Staff don’t lose trust in compensation because the numbers are wrong. They lose trust because no one can explain them. We gave Utah’s Promise a model that’s fair, sustainable, and easy to explain, which gives them the opportunity to effectively operationalize this with their whole organization.
Utah’s Promise, a Salt Lake City-based United Way affiliate, faced a challenge common to growing mission-driven organizations: how to attract, retain, and motivate top talent while staying financially sustainable and true to its values. Salary bands existed, but the path from performance to pay was inconsistent, subjective, and rarely explained the same way twice.
Give staff a clear, defensible answer to how raises and bonuses actually get decided, the top root issue stakeholder interviews surfaced.
Reward great work and motivate top talent without risking the budget.
Replace an inconsistent, subjective path from performance to pay with one that could be explained the same way every time.
Conducted 15+ stakeholder interviews across the board, executive team, and staff to surface themes on compensation clarity, pay equity, and gaps in the existing performance evaluation system.
Designed a two-tiered performance pay model, a Compa-Ratio Standard Model for staff and a Compa-Ratio Executive Model for leadership, linking bonus eligibility and base pay increases directly to measurable individual, department, and organizational goals, plus an optional Stretch Goal incentive for revenue-generating roles, funded only when reserves grow.
Ran a parallel benchmarking study of sabbatical policies across 23 nonprofit organizations, ranging from fewer than 10 to over 300 employees, and paired it with the same stakeholder interviews to recommend an eligibility window and leave structure tailored to Utah’s Promise.
Pay clarity and staff wellbeing aren’t separate projects. They’re the same conversation. Utah’s Promise now has a system built to have it.
Stronger Consulting partners with mission-driven organizations to turn complex challenges into clear, practical action, from strategy through implementation.
