Director of Operations / Facilities

A typical job advertisement for a Director of Operations / Facilities includes tasks like planning, scheduling, delegating, and overseeing the work of general maintenance and grounds personnel. They provide training and instruction in safety measures and procedures, and help ensure that projects are completed safely, in a high-quality manner, and on-schedule. They also are in charge of their maintenance team and perform human resources functions.

They head up preventative maintenance, inspections, heating/air conditioning, security, and fire alarm systems, among other tasks related to the upkeep and daily operation of a building. This also includes outside grounds-keeping work, such as mowing grass, trimming, weeding, etc.

In the nonprofit world, the operation of the organization’s building is critical to their being able to provide services to their clients. This could be a homeless shelter, a kids’ after-school program, a food distribution center, a university, a hospital or clinic, or perhaps an office that provides services to newly-arrived refugees who have come to resettle in a new country. No matter the organization’s mission, having a safe, clean space in which to work and provide services to clients is critical.

According to Salary.com, the median annual salary for a Facilities Director is $117,082, as of June 2018. The range varies between $99,287 and $136,414. This range could be larger, depending on factors, such as level of education, particular areas of expertise, experience, region of the country, and type of nonprofit organization.

Indeed.com reports that the average salary of a Director of Facilities is $86,302 per year. This information is based on 2,213 salaries submitted to the site for this position, salaries from past and present job advertisements within the last three years and was last updated in July 2018.

PayScale.com puts the median salary at $87,714 annually for a Director of Operations with facilities management skills. The range is between $54,867 and $126,709 with a bonus range of between $0 and $39,732 (which may or may not apply in a nonprofit workplace). These data are based on 37 individuals reporting their salaries to the site and was updated in July 2018.

It’s important to note that the budget of the nonprofit you work for will likely greatly affect the salary that you can earn there. Nonprofits generally don’t have the money to pay as much as corporate employers, so you can expect to earn on the lower side of this salary scale in general.

However, according to the Center for Nonprofit Management, you may well be able to earn a salary equal to or even more than a what a for-profit employer could provide you as a Director of Operations / Facilities. These include hospitals, nursing/personal care facilities, and social services. CNM reports that “[t]he reason for this could be because nonprofit jobs are heavily concentrated in the healthcare and social assistance sector, which make up 68 percent of total nonprofit employment in 2012.”

Consider the size of the organization, its benefits package, the cost of living where you’d be working, the work/life balance, and other factors as you consider any offer for a Director of Operations/Facilities position with a nonprofit organization.