News

Number of women FDs at top-100 charities continues to fall

Finance | Tania Mason | 3 Sep 2012

Fewer women occupy the top finance jobs at the UK’s largest 100 charities than six years ago, exclusive new research by Charity Finance magazine has revealed.

In 2006, a quarter of FDs at the top-100 charities were female, but since then the proportion has been declining steadily; 24 in 2008, 22 in 2010 and just 18 this year.  And most of this group of 18 work at arts charities.

The trend snubs recent efforts by the government to get more women into senior management roles – the numbers of women on FTSE 100 boards has been rising slightly but steadily since Lord Davies published his seminal report Women on Boards early last year.

In fact, the profile of the typical finance director at a top-100 charity – as defined by the Charity 100 Index – has barely shifted in the last ten years:  he is male, white, aged 49 (or 48 in 2002) and has been in post five years (six years in 2002).  The only significant difference is that in 2002 he tended to have had a private sector background; now he is more likely to have built his career within the charity sector.

Compared with other job functions within top-100 charities, this is one of the worst results for gender parity.  Our survey last year of chief executives at Charity 100 Index organisations found 26 women in post, while a poll of fundraising directors in January 2011 revealed that 49 of the top-100 charities have females in this role.

Yet women are not under-represented in charity finance departments generally.  Our parallel survey of the finance function at 147 charities of all sizes found that 41 per cent of finance staff were women.

The Finance Directors Survey also revealed that the average salary of an FD at a 100 Index charity is £96,000, slightly higher than the £80,000- £90,000 band reported in 2010.

Other key findings from the two surveys include:

• Almost a fifth of charity FDs expect to cut staff within the next year
• Charity 100 Index FDs are getting increasingly involved in commercial activities to supplement income
• Just 22 per cent of the top-100 charities have invested in social investment products and 36 per cent don’t expect to in the near future.

Click here to read the full Finance Directors Survey 2012 and click here to read the Finance Function Survey 2012.

 

Directory: Charity Finance