Pay or Conditions: What Really Helps You Attract and Retain Top Talent?

Despite evidence that employees in the not-for-profit sector are the happiest and most settled they’ve been in years, staff turnover remains high and many organisations are still unclear about the best strategies to attract and retain key staff.

Capable and stable senior leadership is fundamental in the not-for-profit sector, where CEOs and executive teams carry responsibility for organisational strategy, governance, stakeholder relationships, funding confidence and workforce culture. Frequent turnover at senior levels can create uncertainty for staff, boards, donors and service users, while also disrupting long-term planning and operational continuity.

As noted in the new 2026 Pro Bono Salary Survey report, too many organisations believe their “cause” is their key attraction strategy. While this is always important, most organisations in the not-for-profit sector are founded on laudable and worthy causes. In this highly competitive market, remuneration is often the deciding factor. As the report notes, “purpose alone is rarely enough to attract and retain the right people.”

The report draws on 1,876 cases across 41 different roles and breaks down the results by organisational size, sector and location across the not-for-profit sector.

Additionally, the report highlights that although flexibility, organisational culture, wellbeing and leadership are also major factors influencing employee retention and recruitment, salary remains the “consistent factor” in staff movement. As survey partner Be Recruitment co-founders and Managing Directors Jenny Rosser and Zena Clark wrote in their foreword to the report, “one of the more telling insights is the number of individuals who are not actively looking to move, but are open to the right opportunity.”

The importance of salary is also evidenced in the overall increases in C-Suite remuneration over the last two years, particularly for CEO packages, which are seeing significant increases. These increases, however, vary considerably depending on the size, operating budget and tax status of the organisation. Communicating how salary decisions are made and benchmarking against reliable, independent data helps build staff confidence and demonstrates that remuneration decisions are based on robust market evidence rather than arbitrary judgement — all of which contributes to building a workplace culture based on trust, integrity and employee wellbeing.