Balancing Work and Family

By Heather Joslyn

As the founder of a nonprofit group that works to strengthen families,

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Sylvia Ann Hewlett feels compelled to practice what she preaches.

The group, the National Parenting Association, in New York, has a $500,000 budget and only two full-time workers. But Ms. Hewlett says she makes sure the employees have a basic package of on-the-job benefits to help them balance their work and home lives. "We provide health insurance and lots of flexibility," Ms. Hewlett says. "We don't do fancy things, like dental."

Part of what drives Ms. Hewlett's commitment is an experience she had working for a charity whose altruistic spirit didn't match its treatment of its employees. Many of the workers spent long periods traveling on charity business, away from spouses and children, and divorces were common, she says.

"There can't be such a contradiction between what you say and what you do," Ms. Hewlett says of those who manage nonprofit groups. "Charity begins at home."

Many nonprofit organizations -- especially those whose missions focus on children and families -- agree with Ms. Hewlett's philosophy. Pressed to compete with for-profit companies for good workers and wanting to treat their own employees charitably, more and more nonprofit groups are offering benefits tailored to the needs of their workers.

Covering Same-Sex Partners

While little reliable data exist on benefits in the nonprofit world, a Chronicle survey and interviews with more than two dozen charity officials and consultants suggest that medical and retirement benefits have become far more prevalent in the nonprofit world than in the past. The research also shows that a small but significant number of charitable organizations are offering benefits once considered unusual among all employers, whether nonprofit or for-profit. For example, about a third of the 151 organizations that provided data to The Chronicle said their insurance plans cover their employees' same-sex domestic partners.

Still, charities large and small often find it difficult to live up to their ideals when it comes to providing employee benefits. Managers at nonprofit organizations are likely focused on providing the services spelled out in their missions, and donors and trustees may balk at using money to expand employee benefits. "Nonprofits have budget constraints, have competing demands -- and have to be a model employer with very little discretionary funds," says Sara K. Gould, executive director of the Ms. Foundation for Women, in New York.

For many nonprofit groups, though, including small ones with limited resources, offering benefits has become a necessity. "Look at the indirect costs of not having benefits, not just the direct costs," says Gigi Higgins, director of human resources for Urban Peak, a charity in Denver that supports runaway and homeless youths. "If people don't feel supported in their work environment, where they spend a good deal of their lives, it's going to affect the work."

Still, the pressure to offer benefits has put huge strains on charities, especially during the current economic downturn. Buffeted by rising health-insurance premiums on one side and flat or falling revenues on the other, many employers, including nonprofit organizations, are struggling to maintain the status quo and eyeing the future uncertainly. "Employers are going to be looking at what they can do to survive," says Jerome L. Mattern, chairman of the compensation and benefits committee for the Society for Human Resource Management, in Alexandria, Va., and human-resources manager for Quebecor World, a printing company in St. Cloud, Minn. "They're not going to be looking at how they can make their benefits more attractive."

Tight Resources

Nonprofit employers routinely say that benefits matter less to job applicants than do salaries and, especially, their organizations' missions. At the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, in Atlanta, "if someone's coming here to work for the money, this probably isn't the right place for them," says Nell Fielden, vice president of human resources. The charity's latest employee survey shows that its workers are driven by the desire to help kids, Ms. Fielden says. Benefits "are just the added hook to get the best people in here," she says.

Even so, a lack of benefits often causes good employees to leave an organization, nonprofit managers say. "The few people I've lost, that's why," says Carrie H. Freeman, executive director of the Southern Chester County Day Care Association, in Avondale, Pa., a 36-year-old organization that provides child care for low-income families. "They come to me with hanging heads and say, 'I'm sorry, but I've got to take care of my family.'"

To hold on to employees, the day-care association began offering medical benefits three years ago, and last year it added a retirement plan.

But the association must count on employee loyalty to make up for the lack of another set of key benefits -- ones that reflect the organization's mission. It doesn't have the money to provide short-term disability leave or maternity-leave coverage to its workers. If employees become pregnant, says Ms. Freeman, "they either resign or they ask us for a leave of absence. And if they're a good employee and they'll return in two months, we hold their job, within reason."

While tight resources often force groups such as the Chester County day-care association to limit their benefits, many groups look hard for creative ways to compensate. For example, Ms. Freeman's organization offers its employees discounts on child care in its facility. Other groups bend their benefits rules, such as those about paid time off, to accommodate workers.

"I don't keep tabs on sick days," says Harold Kahler, executive director of the Iowa Soccer Association, in Des Moines, whose five employees promote the sport throughout the state. "People here work 10-, 12-, 15-hour days for five or six days in a row sometimes. If they need to take time off, they just take it."

Ms. Hewlett of the National Parenting Association worked for six months while bedridden during a high-risk pregnancy. The group also allows its director of administration to work from home once a week and take long leaves so she can care for her elderly parents.

At the 12-employee Community Foundation of Louisville, in Kentucky, C. Dennis Riggs, its president, allows workers' children to stay in the office when no other care is available. Last year, the daughter of a worker spent several hours a day at the foundation for about four months because her after-school program unexpectedly folded.

Still, flexibility can come at a price, says Thomas W. Mesaros, vice chairman and chief operating officer of the Alford Group, a management and fund-raising consulting company in Skokie, Ill., that specializes in nonprofit organizations. Charity managers may have well-founded concerns about distributing a heavy workload unevenly among a small number of staff members. "The problem with being flexible is that someone still needs to do the work," he says. "The 'being flexible' is only as strong as there are bodies."

Handling Health Insurance

While flexible schedules and office day care can be lifesavers for employees, health insurance remains the cornerstone of any benefits package -- and a near necessity if a charity wants to hang on to its employees, benefits experts say.

"If a nonprofit can't afford health care, its survival in the long run is questionable," says Robert Drago, a professor of labor and women's studies at Pennsylvania State University at University Park who specializes in work and family issues. Susan Egmont, principal of Egmont Associates, an executive-search company in Norwell, Mass., that serves small nonprofit organizations, calls lack of medical coverage a "deal breaker" for job candidates.

Yet, while many nonprofit organizations offer health-insurance coverage, not all can afford to cover enough of the premiums to make insurance available for all their workers. Ms. Freeman says that about half of her 15 employees either go without medical coverage because they can't afford their $100 monthly share of the premiums (which go up to $350 for families), or they are covered under a spouse's insurance.

In some cases, charities find insurance out of their reach entirely -- and they must be resourceful to keep employees happy without it. The Iowa Soccer Association, in Des Moines, is too small to get any insurance company to take the group on as a customer, Mr. Kahler says. Instead, the group offers flexible spending accounts, which allow workers to set aside a portion of their pay tax-free to cover medical expenses. The soccer association contributes $600 a year to each employee's account.

Among charities that do offer medical coverage, virtually all have seen their insurance premiums increase, and they expect them to rise even higher. Many organizations also are contending with volatility in the insurance industry. The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, covers all of the insurance premiums for its 45 full-time employees, but not their spouses or dependents. Its premiums rose 8.7 percent last year. In 2000, the museum switched its health-maintenance organization because of the company's financial problems, and it nearly switched again this year because of rising costs and threatened changes in coverage, according to Robin Ross, the museum's accounting and personnel clerk.

To help save money and avoid disruptions in service, charities such as the Boy Scouts of America, in Irving, Tex., and Focus on the Family, in Colorado Springs, Colo., act as their own health insurers, charging workers a premium and using that pool of money to pay claims. But such self-insurance plans can be risky for a charity, says Lisa B. Young, director of compensation and benefits for the Boy Scouts: If a charity's annual medical costs exceed the estimated amount needed to pay claims, the charity must pay the difference. The Boy Scouts' insurance costs rose 10 percent last year, Ms. Young says, roughly the average for employers nationwide. The charity hopes to combat further increases, she says, by providing opportunities to learn about preventing health problems and by explaining the full cost of their medical care.

Among the most promising developments in recent years on the medical-benefits front for all American workers has been the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, but it has been of little use to many charities. The act, which offers 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to employees recovering from illness or caring for a newborn or adopted child, or for an ailing parent, spouse, or child, does not cover employers with fewer than 50 employees.

And even charities that are covered by the act may find that it falls short of employees' needs. Some workers cannot afford to take an unpaid leave.

Moreover, the law does not cover the care of siblings, grandparents, in-laws, and domestic partners. And the measure requires a worker to give 30 days' notice to an employer before taking leave, notes Steven K. Wisensale, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut. "If someone falls down at home -- well, that just doesn't work," he says.

While charities must shape their benefit plans to meet a wide variety of needs and expectations, one of the most difficult challenges is to offer plans that satisfy employees of varying ages. Older workers demand retirement plans. And young, single, or childless workers may be most interested in vacation policies and tuition reimbursement.

At the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Ms. Fielden says getting younger workers to stay is a perennial problem, one that benefits can go only so far in solving. "The younger the employees, the less likely they are to feel that their employee-benefit package is meaningful," she says.

Many organizations tailor their benefits to fit the needs of their particular employees. For example, the Boys Scouts of America, where the average age of employees is 42, offers unlimited prescription-drug coverage, and 87 percent of the employees participate in the charity's pension plan, says Ms. Young. But the organization offers no flexible spending accounts for dependent or medical care because, she says, employee surveys show that only about 7 percent of workers are interested in those benefits.

In contrast, the average age of employees at Urban Peak is 29. Hoping to reduce a 40-percent turnover rate among employees who work in its youth shelters, Urban Peak chose to offer benefits that reflect the needs of its young workers and the intensely emotional nature of their work, says Ms. Higgins. Instead of expanding its retirement plan, Urban Peak chose to offer employees tuition reimbursement and a generous paid-leave policy that provides up to 25 vacation and 11 sick days. It also plans to add domestic-partnership coverage to its employees' health insurance this year.

Some charities shape their benefits not so much to the age of their employees, but to the organizations' missions.

Focus on the Family, a socially conservative group, precludes its self-insurance plan from covering sterilization, abortion, or visits to Christian Science practitioners, and it covers contraception only when deemed medically necessary. The Ms. Foundation for Women offers eight weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave. It also reimburses employees for dependent-care expenses of up to $3,000 per year.

And Alley Cat Allies, a group in Washington that supports the protection of stray cats, puts its own twist on matching its benefits to its mission. Its employees can use their sick days not only to care for themselves or ailing family members, but also to nurse their pets back to good health.

Marni D. Larose and Martha Voelz contributed to this article.