Thanks for the interest. I sent this reply to the list last week, but something must have gone wrong, as it doesn't look like it got posted. If this is a duplicate posting, please accept my apologies.

This isn't the answer to everything, but some of the stuff we discovered seems to apply to museum professionals. See what you think.

What we found in the case of psychotherapists and social workers was this: many really do the work primarily for the satisfaction, and honestly don't care much about the money. Some DO care, but go along with the starving martyr role because it's easy, it's comfortable, it makes them feel more noble, or whatever. There can be a lot of subtle pressure to match the attitudes of one's peers. Some have alternate sources of support (like a spouse, parents, trust fund, etc.), so they can afford to accept low pay without compromising a comfortable standard of living. A great many are so passionate about the work that they feel that anything that doesn't directly relate to the work itself takes away from their purity of purpose. They don't care to dirty their hands with learning business or marketing skills, or they don't think those have any application in the non-profit world.

These people apparently keep the wages low for the rest of those in their profession. It isn't stingy managers, not a lack of public philanthropy, not a vast conspiracy on the part of non-profits, but people who are willing to work cheap. They are willing to sell themselves short, and in so doing, lower the averages for the rest of those in the profession. Why would any organization, profit or non, pay someone thirty bucks an hour to do what someone else will do for ten, especially if both have adequate skills and experience?

(A relevant aside: Suppose a potential client asks what a therapist charges. The therapist often says something like, "My regular fee is $85 a session, but I have a sliding scale, and will accept as little as $50 if that's all you can afford." Hmm. What does that say about the therapist's valuation of the work? Of course, many of the therapists we talked to worried that if they set their fee and stuck by it, the clients might turn away, and wouldn't get the help they needed. This is equivalent to the museum professional's fear that their work will be done poorly, incompetently, or not at all. Now, suppose your surgeon tells you that you need an operation. Your insurance doesn't cover it. Her fee to do the surgery will be $10,000. Imagine the conversation when you suggest that she slide her fee down because it's just not convenient for you to pay that much.)

There were two main differences we found between those who made decent money and those who scraped by on whatever was offered. One was a willingness to be a businessperson as well as a therapist. (Note that I didn't say "a good therapist" or "an expert in the field." Some very successful psychotherapists are merely average as far as clinical skills.)

The other was an indomitable "yes, I can" attitude. Determination to succeed gave some therapists the courage to negotiate higher salaries, seek opportunities for promotion, move into private practice, wean themselves away from the lower-paying managed care providers, etc. They didn't have to get MBAs, just read a few library books and apply some logic. 

The folks who jump all over those who question the status quo remind me of that old Maine story: if you have a bucket half-full of crabs, you don't have to put a lid on it. Every time one of the crabs starts to climb out of the bucket, the others will pull it back down. I don't know if it's true about the crabs or not, but every time I hear "non-profits just don't pay well and there's nothing you can do about it" I see those crabs in the bucket.

Richard Bach said in one of his books, "Argue for your limitations, and you get to keep them." 

BTW, my wife now has a very successful private practice, all student loans paid off early, and a future filled with promise. And I, um, well. . . i took a rather large cut in pay to work in a museum, because i, ahem, thinktheworkisimportant and uh. . .  wanted to.

Chuck Stout

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