Performance related bonuses are not generally embraced in the not for profit sector except at a very senior level, I wonder how effective they would be in attracting high quality fundraising staff?

I worked for an organisation who introduced a very generous bonus scheme for their overseas senior managers. Initially I thought this would be great for attracting staff, however it had the effect of limiting the negotiable base salary and dissuaded candidates, who wanted to know definitively how much they will be earning before accepting a job offer, we could only give them a hypothetical answer.

The bonus was only of interest to candidates from the commercial sector, who were more used to this salary model. Are these the type of people we want to attract into roles that are essentially general management / income generating?

With income generating staff would it change the dynamic of everyone working together for the organisation mission? If you provide bonuses for income generating staff, what about everyone else?

Most people who work for a charity do so because of the cause, is it less about the money? Would a fundraiser’s performance improve with a ‘cash carrot’ dangling in front of them?

It would be interesting to know the effect of introducing performance related bonuses into a fundraising team, whether team or individually based, both on performance and the ability to attract staff?