Summary
There's scant data on how the economics of a successful civic design practice squares with its values. What's fair pay for doing this work and a fair price to pay or charge for it? And how do you start and scale a design team that values a culture of care, transparency, and empowerment -- for staff, partners, and publics -- when our shared unit of value is a dollar bill? This session will provide real numbers and tools for making your team's business model and team structure as radically collaborative, transparent, and equitable as your design product.
Key Insights
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PPL started with no funding or projects but grew to 22 employees and two million dollars in revenue by aligning money with mission.
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Nonprofit civic design consultancies can generate income through government contracts rather than relying heavily on fundraising or grants.
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An organization's budget must include non-project costs like rent, insurance, and paid time off to ensure financial sustainability.
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Creating a transparent pay scale with clear, observable criteria significantly boosts fairness and equity in compensation.
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Shifting salary from a private individual benefit to a collective organizational resource requires cultural change.
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Using an agile, release-based project model helps forecast workload and prevents team burnout by managing effort predictably.
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Tracking all team hours openly reinforces collective ownership of labor as the engine that generates both revenue and rest.
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A team-based costing model better reflects collaborative work than billing individuals by the hour, accommodating changing project roles.
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Open-book accounting and financial transparency deepen trust and enable anyone on the team to understand organizational finances.
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Collective decision-making on finances can be difficult but is essential for equity; pay raises must often apply to the entire salary scale.
Notable Quotes
"Mission was our primary interest because we started without money, projects, or assets."
"How does the money we make align with our public sector values and make our organization the one we want to be?"
"We had to charge not just project work but all the costs including vacation, rent, insurance, and bookkeeping."
"We wanted compensation that is fair, transparent, and generous, not typical nonprofit low pay."
"We shifted from thinking of salary as an individual thing to thinking of revenue as a collective resource."
"Our agile project process lets us look six months ahead to prevent overload and support human dignity."
"Everyone can see how much everyone else makes through our transparent pay scale tied to observable criteria."
"We track every hour so the team's time is visible and understood as the collective engine of revenue and rest."
"Our team-based costing accounts for changing project roles and time, reflecting true collaborative effort."
"If anyone’s pay goes up, we move the whole pay scale so equity and fairness are maintained by the entire team."
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