In pursuit of our mission, The Capacity Lab decided to conduct outreach and data collection for this salary survey in 2022, with the goal of providing relevant and up-to-date information on the compensation of key leadership and staffing positions within the local nonprofit sector. Many of our partners have reported difficulties with hiring and retaining professional positions within their organizations over the past year. By providing benchmark salary and benefit figures, we are aiming to help organizations build budgets, strategic plans, and fundraising asks that more accurately incorporate the current costs of various positions, as reported by similarly-sized organizations in our geographic area, with the intention of making new and ongoing employment more successful.

The Capacity Lab is indebted in this effort to the past work of the staff of the United Way of Southern Chautauqua County, which has run salary surveys in the local nonprofit sector as recently as 2019. Given the impact of the pandemic and recent trends in inflation, it felt necessary to update their prior results, but we thank them for their generosity in sharing questions, templates, and communication strategies.