Making Salary Discussions Less Taboo Is Key to Helping Women Achieve Pay Equity

Charity leaders, recruiters, and researchers offer nonprofit employees and their bosses the following suggestions

ALSO SEE: Charity's Glass Ceiling Board Members Play Crucial Role in Closing the Gender Gap in Pay Closing the Gap: Tips for Negotiating a Robust Starting Salary

for bridging the current gaps in compensation between men and women:

Talk about the taboo subject of salary. "Put as much light on the process as you can," says Lois Haignere, an independent pay-equity researcher in Albany, N.Y., whose clients include hospitals and universities. "When those doing the hiring and those doing the salary assigning are aware that it's going to get looked at, they're going to be lot more careful," she says. "When it's invisible, nobody's careful."

Find strength in numbers. Join together with a group of employees -- male and female -- who will consistently keep the pressure on their employer about pay equity, says Ms. Haignere. This approach, she says, will give individual workers protection they may need as they make demands on their boards or bosses. "This is why our equal-pay-for-equal-work laws are practically unenforceable," she says. "It's very difficult for one individual to do anything."

Turn to professional organizations. Groups like the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, says its president, Vance T. Peterson, can help bring salary and opportunity issues to its members' attention by continuing to do surveys about current practices and distributing their findings. In addition, he says, the council has begun holding workshops and forums for campus presidents and vice presidents for advancement -- chances, he says, to encourage these leaders to look at their own institutions' compensation practices. "While this issue in particular has not been a major focus in the curricula," he says, "it really needs to be in the future."

Colette Murray, chairwoman of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, says her group is looking to do its part to spotlight the pay issue: continuing to do salary surveys, sending speakers to discuss the topic with the association's 169 local chapters, publishing editorials in its newsletter.

Cultivate female leaders. Boards need to recruit more women -- and encourage them to preside over committees, says Margaret Gibelman, director of the doctoral program in social welfare at Yeshiva University, in New York. In addition, she says, female nonprofit employees need to be given greater access, both formally and informally, to mentors of both sexes who can aid their career climb.

Study a charity's compensation practices. Nonprofit boards and bosses need to evaluate themselves and see how they stack up against the local employment market, says Hugh A. Mallon III, head of Executive Compensation Concepts, a consulting firm in Baltimore that works with nonprofit clients. "They have to ask a critical question: 'Does our approach to compensation have an unconscious bias?'" he says.

Nonprofit managers and trustees should "ask themselves how they make someone an offer," says Lisa A. Froemming, vice president for external affairs and advancement at the Milwaukee Public Museum. "It should be based on what the person is worth, not 'A man needs more.'"

Employees should research their worth and negotiate better deals. They should haggle hardest when offered a new job, say charity leaders and recruiters. "I've been amazed at the friends of mine -- perfectly bright, capable people -- who have absolutely no idea what they should expect or what they should ask for," says Eileen M. Murray, director of the Foundation of Research and Education, the charitable affiliate of the American Health Information Management Association, in Chicago. "It's foolish. You're going to end up not being paid appropriately." (For advice on seeking a raise, see the article in our Philanthropy Careers online section, "Asking for a Raise During Tough Economic Times.")

Have you experienced pay inequity or the glass ceiling during your nonprofit career? Share your experience -- and offer your ideas for solving these problems -- in our Job Market online forum.