Living Wage Initiative

Why spearhead a Living Wage Initiative?

To put it simply: It’s the right thing to do.

Goodman’s professional and caring staff provide essential services for our community and their work is critically important. They keep our entire enterprise humming and serve more than 35,000 people annually through our programs for children and teens, food pantry and meal services, a fitness center and exercise classes, and programming for older adults.

Providing a living wage for our staff is also essential to fully realize our organizational vision for a community that’s thriving because everyone has the resources they need to be successful.

We recognize that we are pioneering a paradigm shift in nonprofit worker compensation by moving our base wage to $20/hour. And we believe it’s the only way to sustain the critical mission and work of our 70-year-old community center in today’s economy.

How we’ll get there…

To implement and sustain the Living Wage Initiative, Goodman aims to raise $2.784 million within five years. This amount will cover cost of the first five years of the initiative.

To date we have raised $2.057 million (74%) which covers the first three years of the costs listed above. Ultimately, the Living Wage Initiative gives Goodman time to shift and prioritize our critical human resources in the organizational budget more effectively over the long term.

Steps we've taken so far:

Increase Goodman’s base pay from $15 to $20/hour.
It’s a simple step with a big financial impact – both on our staff and on our budget. Raising the internal minimum wage isn’t as simple as bumping everyone up to $20/hour. In order to address the compression in wage bands, we also modified the wages of staff who were already making at least $20/hour.

Improve overall staff access to our 403(b) retirement savings plan.
How do you get staff buy-in to retirement savings? Make opt-in automatic. As part of the Living Wage Initiative, all staff start earning retirement savings of 1% of their annual income on Day 1 of employment. The theory: If staff see how quickly the savings accumulate, they’ll be inspired to contribute their own funds as well. For staff who do contribute their own funds to the plan, Goodman matches their contribution up to an additional 4%.

Provide financial literacy education for staff during paid work hours.
In a partnership with Summit Credit Union, Goodman is offering a series of financial literacy classes that are open to all staff during paid work hours. The goal here is to arm staff with the education they need to best leverage their income.

Measuring the impact

We officially instituted our new minimum wage of $20/hour in July 2023, and we’re already realizing the critical improvements we anticipated, including:

• Stabilized staffing in critical direct service and frontline positions and improved staff retention rates.
• Increased utilization of 403(b) retirement savings plan.
• Improved staff job satisfaction with less staff burnout.
• Increased awareness for, and recruitment of, funders who understand the importance of paying a living wage to recruit and retain essential nonprofit workers.

Living Wage in the News:

• Blueprint 365: Goodman Community Center raises minimum wage to $20 per hour
• InBusiness Magazine: Goodman Center announces new ‘living wage,’ setting internal minimum wage of $20/hour
• Channel 3000: Goodman center announces living wage for all employees
• WKOW 27: Madison community center raises internal minimum wage to $20/hour, hosts job fair
• Madison 365: It’s Only 10 Minutes podcast from July 19, 2023