Calculator
This calculator will help you estimate the cost of implementing HFA in your community! Start by plugging in how many families you intend to partner with each year, along with your staff salaries, and then get a total estimate! You will also be able to download a worksheet, giving you a 3-year budgeting tool, calculating the overall cost per family.
Role | Total FTE | Salary |
---|---|---|
Direct Service Staff | - | $ |
Supervisor | - | $ |
Manager | - | $ |
Support Staff | - | $ |
Your Inputs
Recalculate with different valuesCosts
Other personal expenses
These expenses are best estimated as a percentage of the overall salary expense
Total
TotalNon-personnel costs
Per staff per year
TotalMaterials for Families
Per family per year
TotalTraining & HFA Services (Required for Model Fidelity)
Per staff per year
TotalOther Expenses
TotalEstimated Annual Budget
Staffing and Salary Resources
Choosing the people who do this work
In HFA, we ask that you focus on hiring staff who possess characteristics necessary to build trusting, nurturing relationships, and work effectively with families with different cultural values and beliefs than their own. Staff with lived expertise and knowledge about the community they serve are great assets to your organization.
Focusing on these characteristics also increases opportunities for diverse representation and equitable access to positions for historically and currently underrepresented individuals and groups. HFA direct service staff are not required to have greater educational attainment than a high school diploma or equivalent.
Compensating your staff
Having an equitable compensation strategy is important not just for staff well-being but also for overall workforce stabilization. Compensation impacts staff tenure (and consequently HFA family tenure), and frequent turnover can be both costly and lead to inefficiencies.
Based on survey data from a relatively small number of HFA sites across the country, the median HFA salary for a direct service staff person in 2023 was $41,000.
We would also ask you to consider factors such as: What is a living wage in your area? Explore for yourself using the Living Wage Calculator by MIT.
Also, consider the families you will be partnering with in your community. How will your staff be reflective of your community – and how will they be compensated for the added expertise of lived experience or being bilingual?