A Salary Calculator: Creating Industry-Wide Transparency
Idealist, a nonprofit job board and pillar of the nonprofit community, wanted to create a tool that advocated for salary transparency, fair pay, and informed decision making when it came to nonprofit careers. Not only would this product help employees, but it would also inform employers about larger industry standards.
A lack of transparency
Salary data in the nonprofit sector is often opaque, inconsistent, and difficult to access. Job seekers lacked reliable benchmarks to evaluate offers or negotiate pay, while organizations had limited visibility into broader compensation standards. This lack of transparency contributed to pay inequity and uninformed decision-making across the industry.
Salary Landing Page
Salary Survey & Data Intake
To start, I created a comprehensive survey to gather compensation data across role types, experience levels, and geographies. This included defining what data to collect, how to structure it for meaningful analysis, and how to incentivize participation—ensuring the dataset would be both robust and representative.
Salary Survey
Salary Report & Data Visualization
I then translated raw survey data into a clear, digestible salary report that surfaced patterns and benchmarks across the nonprofit sector. The report made complex data accessible, helping users understand compensation ranges and trends without requiring analytical expertise.
Salary Report
Salary Calculator
Lastly, I designed an interactive calculator that allowed users to input their role, experience, and location to generate personalized salary estimates. The experience was built to be simple, transparent, and actionable—helping users quickly understand where they stand and make more informed career decisions.
Salary Calculator
An overall success
The salary calculator increased transparency and enabled more informed compensation decisions across the platform. It provided thousands of users with personalized salary benchmarks, increased awareness and adoption of salary transparency practices, helped job seekers better evaluate offers and negotiate pay, and gave organizations clearer insight into industry compensation standards
