Context
Trends across the field:
what organizers are facing
In 2022, All Due Respect’s national research study found:
- 9 out of 10 organizers have experienced burnout;
- Organizers believe working conditions need to be improved;
- Organizers believe their working conditions have a direct impact on campaign success as well as on the effectiveness of the broader movement ecosystem;
- Directors don’t have the resources they need to pay more competitive salaries and build staff capacity;
- It is difficult to find, hire, and retain trained organizers, especially organizers who come from or represent the communities they are working with;
- Directors don’t have access to centralized information about wages, benefits, and best management practices to create and maintain sustainable jobs; and,
- There is a set of funders who understand the need to shift how they fund and support organizing, and who understand there is a disconnect between how we value organizing and how we actually treat organizers.
These trends not only impact the livelihood of organizers and their families, but also impact organizations’ efforts to build skilled teams with the ability to take up and win important campaigns.
Zoom in: Organizing in the City
This resource provides an overview of what it means to organize in New York City—a unique ecosystem that requires particular skills, knowledge, and physical demands from its organizers. Compared to the majority of other organizing ecosystems across the U.S., organizers in NYC commute more by public transportation, sometimes very long distances, to be able to organize across boroughs and communities. And, because NYC is made up of many diverse immigrant and ethnic communities, organizers working within certain neighborhoods are often required to speak languages other than English and have the necessary cultural insight to do their jobs effectively.
These challenges are compounded by the inflated cost of housing, creating living conditions for organizers that are similar to those of the community members they’re organizing with.
As one organizer stated, “we are organizing to fight the same conditions that impact ourselves, as well as our membership.”
The following dynamics in particular shape the current landscape and organizing conditions in New York City:
1. Housing crisis
The housing affordability crisis in New York City impacts local organizing in myriad ways. About 1/3 of organizer jobs posted between January–April 2024 were for tenant organizing positions. At the same time, many organizers who work in certain neighborhoods have been priced out themselves, therefore displaced from the communities in which they organize. Additionally, due to the high volume of renters in the city and the frequency with which their members are moving, organizers continue to lose progress on campaigns or face the difficulty of frequently having to build new relationships from scratch.
2. Childcare
Childcare in NYC costs up to 17% more than the national average. We spoke to organizers with caretaking and parental responsibilities who described the difficulties they face with inconsistent work hours and required evening and weekend events. These organizers expressed frustration over the lack of affordable childcare options, which compounds the stress of balancing their professional responsibilities with their roles as parents.
This challenge not only affects their ability to attend or travel for key organizing events but also strains their personal lives, making it difficult to sustain their commitment to the work. These organizers mentioned that childcare opportunities that are integrated into the budget for events can play an important role, but not enough to make them feel like they could do this work long term.
“My kids often complain that I don’t get home at a decent time or I’m working too much when I am home, so I work extra hard making sure I get to spend time with them. That leaves zero time for my personal self. I feel lucky that I get to use the childcare we provide for our members at events but it’s not enough, it’s never enough.”
—Parent/Organizer
3. Government Funding
Many organizations feel stuck within the confinements of their New York City-specific funding contracts (for example, Housing and Urban Development grants) that sometimes do not allow them to integrate benefits like Cost of Living Adjustments or raises into their budgets. These city grants often require recipients to use a reimbursement model, in which organizations front the money before receiving funds that can sometimes take years to process.
Given the funding landscape of NYC, we know many smaller organizations rely on these types of grants to fund their organizing work, which can put them in a cycle limiting their growth. Directors mentioned that funding uncertainty can impede their ability to grow their teams, and that organizer retention can be a struggle in general, with the constraints of government grants as one contributing factor.
4. Organizing experience and upward mobility
Many organizing directors interviewed reported difficulties with one-size-fits-all roles and compensation structures that fail to account for varying types and levels of experience. In community organizing teams, upward mobility is often limited due to the narrow range of available job roles. Typically, these organizing teams have a relatively flat structure, with most positions focused on outreach, advocacy, and mobilization efforts.
Consequently, there are fewer specialized roles—such as data analysis or digital organizing—or higher-level positions to advance into, making career progression challenging for those seeking growth. This lack of pipeline creates a bottleneck where talented organizers remain in similar roles for extended periods, with few opportunities to expand their skills or assume leadership positions.
Additionally, organizers expressed reluctance to move into management roles, as they do not perceive the increase in pay to be commensurate with the added responsibilities. Even for those who wish to advance while retaining their organizing skills, the limited number of managerial or director roles make this pathway rare. As a result, while the work is often fulfilling, the lack of clear career pathways can hinder long-term professional development.
“Organizing is for young people. It doesn’t feel like you can retire in this work because there is nowhere for us to go or move up. Our directors are already pretty young and there won’t be much opportunity for those of us who want their roles anyway.”
— Organizer
“If you are moving into a seasoned organizer role, you’re most likely supervising. I look at my supervisor and, like, it looks like hell. You need to devote hours to supervising on top of your organizing work. It doesn’t feel worth it.”
— Organizer
We found that entry-level community organizer jobs in New York City require an average of 2 years of experience and 18% of NYC organizing jobs require multiple languages. Organizers we spoke to were motivated by a strong sense of duty to their communities but felt that compensation is often inadequate given the skills required and the high demands of the roles.
Additionally, numerous directors reported a declining interest in pursuing organizing work in general. We found that after two years on the job, many organizers realized they could earn similar salaries in jobs outside of nonprofit work or in nonprofits without organizing programs with significantly less demanding responsibilities.
“We expect organizers to start from the very bottom, no matter where they are in life, no matter where they’re coming from or whether or not they have families to support or what have you. And that doesn’t feel fair, given the extremely taxing and emotionally draining labor that is organizing.”
— Organizing Director
We’ve taken a closer look at the current state of compensation for community organizing jobs in NYC through both qualitative and quantitative research. We focused on how compensation culture influences the retention of organizers in NYC, as well as how this culture impacts directors and the labor standards of the ecosystem as a whole. We took many factors into account, including geographic locations within the city, race, gender, class dynamics, and organizational issue areas.
Organizations come to this work from different circumstances and with different considerations: they have varying budget sizes and staff capacities, focus on different issues, and may or may not also engage in direct service work. Especially in NYC, power building organizations may work in all five boroughs across the city or focus on one specific neighborhood.
This resource is meant to provide a baseline level of utility to all types of organizers, but we encourage readers to adapt this information to their own circumstances.
A note on organizers:
We define an organizer as someone who recruits potential members through canvassing, 1:1s, trainings, events, and/or meetings to build and grow a base rooted in a site, region, issue, or identity. An organizer supports the leadership development of their organization’s members, facilitates the process of members building relationships, identifies and analyzes the issues that impact them, and takes action together with members. Additionally, paid fellows and paid interns should be included when considering this information.
There are many different subcategories and variations of organizers, which may be helpful to distinguish in your own work. Please see the additional job definitions under the research section of this website.
Data and Methodology
Data in this report was pulled from two sources: (1) individual job announcements posted between January—April 2024 and (2) the compensation study conducted by Nonprofit NY in May 2024. With survey data from 381 organizations, the Nonprofit NY study provides a breakdown of subsectors within the nonprofit universe (as defined by the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities used by the IRS), organizations’ budget size, employee demographics, and compensation and benefits. Numbers used for this study were taken as an average from both of these data sets.
In order to ensure that our research reflected a comprehensive understanding of the impact that compensation has on the organizing landscape overall, we also prioritized multiple perspectives from within the NYC power building sector through nine one-to-one interviews with executive and mid-level directors, five interviews with funding partners, and three virtual focus groups with organizers.
Topics covered in these interviews included:
- Ideal wages and benefits for organizers
- Challenges preventing organizations from offering higher salaries
- Processes for wage-setting
- Organizational culture as it relates to compensation
- The impact of organizer compensation on the sector overall
This resource includes key themes, findings, and observations from both our qualitative and quantitative research, and is intended to provide insights that follow the lead of community members and partners organizing in New York City.