "You might take a breath and wait six months."