“I think we’re blurring the line between being a strong organization that’s creating long-term impact and acting like a bunch of bleeding heart altruists.”

The conversation around the campfire in FORGE’s compound at Meheba Refugee Settlement, Zambia, had started to get a bit heated.  The subject matter was controversial: how much should FORGE pay refugee staff?

We at FORGE maintain a standardized wage policy in each of our camps in order to ensure that our refugee staff is paid at a rate that is not only economically-fair but also consistent with the local economy and the rates paid by other NGOs.  In doing so, we constantly walk the line between paying the high rates that are commensurate with what we believe that our staff deserve, but not paying such high rates that we disrupt the local economy, create tensions between the staff of other NGOs, and/or limit our ability to afford successful projects in the future. 

Not surprisingly, we want to err on the side of paying too much.  Our 100+ refugee staff are our greatest resource and, quite often, also among our greatest friends.  Even the ‘richest’ ones make so little as it is – a salary of $75 a month is almost unheard of in the camps.  Why shouldn’t we be paying them as much as we possibly can? 

The problem arises when we move to define “how much we possibly can.”  All of our projects have different budgets.  Some can afford to pay much higher salaries than others, some cannot.   Paying too high of salaries now could deter future projects from being financially feasible, and decrease remaining budgets available to go towards the project’s goals.  And of course, there is always the trade-off between paying more to your existing employees and providing more employment opportunities by hiring new staff at the existing salary rate.

How does one determine a fair wage rate in a vastly undeveloped economy, where people are willing to work for salaries that do not allow them to support their family?  Already we pay more than the other NGOs in Meheba, and that fact is visible in the way our staff have become, for better or for worse, somewhat of the ‘upper crust’ of the community – a fact that is visible in the quality of their diets, their clothes, and their children’s educations.  But even still, very few of our staff would ever be able to afford university on their salaries, and many would not be able to cover the costs of a major illness in their family.  So while we’re very generous, circumstances are very limiting.   

In the end, FORGE does not exist to be an employment agency.  We exist to create results for the greater refugee community – in both the short term and long term.  We are fortunate enough to be able to change the lives of our individual employees at the same time – by empowering them both financially and psychologically.  But when we make decisions about how we are going to spend our limited funds, we have to make them based on the greatest impact we can create through our projects and programs.  This of course means treating and compensating our staff as the invaluable partners that they are, while retaining our focus on the project’s impact. 

There is no question that many of us are naturally bleeding hearts.  What makes FORGE strong is our ability to harness the energy of this blood, transform it into sweat, and then to structure our efforts in such a way that our personal attachments and relationships are motivators but not distractors from long-impact of the greater movement.