Family Staff Peer Network: Navigating Family Staff Member Compensation

Being employed at your family’s foundation can raise complex, and sometimes uncomfortable questions. For example, how is your performance evaluated and by whom? What professional development do you have access to?  What are the bounds of your job description? How do you determine fair compensation? As a professional who may directly report to their family members, these questions, and many others, can be particularly challenging to navigate.

Members of this peer network have shared that the issue of compensation is the most challenging. Join us for a discussion with other family staff members who are navigating how to raise the issue of compensation and with whom. Learn from their experiences and share your own.

Invitation to share your experience: We would like to start the program with two or three peer network members sharing their own experience with the topic informally for two to four minutes. This also is a way for peer network members to learn more about each other. Any experience, positive or challenging, is a learning opportunity. If you would like to do this, please reach out to Daria Teutonico.

Resource: NCFP’s Operations and Management primer addresses compensating family members. In advance of the program, consider reading these sections:  Pages 58–60 include a checklist for considering compensating family members (5-minute read) and pages 44–51 provide more context to paying family members in the broader staffing structure of your family philanthropy (10-minute read.)

Note: The program will include breakout group discussions with peers grappling with similar challenges.