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| Path: Main Street : NewsWeek : Op/Ed : Audience Opinions |
Although women make up the majority of professional fundraisers in Canada (64.5%), men in the same positions make an average of 10% more than their female counterparts. What do you think accounts for this disparity and how can we work to eliminate it?
The discrepancy may have more to do with the positions held. i.e. I would suggest a higher percentage of men are working in major gift or planned giving. The salaries paid in this area may account for the difference.--- Evan & Grace Mitchell
Would it be true to say that male fundraisers are more successful at raising money than females? This would make the men more valuable and more worthy of a higher salary.--- Brad Wallin
The reason male professional fundraisers make 10% more than female ones on average might not be due to any unfounded discrimination on the part of the nonprofits which hire them. It could be the result of merit -- as in results -- based pay, more than anything else, and a function of discrimination elsewhere.I.e., the glass ceiling and good old boys network which exists in corporate circles may mean that there are more wealthy males to hit up for donations than females. And it may be that the best way to access them is through the male-dominated corridors of access to privilege and wealth: golf courses, men's clubs, the race track...(?? beats me -- not my circles.)
If that's the case, then the only ways to change it -- assuming it is a bad thing -- would be:
a) don't pay fundraisers on the basis of their track record or results (bad idea);
b) try to get the women fundraisers to figure out ways to crash the male inner sanctums w/o annoying the potential donors in the process (good luck: that may work for paparazzi but not fund-raising, which depends on relationships);
c) lobby corporate Canada for more equity, and maybe gradually there will be more wealthy females and more female decision makers, and then maybe female fundraisers' success rates and fees will rise proportionally.--- Warren Dow
I am certainly not surprised. The issue is far bigger though. I am a union rep at a local CLSC, a community based clinic. Our union (CPS) brought this issue forward since most women dominated trades such as nursing are lower paid than male dominated ones such as computer entry clerks in hospitals. Poverty is really a feminist issue too since there are more poor women and mothers than men. There is a movement to recognize child rearing as a vocation and to put a dollar value on it ... far greater that moms who stay home to raise there kids and only get welfare.--- Elizabeth Lowenger, CLSC Rene-Cassin, Montreal
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