average charity or foundation maternity leaves (under 40 staff)

[mumtobesg]

I work for a small charity foundation (funded by a hedge fund) in london which only provides 12 weeks pay of maternity leave. I presented a table of charity maternity leaves to our HR director and CEO showing that this is a small amount, but was told to come back with maternity leaves of organisations with staff less than 40 people. can anyone who works at a charity or non profit organisation under 40 staff please let me know what their maternity benefits are? thanks so much!!

[flowery]

Small charities are usually very strapped for cash so 12 weeks at full pay followed by SMP sounds very generous to me.

My clients range from 3 employees to 95, mainly private sector but also charities/other not for profit organisation. I can only think off the top of my head of a couple which offer enhanced maternity pay, and those aren't the charities/not for profits.

[jumbo79]

Where did you get your list of maternity leave allowances - where did you source the data from, and what kind of set did it represent?

I'm guessing from your CEO/HR Director's response it probably took into account huge national or multinational charities i.e. not representative as like-for-like?

To give you two more data points, I work for a large private (for-profit) organisation, telecommunications and media, we get the Statutory Maternity Pay only. That's 90% of average weekly earnings (before tax) for the first 6 weeks, then £138.18 or 90% of average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks.

I also volunteer part-time at a local charity (fewer than 10 staff, educational activities), again, employees are given Statutory Maternity Pay only.

I've never worked anywhere which offered Enhanced Maternity Pay.

[maggiethemagpie]

Anywhere offering more than SMP is generous, and in my experience less common than just offering SMP.

Quite often if they do offer enhanced pay this is reserved for senior managers!

I've only ever worked in medium sized or large companies, so can't comment on smaller ones but I'd be very surprised if this is any different and in fact it is likely to be more unusual.

12 weeks is loads!

[flowery]

Yes, looking at that list and the size of those charities, I can see why your HR Director is asking for comparisons from small charities with fewer than 40 staff!

I think the Community Development Foundation might be a bit smaller but the rest employ hundreds and have income of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions.

You compare large private sector organisations with tiny small businesses and you'll see a similar difference, or even more so - as I said, my clients almost without exception pay SMP only.

[Unexpected]

Is your current company offering 12 weeks of full (or enhanced) pay before dropping to SMP? If so, I might be tempted to grab it and not bother sourcing additional data! - assuming from your user name you are asking for yourself? Your current comparisons won't stand up against your charity's standing and I strongly suspect if you do find maternity policies from smaller charities, you will realise that your own company stacks up pretty well.

[Gautami]

I work for a similar sized charity. We only get SMP. As Unexpected said, you might want to keep your head down with this one.

[Alibabaandthe40nappies]

12 weeks on full pay is pretty good for a small business.

[Waggamamma]

I work for a national charity approx 30 staff. Statutory maternity pay only.

I think you are very very fortunate to get anything above smp in the voluntary/charity sector.

[Bowchickawowow]

I have worked in the voluntary sector for 13 years, always in charities under £5million, and SMP only is standard.

[rallytog1]

I've also worked in several small charities and have never seen any of them offering anything more than statutory maternity pay. I think 12 weeks full pay is good for anywhere these days.

Be careful this doesn't backfire op - if you present them with a load of evidence saying most small charities only offer smp, your employer might decide to do the same!

[AuditAngel]

I work for a company (not non-profit) with about 500 employees. Statutory SMP only.

Incidentally, it appears I got badly advised on childcare vouchers, not once, but twice, probably losing about £3k in total.

[CaulkheadUpNorth]

6 months full pay 6 months smp, but only after you've been employed for a year, and work ft.
Small charity, about 15 staff, but 12 of which only work 1 hr a day.

[Annbag]

I work for one of the biggest charities, household name, and get the same as you OP so I think yours is pretty good for a small org.
By the way, most charity related to children as its cause has a really good one because its related to what they do so I wouldn't compare with those. If your charity is family / children related you might be able to argue a better one.

[OutDamnSpot]

SMP in my charity / NFP also. We have about 200 employees.

They have just introduced enhanced maternity pay but only as we compete for staff with much larger organisations in our field who also offer this. Too late for me though.

[Annbag]

To clarify, ActionAid, Children's Society, Barnardo's, Save the Children, nspcc all have children as their cause and a lot campaign on child poverty in the UK etc. So they are going to have good maternity policy. Unless your charity has a comparable cause I wouldn't use them on your comparison.

[Snapespotions]

Where I work now (not a charity), women are entitled to 1

[Snapespotions]

Oops. 18 weeks full pay, but this is extremely generous.

When I was pregnant, I worked for a small charity (approx 35 staff) and I got SMP only. Your organisation sounds quite generous tbh.

[OccamsLadyshave]

I work for a small charity with under 20 staff. When i got pregnant in 2001 the director asked me what maternity package i was expecting so i googled it and got 12 weeks full pay to be paid back if i left.

Since then our new director has amended it and we only get smp.

luckily no one else has needed it. Otherwise they'd hate me!

[Pico2]

I know this will seem mean, but SMP or a little enhancement seems pretty standard in many sectors. I don't particularly want to donate to charities to fund very generous maternity packages that aren't available to most employees of other sectors.

[TheBeanpole]

Ah, I've worked for a couple of those (and negotiated the maternity package at one of them...). I work for a very big charity now (we generate a lot of our own income) and got 6 months full pay; which is of course excellent. But there are better private sector packages.

I wonder if you work where I think you do. If you do, they can damn well afford it.

Pico, I'm interested in your point. Why shouldn't voluntary sector employees be entitled to a decent maternity package? They are professionals; to keep professional staff you offer them decent T&C. They don't otherwise stay for the pay, believe me. The 'my donation of £10 is funding your maternity pay' equation is overly simplistic to say the least. Lots of charities get income through delivering contracts for government or others where it is expected that you cost half-decent terms into your overhead, and as someone mentioned upthread the cost of re-recruiting if you lose to competitors, people don't return etc is more significant thann a couple of months salary.

It's not a race to the bottom.

[Annbag]

I'm with Beanpole. Most charity workers could easily work somewhere else doing the same job e.g. shop manager, scientist, social worker, website designer and the public expect a decent level of service e.g. helpline, good website, quality events etc. For that we need good staff.

The same argument applies to every sector really, if you buy groceries, pay taxes, pay a gas bill you are funding someone's maternity pay / sick pay / compassionate leave etc.

[AllSorted]

Sounds generous to me. I work for a small company (about 20 employees) - ltd co, not charity. We get smp only.

[rallytog1]

I just drafted a response that was almost the same as yours beanpole!

I would rather donate to a charity that values and supports its staff well - as surely any organisation working to change society should model the values of the change it wants to see.

You'll also find that charities offering things like enhanced maternity pay will have other socially responsible initiatives in place that may look generous but in fact are progressive as they redistribute money more equitably - for example when I worked at a large international aid agency, there was a rule that the ceo could earn no more than 6 times as much as the lowest paid member of staff. Compare that to similarly sized companies where the ceo might earn a hundred times the amount of the lowest paid worker. By restricting reward for those at the top of the tree, charities can improve the terms and conditions of their staff lower down the chain.

[TheBeanpole]

rallytog- I agree- they're 'progressive' rather than 'generous'. Calling them 'generous' smacks of having to be pathetically grateful for every crumb of employee benefit, rather than, as you say, modelling change.

When I looked at this cross-sector I did find it particularly interesting though that a couple of the women's rights NGOs had really terrible maternity policies. Probably partially in response to the funding environment, but that's just short sighted.

The UN agencies allow you to take two hours off to breastfeed a day (for as long as you feed)- and go back 75% for a while on full pay. Because they wrote the guidance on BF- so they have to model it.