Signing Bonus or Real Reform to Fundraisers Compensation?

A recent article from Becker‘s Review discusses how Piedmont Health, an Atlanta-based health system, is offering signing bonuses to attract nurses. In particular, they’re offering an $18,000 signing bonus for respiratory therapists---and other levels for other new nurses throughout the organization. The head of the Georgia Nurses Association commented that the need for nurses is “the worst we’ve ever seen.” There are other stories related to the same issue as healthcare organizations begin to stand up full operations coming out of the pandemic.

In our profession, this was a growing trend before the beginning of 2020, with bonus structures, in particular for gift officers, as the industry was seeing dramatic increases in this type of incentive over the previous five-year period. Obviously, Covid has slowed this trend. But In the last few of months, I’ve seen a return for bonus opportunities. One client lost a really good gift officer to as much as a $25,000 signing bonus. Another client is considering offering multiple signing bonuses to applicants for gift officer positions because their pool is not very great. While I don’t work specifically with one hospital and its foundation, I do have a relationship with a system where a hospital is looking for a chief development officer and is now considering a $50,000 signing bonus. In all of these cases, there’s some type of retention clause which requires the person to remain on the job for a certain period of time or forfeit the money given to them.

These separate stories and anecdotal situations are all beginning to call attention to a concern some of us have noticed for quite some time. The job market, at least in philanthropy and around healthcare, is going to be challenged with finding good people -- experienced, dedicated, achievement-driven professionals. And the challenge is going to be heightened by a lack of creativity by many in human resources to find appropriate ways to pay high-performing fundraisers appropriately and not with a “signing bonus” but with just salaries and benefits.