501 Commons and the King County Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services Levy (VSHSL) urge the nonprofit community to complete the 2025 Wage & Benefits Survey and Employee Engagement Survey today!

The Wage & Benefits Survey asks you to share your organization's salary and benefits data. The results will help remove the guesswork from setting compensation levels, enabling you to offer equitable pay that makes it easier for you to attract and retain talented employees. Read the 2023 Wage & Benefits Survey Report and peruse through the 501 Compensation Tracker to get an idea of the tangible results this survey has already produced in the past.

The Employee Engagement Survey asks nonprofit employees to share their anonymous feedback on what it's like to work at their organization. It should take 15-20 minutes to complete it. Read the 2023 Employee Engagement Survey Report to see how workers responded the last time this survey was administered.

Please subscribe for email updates to receive updates on the project.

Wage & Benefits Survey (open until May 13, 2025)

HR/finance staff members, executive directors, or anyone with access to staff compensation practices enter wage and benefits data into an online portal. This salary information is easily available at no cost to nonprofits and job seekers through the 501 Compensation Tracker and a campanion written report. Data from the 2025 survey will be available later this fall. Current data are from 2023, which is the last time this survey was administered.

The time required to input your wage and benefit information varies depending on how many positions you have. Generally, we've found that organizations with 1-20 employees can finish in an hour or less, larger organizations need a couple of hours, and very large organizations (45+ employees) may need to calendar a few hours to do this work.

It is important that organizations of all sizes and types participate in these surveys so that the wage and benefit information is robust, reliable, and representative of the sector as a whole.

Complete the Wage & Benefits Survey

Employee Engagement Survey (open until May 25, 2025)

How do we know what employees want and need? Ask them directly! This survey identifies the wage and non-wage factors linked to high employee engagement, retention, and producing strong client services.

Please note that only part-time and full-time paid staff are eligible to take this survey. Volunteers, board members, interns, and contractors cannot participate. Nonprofit leadership are encouraged to invite their employees to complete the survey during work hours and communicate clearly that their feedback is valued.

The survey takes only 15-20 minutes to complete. All employee responses are anonymous.

Organizations with five or more respondents will receive a tailored Employee Engagement survey report comparing their aggregated employee responses to the overall responses. To protect employee anonymity, we will not provide an organizational report if fewer than five employees participate from an organization. Additionally, one nonprofit will be randomly chosen to receive two complimentary hours of HR consulting from 501 Commons! This consulting session will help them leverage the survey results to strengthen their organization.

To help encourage participation, we recommend you:

• Distribute this flyer to eligible nonprofit employees.
• Use these key talking points and sample email text.
• Allow staff to complete the survey during work hours, which will encourage higher levels of participation and honesty.
• If your staff has questions about the Employee Engagement Survey (including wanting reassurances that the survey is truly anonymous), send them this list of FAQs or this FAQ fact sheet.

Want to help us promote the surveys to the nonprofit community?

We need the help of our community to spread the word about the Wage & Benefits and Employee Engagement Surveys! If you have reach or influence with King County nonprofits, please email Tim Takechi at timt@501commons.org to let us know if you want to get involved with promoting the survey project.

We can send you sample email text, newsletter blurbs, and graphics that you can use to conduct outreach.